How to Learn to Juggle 5 Balls
It's all about stepping stones
The problem with learning to juggle one more ball is that it’s such a big leap. Not only is it one more object, it’s a completely different pattern. In order to have a gentler lead-up to a certain number of objects you need stepping stone patterns which are similar to the final pattern you’re trying to achieve but much easier and help you practice different aspects of it. If you work on patterns which are too easy you simply cruise and don’t improve. If you work on patterns which are too hard you don’t get anywhere and also don’t improve. Improvement comes not from the feedback being all positive or all negative but enough of a mix that you can train off of it.
Ideally you’d practice a certain number of balls by having a low gravity chamber where you start at a gravity level low enough that you can do it and gradually increase it to earth normal. Maybe some zillionaire will rent out enough time on the vomit comet to do that but for most people it’s impractical.
Short of that one could rig up a system where balls are held up on strings and counterbalanced on a pulley or pulled by a spring so their downward acceleration is lower. That would have strings in the way of things so you’re stuck with columns type patterns but it would be something. But I’m not aware of anybody trying it out.
You could also rig up a plank at an angle where you roll the balls up it to juggle them and gradually increase the slant until it’s vertical and you remove the board completely. I’m not aware of anyone attempting to learn numbers juggling this way but it’s an experiment worth trying.
Much more practical is to use siteswaps. This is the approach I used for learning 5 and have successfully used to teach others. Sadly I still can’t run 6 but have made progress. Some people find the later siteswaps harder than the final pattern but I think this has a lot to do with whether your goal is qualifying or running. Qualifying is getting twice as many catches as objects, running is keeping it going indefinitely. This approach is much more focused on running than qualifying.1
Here are the patterns for learning 4, 5, and 6 in rough order of difficulty. You should practice all the patterns which you don’t find too easy or too hard at the current moment and do the asymmetric patterns both ways.
Patterns leading to a given number contain a lot of throws of that height. To avoid needing a lot of high and low throws these patterns mostly mix that with 0, 1, and 2. You should clap on every 00 to keep the pattern from collapsing. In some cases of a 0 or 2 by itself you should touch your empty hand or the ball to your thigh but you don’t need to do that for all of them.
501, 52512 (baby juggling), 5511, 51, 55500 (clap), 552 (touch), 55550 (touch), 5551, 55514, 5
600 (clap!), 1601600 (clap), 66111, 61611, 66611, 66161, 60, 1616160, 666060, 660 (touch), 66661, 6662, 666660, 6
Personally I do 5 ball endurance mostly for exercise at this point in my life. When I was younger I could keep it going for minutes but right now my arms start to burn after 50 catches and I’m happy with runs over 100. I can still qualify 6 without too much difficulty and when I was younger got several runs in the 20s of 7.