I whole heartedly agree that working on 6 balls before 7 is a good idea. Especially working on the real 6 ball pattern (3 in each hand) instead of the backward looking crossing pattern that really doesn't develop good accuracy. I've never found flashing to be a good practice. Hell, I can juggle five balls for a long time, but my 3 ball flashes can still look pretty lame. I think the best exercise for 5 balls is throwing one ball to a hand with two balls and then throwing the two balls under it. This is exactly the same speed and pattern as a real 5 ball pattern without the mess. Maybe, doing the same type thing would work as a practice for 7. When I practice 7 I just try to slow down the pattern as much as possible, regardless of what my brain perceives as an impossibly fast pattern.
7 balls, 37 catches, clean finish (701 Kb) - performed by Bill Berry at Lodi, Oct 2000
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