The way I taught myself to juggle was something I don't see very often in guides, but I think works quite well — I taught myself to juggle two balls in one hand, until I could do it with both hands, and then three ball juggling with two hands was just doing the exact same thing, but crossing.

Yeah I have wondered about that as a method. You can even just go two balls in one hand, then switch to the other side and back, and that's almost the 3 ball pattern.