I thought "ballooning" ment when you came in too fast and too steep and planted it hard on the ground and bending the landing gear.
Each time he thought he had it, it would shoot back up from maybe 5 or 6ft off the deck to 20 to 30 ft in the blink of an eye. I think he was too tail heavy.
Being tail heavy does cause this to happen, you'll come in to land and as soon as you flare a little too much the plane will jerk up as if a sudden gust of wind hit it.