The five ball cascade is a hard trick. Depending on your skill and how much time you are willing to devote to it and, it could take years to learn it well. However, you will see progress long before that and there is, to me at least, a magical feeling to it quite unlike three or four ball juggling. When the pattern works, it doesn't really feel difficult. Just... overwheling.

You may be lucky enough to have some five ball jugglers living nearby. I wasn't. Things that inspired me included:

• The helpful and encouraging entry on the five ball cascade in Charlie Dancey's Encyclopædia of Ball Juggling. I may not agree with all it says, but it's still the best book I've ever read about ball juggling.
• Seeing Haggis McLeod juggling five (and six, and seven...) balls on a TV in a display window. He made it look so easy.
• The JIS help section on Juggling 5 Balls.
• Bruce "Boppo" Tiemann's excellent Numbers Notes.
• Attending the Nordic Juggling Convention.

There are also several juggling animation programs which might help give you a feeling for what the pattern looks like. As an example, I've used JuggleAnim, Jack Boyce's Java Juggling Animator, to create an animated GIF of a 5 ball cascade. (For a long time I thought I was just viewing it on a too slow computer, but now I think it really is in slow motion. That's probably my fault, though.)

Please remember that only you can decide what's good for you so feel free to ignore anything you hear or read about five balls. Including this. Just because some piece of advice doesn't work for you it doesn't mean you will be unable to learn five balls. It wasn't until recently that I made much progress with patterns like 5 0 5 0 5 or 5 5 2, and some would say these are among the first things you should learn.

A few personal observations, some of which are - or should be - quite obvious. Bear with me. (Any funny numbers you see below are probably siteswap notation.)

• Learn the four ball fountain first. Seriously. While it's a completely different pattern, it is a useful stepping-stone, as well as a nice pattern in its own respect. You will also find that it takes a lot more physical effort to keep four or five balls in the air than three. Particularly until you gain control of the pattern. I think learning to juggle four helps a lot here.
• One problem is how to hold three balls in one hand, and in which order to release them. There are no right or wrong ways here. Experiment until you find something that works for you. Here is a crude ASCII drawing of how I do it.
• The five ball cascade may need a lot of height, particularly in the beginning. Practice outside if you can, far away from restrictive ceilings.
• Try to squeeze in at least a few minutes of five ball practice every day. I found this helpful because I could see myself improve, without spending enough time on it to get frustrated.
• The worst problem for me, once I could sort of flash five balls, was that of timing. Unless you get that approximately right, it is very hard to continue past the first five throws. What helped me most was juggling a slow asynchronous three ball shower (5 1). Try juggling five at that height and tempo, and it should be about right.
• Remember that the pattern is only as fast as you make it. It's tempting to empty your hands as fast as you can, but the balls will come down just as quickly...
• Pay special attention to the first five throws. Even when you think the pattern is starting to work you may find that you are making the same error every time. For me it was that my second throw from the right was always too low. Spend some time flashing five balls without making that particular error. Never mind if the other throws go awry - you can fix those later - as long as you manage to break this particular habit.
• If the pattern doesn't work, try different heights. It's much easier to correct errors in a tall slow pattern, but of course the individual throws are easier in a low fast one. Don't worry if you can't see your hands. If the throws are right the catches should be automatic anyway. Pay attention to the upper half of the pattern instead.
• If it still doesn't work, try changing other aspects of the pattern, e.g. width, crossing point, etc. If it still just plain refuses to work, do something else. To me, doing something I know I can, or something I know I most definitely can't, are much more relaxing than failing at something I think I should be able to do.
• Once the pattern starts to work, try to relax and don't forget to breathe. Think of the pattern as a whole, rather than as individual objects; look at its shape and try to maintain it. I used to try and visualize the pattern before falling asleep at night. Maybe it helped, who knows?
• If possible, attend a juggling convention. Chances are you will see a lot of five ball jugglers there, and even if you don't it's still a lot of fun!

Don't give up. It is worth it.