The first and only thing you will need to learn how to juggle are three balls or beanbags. You do not want anything too light; tennis balls tend to bounce around a little bit too much and do not have enough weight. Rubber balls also sometimes are too heavy and bounce too much. The best things to use are beanbags so when you drop them, they stay right where they land. These three beanbags are bought online for about $7.00 a piece. You can also find them in magic shops and they work perfect. But if you do not want to make that type of investment or you do not want to wait for your order to come in, I am going to teach you a way to make perfectly good juggling beanbags like these one out of birdseed and balloons.
This is what you will need. Birdseed of course, a measuring cup, like every good project, you will need plenty of duct tape; scissors and I made a low paper funnel and finally, you will need a 16 or 20-ounce bottle, a soda bottle or water bottle.
The first thing we are going to do is measure out the birdseed. You want about three-quarter of a cup that is what I use to make this size. If you find that too small, on the next ones, go ahead and go up to a cup or a little bit less if your hands are smaller. So measure I will measure three-quarters of a cup of birdseed.
Perfect. Then what you do is put the funnel over the soda bottle. Make sure that soda bottle is fairly clean and dry so that your birdseed does not rot.
The next step is to get the birdseed into the balloon. Every beanbag you will make is going to take three balloons. The inside balloon I am going to use is not going to show. It is going to be red. Blow it up and twist the nozzles so the air does not come out. Do not tie it. Put the nozzle over your soda bottle and let it unwind. Then carefully, fill up the balloon with the birdseed.
Take it off. Let the air out slowly. And there you go. You kind of get a feel for the size and the shape of it right now. I am going to fold the nozzle over. Do not tie it yet. And tape down the nozzle so the birdseed stays in side. You tie it, you will have a big lump inside your beanbag and that is kind of difficult to juggle, then using the scissors, cut off the end of the balloon.
Now this next part is important. This is going to be tempting to juggle right away with. If you do that, the first, your second and third time you drop and you will drop, you are going to have birdseed fly over your house then you will get birds in your house and that is a problem. So we need to cover the entire beanbag, the entire balloon with good strong duct tape.
It is important that you check the entire beanbag to make sure there is no part of the balloon showing at all because if you even have a little part, that is where it is going to split open and you will have problems.
Now, my outside balloon is going to be yellow. So what I do is I cut right above the nozzle and I am going to need to stretch over the beanbag. This is a little tricky and it takes some practice. So we still have some duct tape showing, so if I want to cover that up, I would take a second balloon, do the same thing, but leave the hole in a different spot. Four fingers inside and stretch it over. Perfect. Wonderful! I am ready to learn how to juggle.
Finding a good place to juggle can be tricky business. This looks like a nice, spacious place to practice, but remember Gorman’s law, when learning to juggle, if something can be broken, it will be broken.
Remember while you are practicing to keep a positive attitude. Do not be discouraged when you dropped. It is a part of juggling and it is a part of learning. Stay confident that you are going to learn how to juggle and when you do, it is up to you how far you are going to take it.
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