Wednesday, October 20, 2010

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.

Friday, October 15, 2010

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

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

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.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

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.