Week 21: Behind Arm Simple Repeater

This is a pretty simple trick that's a lot of fun to do. I saw it first in Reggie Dias' Repeater Contest video. That entire video is full of great repeaters, but this one stuck out to me if only for its simplicity and elegance. Plus, it's some behind the arm stuff which I'm really not very good at and need to learn more of. (Any suggestions?)

There's not really any hard part about this trick, there's only one move really. There is a trick to it however, and that's to bring the yoyo close to your hand. The closer it is, the easier it'll be to swing into the string and not beside the string or into your arm.

Week 20: Lil' Wrist with Custom Start

Lil' Wrist is yet another trick from the awesome raytsh. I've extended the beginning of it to have some fun slack stuff. I used this trick in my Canadian Nats freestlyes, and the first little slack bit was much to the crowd's delight. This trick is full of fun little parts that flow fairly well together once you've got it up to speed. Just love the first 2 pop-outs when done at speed.

The hard part is without a doubt the chopsticks->back string pseudo-suicide. It looks really cool, but if you give it too much slack the yoyo will lose spin really fast. If you have the back string taught, the yoyo will start to tilt. It's really a very fine balance, and you really need to move quickly there, which of course makes learning it more difficult.

Thought I should just point out the song in the background of my video because it's awesome: Jammer ft Boy Better Know - 10 Man Roll

Week 19: GT Slack Stall

This one is a fun trick I picked up at a YoYoToronto meetup that Stephen taught me. It's a pretty simple trick but it just looks so very cool.

The ninja-vanish stall makes it look like you're going to do some Guy Wright-esque suicide combo, but unexpectedly you whip the string into the gap. It looks like you've messed up, but then with a quick rotation around your hand, like magic, a GT appears!

The only hard part to this trick is getting the whipped slack to the right length. Too little and you'll either miss or drop the slack into the gap, getting you a knot. Too long, and you'll either whip too much, or the wrong part into the gap, or the yoyo will gyro off the string. Just takes a bit of practice.

Week 18: Wrong Schema

After a short hiatus, I'm back! I just got busy what with Canadian Nationals (7th place! whooo!) and several friends getting married. I've got several tricks filmed and ready to go, so expect quite a few posts in the next little while.

So this trick is one I learned from a video. After watching and learning many trick elements from Sam Lopez's videos, I noticed his trick compilation. I saw wrong schema in there and was instantly in love. Not only did the name speak to me, as someone who's used XML before, but I just loved the double ferris wheel through the triangle at the end of the trick.

There's not really much that's explicitly difficult about this trick. My only real tip is to make sure you don't drop the string while learning as you'll get a knot. It's simple to learn and really rewarding. It really opens the doors to a lot more tricks.

Week 17: Double or Nothing Long Combo

This week is again a departure form usual. This is a combo I made up. It uses elements that I made up over the past year or so. There's inspiration here from Doc Pop, Jeff Donovan, Citadel, and Frank Orben (raytsh).

The beginning is based off of Time Twister with the bounded pop (I guess they call that a bend now?), the section after that with over-rotating a mach 5 is something I made up, there's some Doc Pop right after that with a lover's leap and trap door. Moving from the trap door to a fold is an extension of a growing rock the baby combo I used to do a lot. The move from reverse GT to a standard GT is something I saw in raytsh's gunslinger trick. The one finger spin and reversal is an extension of something I saw Jeff Donovan do in an old String Cheese video (those were the best, such awesome talent in there, still want to learn agent orange and code red). The rest of the trick is all mine, though I hear that Mickey does something similar with a backhand suicide catch.

Enjoy the trick, and if you want to learn any part of it (or all of it) I'd be glad to show you in person.

Week 16: Sebastian Brock Decade Trick Breakdown

I originally learned this trick off of the decade video that Citadel posted, it's right after the second song change. I showed off this trick at one of the regular Yo-Yo Toronto meetups and immediately had several requests to show them how to do it. So, while this isn't a full tutorial, the video's got a nice breakdown from several angles, and I'll write down what's going on.

Start by throwing a buddha mount (aborted 1.5 basically), but grasp the string coming off your throw hand with your ring finger and pinky such that the string comes out the bottom of your hand now. This is to create some space later on in the trick. Drop the strings off your non throw hand, or alternatively, just bring your non throw hand in close to your throw hand. Now, pluck the middle string with your non throw hand index and pull it back behind the string, and to your left a bit (assuming right handed here). Now, bring that string, still behind the other strings, underneath your throw hand, straightening out your index as you go. Use that momentum to tighten the strings a bit and hop the yoyo up, behind the strings, and around the strings twice. The key here is to keep the strings fairly taught. Practice time twister or figure 9 if need be. Now, uncross your hands, curling in both index fingers to hold the strings, and repeat the hop and spin maneuver in the same direction. If all goes well, you can just straighten out your non throw hand index finger, and drop the strings on your throw hand, and you should be in trapeze.

Good luck!

Week 15: Peril

I originally found this trick when I was out trolling the internet for new yoyo tricks to learn. The double triangle stretch-through intrigued me so I decided that I'd give it a shot. If you have seen rethink yoyo yet, check it out, it's got some pretty neat tricks that are totally worth learning.

The hard part in this trick is the first pass through the triangle. It's really easy to get the string coming off the yoyo the wrong way, or to have the yoyo rub up against your hand because your triangle's too small. There's a lot of really easy ways for it to go wrong. That being said however, it's a really entertaining trick, and the stretch-throughs will reall wow your audience, no matter who they are (except Yuuki Spencer, or Shinya Kido, I doubt they'd be impressed, though likely very polite).

Week 14: Kanta

Sorry for the short hiatus, I had some things to attend to, so now I've got a backlog of uploads to do.

This trick is called Kanta, I originally saw it in the ILYY 2009 Team Video when I was looking for some decent frontstyle tricks to learn. Unfortunately, the angle in the beginning is really hard to see, so I asked crackout on twitter if he could provide a better angle. To my surprise, he did! So thank you crackout, for making this post possible.

The hard part in this trick is the mount, it's quite difficult to aim the yoyo (especially larger ones) into the gap between the strings. It helps if you use both your index fingers to get a bigger angle on the string. That way the string you're aiming for is in the middle of the gap in the strings. The only other difficult part in the trick is the stretch through the triangle, but it's just a matter of trial and error until you get the right configuration.

Week 13: Hougu

I've got a playlist in youtube of videos with tricks I want to learn. For some reason I'd completely forgotten about this trick. The breakdown comes courtesy of raytsh and was fairly easy to learn.

This trick looks really cool, it's got that nice drop between thumb and index I love seeing so much and it's got some decent GT play in there too. The pop at the end is very difficult to do without hurting your wrist. For the purposes of this video I opted for a slightly different dismount. You could argue it's easier, but I'd just argu I'm turning my hand in a different direction and it's the same move.

One thing to watch out for is after you do the drop into what's essentially a GT, the next few moves can very easily make a yoyo bind, so be sure to use a VERY unresponsive yoyo. I made the mistake of trying to film this trick with my P2 who's bearing had been freshly cleaned and lubed. Needless to say, that didn't work out so well.

Well, enjoy the video, I've added a few filters to help make it look a bit better. Also my cat got bored of my attempts.

Week 12: Adam's Double or Nothing Repeater

Just came back from a meetup and learned a great new trick for this week. Adam showed me a nice double or nothing repeater that incorporates one of my favourite moves, an intercept.

The difficulty in this trick lies in doing it smoothly enough to not snag. There's a whole lot of places where the yoyo could come zipping back at your hands. So if you're learning this one, I'd suggest starting with a dead yoyo, or a VERY unresponsive one.

Week 11: Boing Combo From Moloko Velvet

In the middle of Crackout's excellent video Moloko Velvet, is a fantastic looking boing combo. It's got a bit of slack, and some GT play, making it an instant classic in my books. I actually had to learn over-under boing for this trick. I don't know why, had never thought to learn it. That in itself might not make a good posting, so I've decided to do the entire trick.

The only part with any real difficulty is getting the transition from regular boing to GT boing perfect. It's quite easy to miss that string. Obviously the frontstyle revolution is easy to miss, but that's a matter of practice.

Really like this trick, how you do too.

Week 10: Slack Repeater from Kinetics

This is one of my facourite repeaters, I was watching Sebastian Brock's Kinetics video and was struck by a really nice and smooth repeater near the end of the video. I fell in love with it and just had to learn it. It almost looks like an alpha-style trick that Doc Pop would do. I don't think I've got quite that flair for it yet, but I'm working on it.

The hardest part of this trick, technically, is to land that slack move over and over consistently, always in the same way. It's also a bit of a mental trick, in that you need to remeber the direction changes. Many times during learning it did I spin the yoyo the wrong way.

All in all, it's an excellent trick, decently easy, and a lot of fun. I highly recommend everyone learn it.

Week 9: Reverse Suicide

Trick for this week is another simple one as I'm once again gearing up for a very complicated combo. Actually two of them, we'll see which one I master first.

I saw this move in Unagi and immediately knew I wanted to do it. Basically, it's the reverse of a one-handed suicide, hence, reverse suicide (not sure of the real name). In a normal one-handed suicide, you throw the yoyo under your throwhand, it goes above your throw hand, and you catch the look with your throw hand's thumb. This is in fact exactly the opposite. You start from a trapeze around your thumb, rotate the yoyo above your throw hand, it goes below your throw hand, and you catch it with your non-throw-hand index finger.

Pretty simple in theory, fairly difficult in practice. The hard part is the timing for letting go of the loop. Too early, and you'll end up dropping the yoyo or binding, too late and the yoyo will go the wrong direction. Once you nail it, it'll feel awesome.

I've included two shots of me doing it in the video, just because it's hard to capture on camera without some sort of slow mo. I'll look into that, but for now, two shots will have to do.

Week 8: Second Trick from Unagi

Well, for the first time since I've started this blog, I'm showing a trick whose name I don't know. It's the second trick in Crackout's Unagi video. The trick starts around 27 seconds in to the video.

This is a pretty awesome tricks for a lot of reasons. Firstly, it's a trick by Crackout that Raytsh hasn't made a tutorial for. Secondly, it starts with a rejection and goes straight into some chopsticks, that takes some balls. Lastly, then last bit with the slack is totally epic and an excellent example of directly manipulating the slack. If done properly it really shows control over both the string and yoyo.

Honestly, if you know how to do all of the individual parts this trick isn't too hard to learn. The beginning rejection is really easy to do if you've ever tried to learn figure 9 (interestingly enough that trick is based off a fighter jet maneuver). In fact you've probably done it accidentally more times than you'd like. The slack just takes some practice to get right and isn't that complicated. The hardest part of the trick is really getting the finger positioning right to do the two pops over your throw hand.

All in all, an awesome trick. I guess I should ask Crackout if the trick has a name.

Week 7: Asian Pops

Pretty simple one this time as I'm gearing up for a much more complicated combo. I've seen this trick a bunch of times in freestyles and I always thought it looked awesome but could never figure out how to do it.

Thankfully 2 people at the Toronto yoyo meetup knew how to do it and were nice enough to show me. I didn't get it right off the bat, I had to experiment a bit to find what worked for me. It turns out that the trick is much easier if instead of folding your index finger to have the string slip off, you simply aim your pointer finger outwards as the yoyo loops around.

Also, fair warning, you can only do this trick at 2 speeds: fast, and faster.


Lastly, you'll note that I'm using a new setup for my videos. I find that it looks much better and it's easier to see my string. Plus it's in HD. I've filmed a few of the other tricks here with the new setup. I'll gradually replace all the videos with better versions, but for now, there's about half that have been replaced.

Week 6: Laddertower X

The trick this week is a bit of a longer combo by raytsh of ILYY fame. It's a pretty entertaining trick with a really good tutorial for it already. Nothing is really unclear in it so I'll just say that the hardest part is sliding the right side of the slack into the gap after the first tower. It's really quite finicky as you can see in the video.

I'll be re-filming a lot of the tricks with a better background, better lighting, and better clothing. Generally everything to make the string easier to see. An amateur mistake to be sure. But since I've already filmed and uploaded today's trick I may as well post it.

Week 5.5: Mateusz Ganc EYYC Bind

Considering that the last trick was super-easy and kind of a cheat, I've decided to add a second (fairly simple) trick this week.

It's the last bind from Mateusz Ganc's 2nd place EYYC freestyle. As far as binds go it's fairly complex, but it's pretty simple once you nail all the elements individually. The hard part is actually getting it to bind. It may have just been that the yoyo I was using had slippy binds due to old silicon, thin string, and cold weather, but I had trouble making the bind stick.

Learning it is pretty easy, it helps if you break down the tricks into the individual elements, the chopsticks catch, the transition, the slack, and the actual bind. It might also help if you learned some of the other slack binds.

It's totally flashy though, and I plan on using it whenever possible because it's really that awesome. Also tons of fun to do.

Week 5: Simple Hop Spin Repeater

I was on an oldies trip this week and was watching a ton of videos from Sector Y. Somewhere in there was a trick the Steve Brown was doing that was really simple and really slick. From trapeze, he'd pop up the yoyo a bit, the do an And-Whut style rotation around the yoyo with the throw hand then untwist his non-throw hand. When done doc-pop style and fairly quickly it looks really slick. The video should show it off pretty well.

Week 4: Arm Wraps

This isn't so much a single trick as a technique or trick style. I've put off learning these far too long. There's some sort of arm wrap in nearly every freestyle these days, some hard, some easy. So what I've done is come up with 1 trick, and learn 1 move.

The trick was pretty tricky to come up with, but it's based on a trick I saw in box_09. The important part of the trick is when I flip the yoyo overtop of my hand while in a twisted wrap. It takes some practice to make this look smooth and land it on the string. To be honest, I'm not entirely there yet with the smoothness.

There's a few tricks to the combo. First thing I do upon landing trapeze is a pop and rotate the string around the yoyo, this is to make the yoyo come off my finger and around the top without creating another twist in the string. It helps the smoothness. The second trick is at the end, when I come out of the second arm wrap I'm in a reverse GT. Using a technique I saw in Gunslinger, adapted to this trick, I reverse the triangle. It's a neat move to have in my repertoire.

Also, I got a Nokia N900 this week, so I'll be trying to film video with that instead. It's much more portable.

Videos are up now.

Week 3: Joziflow

For week 3, I decided to learn Joziflow. I saw the video on yoyoskills and knew immediately that I had to learn it. The trick is a TON of fun to do. There's just something about the way you swing the yoyo around that has a really smooth feel to it.

A tip for this one is in the last step, where you swing back to a 1.5, you want to keep the string from your throwhand finger to your yoyo as taught as possible. This is so that the yoyo doesn't try and bind itself from string wrapping around the bearing. You are after all, swinging "against the grain." The way I do this is moving my non-throw-hand back slightly, taking up the slack.

Week 2: Superman

So for week 2 I decided to be a bit ambitious and learn a trick I should've learned a long time ago. Superman is a wicked trick, and I'll tell you the truth, I'm having a bit of trouble with it. I'm still a bit hit-and-miss, especially with the last swing through the triangle.

I don't really have any tips for this one, except that everyone should learn it, it's got some pretty common moves in some of the more advanced tricks. Also, it would be a lot easier to learn it with an undersized yoyo that's got a nice grinding surface. Something like an 888x or Wasabi would be perfect. The undersized helps with the pops and swing-throughs, and the grinding surface helps you try again when you hit your hand.

Videos again are coming soon, I know I keep saying that but I really need to clean the apartment before I show it to the world. My video workflow could use a lot of work as well, I may need to switch to an SD card reader instead of doing USB straight from the camera.

Videos are up now.

Week 1: Man and Brother Slack Pinwheel to Ninja GT

So just to start off easy, I'm going to start out with just a single move. It's something I saw in The Letter Blue. I saw it and I had to try it. Turns out it's pretty easy once I get the hang of the speed of it. Seems like the real secret is in how you pop the yoyo off the string. It needs to move horizontally a bit, towards your free hand.

Introduction and Goal

Hey everyone, I'd like to start by introducing myself. I'm Guillaume, I've been yoyoing on and off for the past 10 years or so. I started way back when the X-Brain came out. I got one of those and a Fireball for Christmas and was hooked. I was pretty serious into it for 5 or 6 years, but then came university, and my priorities shifted more to my studies. Now that I've got a steady job, I'm back into it. I've been back into yoyoing seriously for about a year now, and have been having fun with all of these great new yoyos.

For new years, I decided that I hadn't really been learning enough tricks. I'm hoping that learning more tricks will help me improve my abysmal 11th place finish at Canadian nationals last year. That and maybe playing in front of crowds more.

This blog is here to help me keep track of the tricks I've learned and to keep me on track for learning more.

The Goal:
1 new trick per week.

I'll learn it, post a video of me doing it, and add a short post detailing anything I think is important about the trick or yoyo I'm using.

Here's to hoping I can keep up with this grueling trick learning schedule!