Fixed Friday: Planet Rock

Controlling spin direction and regenerating properly are two of the biggest elements of fixed axle yo-yoing. Having trouble with your loops flipping? Don’t stop, planet hop!

That’s right, kids! This week we’re gonna be taking a deeper look at one of the staples of looping, the planet hop – or, rather, we’re going to explore how this classic regen can be mixed into responsive 1A. If you don’t know planet hop, well, your best bet would be to grab somethin’ responsive and check out the YoYoExpert tutorial for it, but for those of you who just need a quick refresher: a planet hop is just an upside-down shoot the moon. I know that sounds crazy, but because you don’t have to fight with gravity it’s actually one of the most mellow tricks around: throw down, bring the yo-yo back, and throw it back out the other direction without flipping. The fact that the yo-yo doesn’t have to flip (like it does in looping tricks) is especially handy when using butterfly-shaped yo-yos prone to tilting and trying to catch a string hit afterwards.

…of course, this wouldn’t be Fixed Friday if we just stuck to the classic vanilla version of the trick. No! Rather, most of this entry is dedicated to one of my favorite responsive repeaters, curiously named after one of my favorite dudes. More on that later; I just thought I’d mention it ’cause I kind of do it in the opening trick but I don’t want to talk about the opening trick yet (welp!)

So! On to the second trick. This is a fairly basic sequence: trapeze > regenerate into frontstyle spin > undermount > regenerate back to sidestyle spin. Most of the individual moves are probably already in your trick vocabulary, and it loops into itself nicely, which makes it one of my favorite “idling” tricks to practice when I’m not really thinking about anything else. While it looks simple, there is definitely a line between having a controlled punch out of a trapeze hop and just wildin’ out into the open; practice this one, you’ll be surprised how much it benefits your other tricks.

The next trick is that aforementioned star of the show, a lil’ somethin’ I like to call “Sethy P Makin’ Zines in Da Back (For Da Girls)”, or just “zines” for short. Once again, this may not look like much to the uninformed eye, but learning to control the redirect out of a stall back into a breakaway is incredibly valuable… and it just feels awesome, too.  For this trick, throw a breakaway and catch the yo-yo in a trapeze stall,  and when you dismount twist your finger so that the yo-yo somersaults inside the string. It should be nearing the end of its regeneration towards the end of the somersault circle, at which point you let go of the string and raise your throwhand. This creates a tiny bit of “hangtime”, which you’ll need ’cause you’re throwing the yo-yo immediately back out into a breakaway regeneration. Make sense? Maybe not, but watch the video and practice it and you’ll be makin’ da zines for da girls yourself in no time.

The next trick is a variation on zines, with the critical difference of being performed “Plus Style.” Without getting too deep into trick history, plus style is a way of looking at tricks where you mirror everything and add a string segment – think of it as doing left-handed tricks right-handed. Does that sound weird and crazy? It kind of is, but fortunately you don’t have to understand Spencer & Sonny’s crazy lingo to get this next trick. Basically: a trapeze brother mount can be thought of as a plus style trapeze, so for a plus style zines you get into a trapeze bro stall and then perform zines as though you were looking in a mirror. The one extra wrinkle to this trick is that you have to perform the regeneration portion while holding the string with your non-throwhand, which can be tricky at first, but give it a shot.

Once you master zines & zines+, the next trick is a fun little challenge for you: 2or0 zines. I’m not going to talk much about it because there’s not too much different there conceptually, but definitely worth exploring more. Also, right after that I do a double wrist wrap to thumb stall that I’m not going to talk about either ’cause it’s kind of a silly one-off, but hey! Who doesn’t like wraps?

The next trick is fully Ed’s: Zipper Stalls. Why am I throwing in somebody else’s trick, especially considering that he already wrote it up in his Static 1A Applications post? Probably ’cause it’s one of the best responsive 1A tricks ever, and absolutely the BEST way to practice planet hop regens in a string trick context. If you learn this trick and practice ’til you have straight regenerations and smooth somersaults, you will see the results in every other fixed axle regen you do. I promise.

I was worried that this week might’ve had too much of the “basics”, so I overcompensated and threw in a bunch of horizontal stuff at the end. First, we’ve got a banana turnover into a weird tough love handheld flip thing caught in a thumb mount. Not really sure what to call that, but I’d like to see it done offstring!

Next, we have something actually applicable to the theme: sideways zines. Being point blank honest with you, it’s really really scary getting that somersault and hangtime right in front of your face, so make sure you’re comfortable with both horizontal planet hops and horizontal trapeze stalls before you try this one. I managed not to hit myself in the face when filming, but it wouldn’t have been the first time. This move is really neat for mixing into the types of awesome horizontal responsive madness that Jensen Kimmitt’s been giving us lately... and, of course, sidewinder out of er’rythang.

Lastly, we got a ‘zontal tough love catch to whip and a pinwheel off a throw straight into a thumb mount. Why? Because it’s Friday! If you learned something, tell us ’bout it in the comments, and if you liked the song feel free to download it off of my SoundCloud. Tune in next week for more fixie madness.