An article by Steve Best

LEARNING TO JUGGLE (SCOTSMAN NEWSPAPER 2005)

Never start to learn to juggle with fish. They are very slippery. Always start to practice with round objects. Small round objects like tennis or billiard balls rather than big round objects like bowling balls or breast implants. In fact the round objects should be in the singular rather than the plural. Start with one tennis or billiard ball. Throw it upwards to a height of one yard, which is the equivalent height for our French friends of fifteen large onions. Onions are good to juggle with. Shallots are too small. If you could juggle fifteen onions you deserve a big slap on the back, which I suppose would make you drop them.
The golden rule of juggling is to keep things in the air. Never throw your round objects downwards, as hitting the floor would be inevitable, unless you are standing on your head. Advanced juggling techniques allows the throwing downwards to floor level and bouncing up, but it is very, very, difficult, especially with billiard balls. Once you have mastered throwing one round object in the air and catching it then you can try two, then three, then four, then five, then six, then eight (seven is very hard), then nine, and so on.
Isaac Newton was the first apple on the head to knee to hand juggler but has never really been acknowledged for this. Before the discovery of gravity, juggling was much easier, but resulted in the loss of many round objects and total blindness, as looking upwards into the sun waiting for the objects to drop was commonplace.
Once small round objects have been mastered then the world is your oyster. Oysters are slipperier than fish and even advanced jugglers tend to avoid them.
Good luck.