The basic exercise consists of holding a pair of Baoding balls in the palm of one hand, rotating them (switching the relative position of the two balls) while maintaining constant contact between them. Once this technique has been mastered, the rotation speed can be gradually increased until the balls separate in the hand. Eventually one hand can learn to rotate them completely without the balls making contact with each other. Exercises have been developed involving more balls, where the main technique is to avoid contact with the other balls. This requires using a finger, usually the index finger, as a divider.