What are juggling balls made of?

Answer 1

Juggling balls can be made of a very wide variety of materials. They can be broken down into different categories: Beanbags, stage balls, and Russian balls.

Beanbags are a soft bag packed with many small pieces of something. The most common beanbags that can be found in most variety stores are filled with millet, and coated in a thin plastic. They are normally four colors, one for each panel: red, green, yellow and blue.

Despite being the most easily accessible, it is rare to see an experienced juggler using those balls. One level up in quality leads to balls that use vinyl or imitation leather. These are still filled with millet, and are also four panels. Colors of this kind of ball varies because vendors who carry this kind of ball often have many colors available.

Higher quality beanbags normally have six panels, and use either an imitation/real suede or leather coating. It is worth noting that other types of beanbags are available (with fillings such as birdseed, rice, or plastic shavings) and sizes can be customized within reason by most beanbag-specific vendors.

Stage balls are normally made of a hard plastic or rubber, and have either a hollow or less dense center. Hybrid balls such as MMX balls are also common, where a hard outer shell is filled with millet.

Russian balls are another kind of hybrid, and are a fairly recent trend in juggling. These balls include a hard outer shell and are only partially filled with a very viscous filling. This filling can range from salt to liquid silicon. Many jugglers make their own Russian balls.

There are other balls (silicone balls, acrylic balls, glow balls, etc.) but they are less common, especially when learning juggling.

Answer 2

millet seed is the most common filling for a juggling ball, balls are also sometimes filled with sand these are generally called Russian juggling balls.

Answer 3

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