YoYo Related News From Around The World
YoYoExpert.com has released another video in their “Trick Theory” series, this one featuring the amazing Anthony Rojas! Widely regarded as one of the most creative and original yoyo players in the country, Anthony Rojas has a truly distinctive style in both 1A and 5A. Widely respected by fans and fellow competitors, Anthony is a stand-out talent in yoyoing.
Anthony’s signature model is the CLYW Dune.
CLYW team member and amazing man-bun transit system Michael Kurti is the star of the latest episode of YoYoExpert’s “Trick Theory” video series. Check out some of Kurti’s signature tricks, shot in glorious hi-def slow motion, and get his take on why he does what he does.
Yoyo used is the CLYW Igloo.
CLYW team member Andrew Maider kicks off the new YoYo Trick Theory video series from YoYoExpert! Filmed during the 2016 US National YoYo Contest, this video showcases tricks from Andrew and a few other players and sits down with Andrew to gets his thoughts on modern trick theory and construction. Every player approaches yoyo play differently, and for a new player it can be pretty hard to figure out which direction you want to head in. A series like Trick Theory gives you the opportunity to hear from your favorite players about why they do what they do, and help you determine the direction that you want to push your own play. We’re pretty excited about this series, and can’t wait to show you more!
Yoyo used is the CLYW Blizzard.
Paul Escolar, Jason Lee, Chris Neff, Steve Brown, Jeffrey Longoria, and others at BAC 2000
Ah, the era of the “midschool” yoyoing. Videos were more grainy, hair was more spiky, and cargo pants had more than enough pockets to tote around Renegades, Freehand 1s, and Spinfaktors as opposed to the more slim denim options of today. “Midschool” can be defined exactly how it sounds, and in the yoyoing world it generally means the era just before, during, and after the “boom” of 1998. It was an era of innovation in absolutely all facets of yoyoing, including tricks, contests, yoyos, and the integration of the recently popularized internet into the yoyoing world.
The most popular tricks of the midschool era are some of the tricks that you may have seen or learned from André Boulay’s YoYoExpert tutorials. Some significant ones include White Buddha (Paul Escolar), Superman (Jason Lee), The Matrix (Doctor Popular), Spirit Bomb (Jeff Longoria), and Kwyjibo (Taylor Whitley). What some players may not not know is that these tricks were learned by André during the era in which yoyo videos had to be downloaded using the dial-up connections of the time. Similar to the recent explosion of the #trickcircle hashtag today, they were created by and shared with enthusiasts and those truly in the know dedicated many hours to staying current to the tricks and trends of the time.
Back then, there were no GoPro tutorials in which you could see the trick as well as the pair of socks that the yoyoer has chosen to wear for the day. Tricks had to be learned through text, and if you were lucky, text and illustrations along with a short video. If you do enough digging, it is still possible to find some of the old tutorials and learn some old tricks if you have the dedication to do so.
In the years after the boom, the numerous tricks of the era were still discussed and learned on message boards of the time and were still some of the hardest tricks to learn. These days, yoyoers have all they could possibly want as far as learning tricks goes, and the tricks from the midschool era that do not have current tutorials of their own are old memories or completely unheard of by most yoyoers. Therefore, there is a goldmine of old tricks that many yoyoers may have never heard of and would probably break their knuckles attempting on one of the tug-responsive yoyos of the time. Yoyos then had to sleep for a long time, not “catch” the string in the middle of a trick, and still be reliably tug responsive.
Think old midschool tricks can’t hang with the tricks of today? Think again.
If you get the chance, head over to the Sector Y Archive and watch some of their videos in chronological order. Not only can you see yoyoing itself advance, but you can also see the members of the Spindox Yoyo Club push great concepts further and further with each video. At the release of their “Wish We Were at Worlds” clip video in 2001, the Spindox members were at the top of their game.
The most widely-recognized trick from “Wish We Were at Worlds” is probably Breath, by Spencer Berry. Another elusive-but-amazing trick in the video is Paul Escolar’s sequel to his his slightly-less-elusive trick, Red Clover. Red Clover II, otherwise known as Orange Tulips, combines interesting and still widely unexplored Houdini Mount concepts with a a Wrist Mount ending that makes for a fairly fluid, and pretty hard, trick. Check the video above for the trick, starting at 1:58.
The first move of Orange Tulips is taken from Red Clover, but after that, Orange Tulips makes it’s own identity and features a pop through a triangle string segment that is pretty difficult when first attempting the trick. The pop is necessary to complete the trick properly, and you’ll only know it’s done right when the yoyo lands and creates a Wrist Mount-esque segment that is situated on the fingers as opposed to the wrist. The end of the trick basically does the same thing as the ending of Superman by Jason Lee but in a significantly different way. An extra kink through the Wrist Mount is undone, and as the yoyo lands in a regular Wrist Mount, a normal dismount followed by a return to the hand completes the trick.
The trick is still difficult, and when doing it you can see that Paul was clearly connecting trick segments to do-and-undo each other. Even when performing the trick on a modern, unresponsive yoyo it has a midschool feel and completing it successfully definitely feels great.
The video of Orange Tulips in “Wish We Were at Worlds” is literally the only video of Orange Tulips that is currently online. While obscure, it is definitely underrated in my opinion and is honestly a great trick. Learning and performing it on a modern, unresponsive yoyo proves this, and it’s a shame that it hasn’t received more recognition within the community (A Cabin Tutorial, maybe?).
Coming to prominence around 2001, Black Hops is a trick that is mainly based around “hop” concepts that still remains somewhat relevant with players. SAGE (Albert Gonzales, inventor of the Iron Whip.), a yoyoer from the East Coast who was also doing grinds and slacks early in their creation, created a similar but significantly more difficult trick with 8 Diagram Pole in 2001.
I have yet to learn 8 Diagram Pole, but those that have speak of it’s difficulty. It doesn’t appear that it would be any easier on an unresponsive yoyo, but anyone that has thrown responsive and has seen the trick can most likely see it’s difficulty during the time it was created.
The concept behind the hops are somewhat similar to Spencer Berry’s “Insta-Mounts” (which Adam Brewster has been creating and sharing via #trickcircle lately) and despite lacking the flashiness and fluidity of today’s popular tricks, 8 Diagram Pole definitely deserves a place on this list as well as a place in trick history. SAGE has not been involved in yoyoing since the early 2000’s but his contributions undoubtedly left a mark on yoyoing.
TimeTwister is probably the least underrated trick on this list, but it is still fairly underrated in my opinion and not necessarily known as well as some other tricks from the era. While it does have some “modern” exposure, TimeTwister is still a trick that some players may have never heard of or may have forgotten about. I actually learned TimeTwister early in my yoyoing career, and it’s remained one of my favorite tricks since.
In watching a lot of of old Spindox videos, you can see Citadel (Gabriel Lozano) playing around with a lot of concepts that are very similar to the ones in TimeTwister and you can also eventually see him throw TimeTwister itself, too. Everybody had their own elements to mess with back then, and Gabe chose twisty 1.5 mount concepts, rolls, and a sort of flowy trick that’s different than a lot of other stuff from it’s time and stuff from now as well.
In a non-cynical way, my favorite part of TimeTwister is the end. The part at the end in which you manually untwist the strings that you twisted a step prior really blew my mind when I first started yoyoing. The sideways barrel roll/hug movements within the trapeze towards the end were especially tricky for me to hit when first learning the trick too.
Pulling off TimeTwister feels really good, even on a newer yoyo. It’s a pretty long trick, and remembering all of the moves and doing them just right is definitely impressive.
I’m pretty sure that innovative frontstyle stuff was just about as common, if not a little more common, in the midschool era as it is today. Steve Brown had this frontstyle mount called the H20 Mount which was basically a Split Bottom Mount with an extra segment that allowed a little more creativity within frontstyle yoyoing. Water Bomb is my personal favorite that utilizes the mount, but another trick of Steve’s that utilizes the mount and is equally badass is Chinese Water Torture. Another yoyoer, throwing under the alias “Spiky Haired Raver” had a trick called Spring Water that utilized the mount as well.
Water Bomb definitely makes use of the extra segment within the H20 Mount, along with some rolls and boings to complete the trick. I just really like the midschool-esque fluidity of it all. It may sound obsessive, but I really think it was a combination of the yoyos, concepts being explored, and general climate of the late 90’s/early 2000’s that made for some really, really great yoyoing despite being outdated today.
I first saw Steve throw Water Bomb in the How to be a Player video by Duncan, and was impressed because at the time I had just learned Split the Atom and Mach 5. It really impressed me at the time, and it would still probably be a great challenge to learn today if a proper tutorial existed for the trick.
It was genuinely hard to think of the #1 trick for this list. I didn’t necessarily write it in any particular order, but in any case “#1” should typically be exciting in some way or another. Well, what’s more exciting than a trick called “Havoc”, right?
It’s hard to believe that Spencer Berry invented in this trick in 2001. In my interview with Spencer, he said that Havoc was all about pushing complexity and he definitely did it with this trick. I first saw Havoc quite some time ago, and couldn’t even begin to get a grip on how to do it. Even now that I can do it quite well, it does not feel like any other yoyo trick that I’ve done before.
In my opinion, Havoc is the perfect trick technically, visually, and difficulty wise. Not only is it hard to learn, but it also hard to actually smooth out because all of the moves are so obscure that even a seasoned yoyoer will have trouble figuring them out at first. It follows the great tradition with it’s string segments doing-and-undoing themselves and lots of subtle movements being necessary to do in order for the trick to be performed properly.
Havoc is 1/3 of Spencer Berry’s Destruction trilogy of tricks (alongside Enigma and Cataclysm) and the reason that I chose Havoc out of the 3 is because it’s simply the most different and most difficult in my opinion. Luckily, Chuck over at CLYW dropped a Cabin Tutorial for it last year and if you’re interested in learning it, doing so is only a click away!
Hopefully you enjoyed this look at some obscure yoyo tricks! I actually didn’t start yoyoing seriously until 2011, but in the amount of time that I have been yoyoing I’ve definitely enjoyed learning about the vast history of our great hobby. Shoutout to Gabe and Spencer for letting me use their old videos, and shoutout to Steve for hopefully not feeling really old after reading this! If you have any stories, tricks, or anything to share feel free to email me at: throwplaza@gmail.com!
So, you’ve heard about this crazy new style of yo-yoing called Double Dragon, where you play with two strings on one yoyo. You wanna try it, but have no idea where to start. You’ve come to the right place.
Welcome to the Official Double Dragon Tutorial Series: to address all of your questions and more, so you too can become a dual-stringed beast. In this article, we’re going to begin with the basics of how to get started playing with two strings on your yo-yo. Then we’ll go over some of the fundamental concepts and tricks that make Double Dragon what it is.
Let’s start off with the basics: what you need hardware wise. The best bearings to use when playing with two strings are konkaves and center tracs, but regular flat bearings also work fine. You want a bearing that will allow both strings equal space to move freely, so a grooved bearing will have less than satisfactory results.
Now it’s time to pick a yo-yo. I prefer the Indecision or Bad Decision from Werrd, but any wide-gapped, long spinning yo-yo with medium/high walls is ideal. With a higher wall, you’ll have a much easier time adjusting the plane of the yo-yo in case it tilts off axis. Zero wall yo-yos aren’t as cooperative for playing with two strings.
The last thing to do before we can start throwing is put the strings on our yo-yo. The best kind of string to use is thinner than standard poly. What I use is thin Kitty String or slim G-String. Avoid thicker string, it will cram the gap and kill spin time. A good way to measure your strings is to hold the yo-yo up to your solar plexus, and tie the knot at about arm’s length. Playing with shorter strings makes it a lot easier.
The simplest way to get into Double Dragon is to start with Tethered Dragon, which is where you have both strings tied to one finger. In this configuration, you can throw and catch with one hand, as with standard 1A. To wind up, thumb start or snap start the yo-yo just like in 1A, and do a regular backspin bind.
After you throw Tethered Dragon, you might need to unwind the strings incase they get tangled. This is similar to adjusting string tension, but with 2 separate strings instead of the internal strands of a single string. You can untwist them with the sidewinder adjustment technique (inwards or outwards depends on the direction of the strings’ tension). Or for more precision, do pinwheels until the strings are untwisted and neutral (clockwise or counterclockwise depends on which way the strings are twisted).
In Tethered Dragon there are many new avenues for string tricks to be explored. Before you get carried away, let’s take a look at a few Tethered basics:
To perform Tether Rolls, first throw a breakaway and make sure the strings are untwisted. Then insert your non throwhand finger inbetween the strings. The object of the trick is to perform pinwheels, alternating on the inside and outside of your non-throwhand, switching off strings on each rotation. In this trick, the yo-yo can spin clockwise or counterclockwise (either way works). When you’re done pinwheeling, you can let go and bind return, or if you’re feeling adventurous, go directly into a Tether Tower:
To do a Tether Tower, first pinch one of the strings with your non-throwhand, about halfway down (either string can be pinched, it doesn’t matter which one). Then, swing the yo-yo around in front of your hands such that the strings overlap, causing the non-pinched string to form a wide loop as it is bisected by the pinched string. Catch the loop in the front with your throwhand. To get out, just drop the string and bind as usual.
Now, to get into Double Dragon from playing tethered, first throw a breakaway. Once the yoyo is spinning sidestyle, take the outermost string off your finger and transfer it to your non-throwhand. Congratulations! You have entered a neutral state of Double Dragon, where the yo-yo is spinning but not mounted on a string formation.
To bring the yoyo back to your hand, you can go back into Tethered Dragon and bind like you would in 1a and voila, this is the easiest way to get in and out of Double Dragon.
But you’re not going to want to switch back into Tethered for the beginning and end of every single trick, so you ought to learn how to bind without detaching from Double Dragon. To do this, you need to perform a backspin bind, which can be done with either string, using either an overwhip or an underwhip. As long as the whip is pulling against the direction the yo-yo is spinning, it will be a backspin bind and should return to your hands. Keep track of which direction the yo-yo is spinning by remembering the direction you’ve thrown it in. Be sure to always catch the yo-yo with the hand performing the bind, to keep the strings from getting twisted before the next throw.
But before you throw the yo-yo again, you need to understand the proper hand positioning after catching. If binding with an underwhip, after catching the yo-yo you need to shift the yo-yo circularly underneath your non catch hand, so you can throw the yo-yo on the side opposite from where you bound. When making this transition from one side to the other, be careful not to twist the strings, keeping the yo-yo in the same plane. For binding via overwhip, the procedure is slightly different; now you throw on the same side where you caught the yo-yo. Again, keeping the yo-yo in the same plane, be careful not to get the strings twisted while the yo-yo is in your hands.
We will get into more advanced throwing & catching techniques later on in these articles, but for now you have everything you need to know to start binding, throwing and learning tricks in a continuous, untethered state of Double Dragon.
Now that we know the very basics of this new style of play, lets put those skills to use by learning some tricks! As you’ll soon see, the fundamental Double Dragon tricks are unique from other styles of yo-yoing because of their symmetrical string formations and ambidextrous movements.
In Double Dragon, before we can mount the yo-yo, you need to learn some fundamental holds, where you are holding the string but the yo-yo is unmounted.
To get into a Pentagram Hold from a neutral state, place the left string over the right index finger, (or vice versa.) Then, take the slack right-handed string with your left index and pull it underneath to mirror the position of the left string. Keep the strings on the side of the yo-yo that’s closer to your body.
An easy trick you can do from this hold is called Pentagram Bounce. Perform this trick just by boingy-ing the yo-yo up and down in front of the string formation. To get out, just drop the strings.
To do Dragon’s Cradle Hold, First make two magic drop holds. Then put your thumbs into the opposite sides’ holds, pulling the strings apart and across each other, like cat’s cradle. To get into the Cradle Mount, hop the yo-yo up and mount it in the middle of the lower string segments. When done correctly you will be in a symmetrical formation that looks like a star. From here you can do the Cradle Bounce, where you boingy the yo-yo up and down within the string formation, like so. To get out, just hop the yo-yo out of the front of the mount, and drop the loops you’ve been holding.
Although the Cradle is a symmetrical string formation, the Cradle Hold/Mount can be oriented either left or right. Cradle Mount Right is when the right magic drop hold is in front, while Cradle Mount Left is when the left magic drop hold is in front.
Dragon Rolls is the equivalent of the 1a trick Pulling Taffy, except you switch strings each time you remount. It was the first front style dd trick I came up with. Front style in Double Dragon involves simply turning your body perpendicular towards the yo-yo, and can be done on either side.
To do it, perform a bottom mount and immediately dismount the yo-yo. Then pick it back up with another bottom mount on the other string. Dismount and proceed until you’re done.
Switches is a simple, symmetrical repeater that goes from a trapeeze on one side, and then switches to a trapeeze on the other. Throw in the lindy loop to complete the motion. This trick can be performed from a regular trapeeze on top of the string, and also from an undermounted trapeze. As with Dragon Rolls, this trick involves shifting attention from one string to the other mid trick, letting each do half the work, as the other hangs slack.
Waterfalls was one of the first Double Dragon tricks I came up with. This trick implements the slack into a symmetrical motion, rather than letting it just dangle behind the string that’s pulling the yo-yo.
Start by putting one string over your index finger, like the beginning of Pentagram Hold. Then, move your thumb on the holding hand so it is on top of the string being held. Throw the whole formation over top of your holding hand, so you can catch the slack with the opposite index finger, and drop your thumb to secure the string. Now, drop the hold from the first hand, repeating the motion the with your other hand, returning the slack to where it first began. Repeat from side to side, index, thumb, throw over and catch, until you’re out of water.
This is an essential concept for understanding many advanced dd tricks and moving through dd fluidly. The definition of what makes a Drape is using a slack string and taut string together to cross the strings. To keep the strings from just getting twisted on the axle, a Drape is achieved by catching the slack string, similar to Tether Tower. The two forms of basic drapes are Over Drapes and Under Drapes- this depends on if you catch the slack on top or underneath the taut string.
To do a Right Under Drape, swing the yo-yo around in front of your hands from left to right, keeping the left string taut, and allowing the right string to go full slack. As the yo-yo makes way around the right hand, drape the slacked string into the path of the taut string. Catch the slack on the other side with your right hand. For an Under Drape on the Left, just invert this procedure, using the right string taut to swing the yo-yo from right to left, and draping the left string to catch the loop underneath on the left.
To do a Right Over Drape, using the left string for tension and the right string to be draped, swing the yo-yo in the other direction from right to left. Drape the right string over the left string, such that you can catch the slack loop on top of the tense string. Invert the procedure for an Over Drape on the Left.
Once you’re comfortable with drapes, you should be able to transition between left and right drapes instantaneously.
The Brown Triangle is named so because it is neither a Green Triangle nor a Red Triangle. It is a merger of the two ideas (gts being mounted in a knot and rts being mounted out) to form a triangle only possible with two separate strings. As with red and green triangles, there are millions of ways (to be discovered) to get into a Brown Triangle. This is the most basic:
Do a drape. Open up the drape-side loop with the hand that isn’t holding it. From the front, mount the yo-yo onto the bottom string, which is the string tied to the hand that you’re opening the loop with, and drop the hand you caught the drape with. Be sure to dismount out the front of the triangle.
To get into a Brown Triangle with a little extra flare (and an extra string hit), before mounting the yo-yo on the bottom string, you can mount the yo-yo on and off inside the drape with the opening hand.
To do Triangle Transfer, first go into a Brown Triangle. Swing the yoyo over and above the finger holding the triangle, changing the drape direction while transitioning to the opposite side. Now remount into a brown triangle on the other side. Rinse, repeat, and lather.
This concludes the first installment of the Double Dragon Tutorial Series.
Stay tuned next week for Volume 2.
The deeper one gets into yo-yoing, the more one is exposed to all the wonderful jargon and nebulous concepts that its enthusiasts have come up with. One of the trickiest bits of vocabulary to define has always been “technical yo-yoing”: most players know it when they see it, other players can give you a vague definition, and non-players will look at it and walk away shaking their heads.
This particular style of tricks is known for its intense complexity, its focus on slight details & variations in tricks, and its heightened level of difficulty. Yo-yo tricks exploded in growth with the introduction of the bearing, and it could be argued that the roots of technical play were established with Steve Brown, Neff, and the SpinDox during the Renegade era. However, “tech” as we know it would really hit its stride in 2003 with Johnnie DelValle’s groundbreaking championship freestyle.
The focus on intricate string play and long, risky combos was a huge paradigm shift. Though the Eli Hop and other showy choreographic moves have found their way back into competitive play, technical play shows no signs of leaving. If anything, the championship title awarded to Hungarian tech wizard Janos Karancz a decade after JD’s victory seems to indicate a new golden age of tech.
I thought it would be best to turn to the pros to discuss some of the core tenets of technical trick construction, and am proud to feature well-respected trick theorists Mikhail, Rafael, Isaac, Spencer, Gabe, and Jacob. Let’s hear about it.
Mikhail Tulabut (Team YoYoJam): “The simplest way I can define it is a trick/combo whose string geometry is more complicated and dimensional than Double or Nothing. It’s like holding up a flat piece of paper compared to holding up a paper airplane.”
Rafael Matsunaga (Duncan Crew): “For me, if I call something ‘technical’, I’m mostly thinking about complexity of tricks. Even though some simpler concepts may require more technical expertise and are actually harder than what I call technical, I’m probably more inclined to use technical to describe trick with multiple string folds and hard-to-describe mounts and moves.”
Jacob “Elephark” Jensen (Werrd): “I think of modern yoyoing as the sort of yoyoing that focuses primarily on creation and sharing ideas, as opposed to classical yoyoing, which gives importance to mastering a set of tricks and/or performing for the sake of selling yoyos.
I think of technical yoyoing as the facet of modern yoyoing that focuses on concepts and elements for their own sake, or the sake of the trick. The science of yoyo tricks, if you will. … For me, I think the term ‘tech yoyoer’ is most accurately descriptive of a player who studies and preferably attempts to expand the library of trick concepts available to the community. Kind of like a scientist. Okay, exactly like a scientist. And there’s theoretical science and there’s practical science, and each scientist gets to choose how many scoops of each to put on his plate at lunchtime.“
Isaac Sams (Duncan Crew, Innovation Movement): “Technical yoyoing: sequencing that is too complex to fully follow without learning it.”
Spencer Berry: “I usually lump technical yo-yoing into most of the tricks that non-yoyoers may be amazed by, but probably can’t tell apart. Which is a huge lump! To a yoyoer, I could probably even get more specific: tech tricks are those that explore holds beyond the building blocks. Sometimes tech tricks explore new concepts or combine multiple simpler concepts into single motions, but more often than that they are the product of kids seeking originality while they bounce from string to string, knot to knot. If the trick is complicated, it is easier to be unique, right? I often hear tech and flow pitted against each other – but a trick can easily have both or neither and of course grades in between.”
David Ung (Team Yoyofactory): “I think a good trick is one that requires every motion. Extraneous movements in tricks and combos really bother me (in most cases. Some people have really interesting “useless” moves that I think are fantastic). Good tricks generally have great pacing, too. I don’t know exactly how to explain/define good trick pacing… but just look at Yuuki or Charles to get a good idea. There is always enough original material/moves sprinkled throughout the trick to keep you entertained the entire time.”
Gabe Lozano (Duncan Crew, Sector-Y): “To me, a trick or combo should follow a general theme. This can be done in several ways, but my personal favorite is taking a move or hold, and then finding all the neat transitions in and out of that move/hold, and then tying it all together in a way that flows nicely. That way, all the pieces fit together and feel cohesive.”
Mikhail: “1. Dynamics. There should be a rhythm to it. Kind of like the 3 Act structure of story-telling. Setup (Mount), Confrontation (String hits and maneuvers), and Resolution (Banger/Reveal/dismount).
2. Flow. Things should always be moving and feel natural. When I’m working on a trick, I like to feel and “listen” to where the yo-yo and my hands want to go. It obvious when I try a movement and the yo-yo just won’t have it.
3. Surprise/Originality. Natural movement and flow is nice, but I also like to see movements/slack/mounts that come out of nowhere and haven’t been done to death.”
Rafael: “I believe good combos are like good music. Everybody likes a different style, but some characteristics are universal to good combos/music. First of all, a good combo must be well executed, otherwise, it’s the same as a fantastic sheet music being played by a mediocre musician. Then it comes to composition itself. If the elements follow a certain pattern or just go well together, that’s a nice combo. I know that’s a bit vague, but like music, once you listen to a good song or see a good combo, you know it. And just like music, some styles and elements end up becoming a fad and nobody cares any longer, even if people keep doing it (like dubstep, or I guess trap these days)”
Spencer: “I’d say most of MY favorite tricks that I CAN do have sensations to them. Either a motion that just fits right or a theme that carries the yoyo through some sort of story (not necessarily literal, but motions that build, climax, release, arc, etc).
As far as tricks I enjoy watching, my favorites are usually exemplary examples of someone’s personality made yoyo trick. I think Rojas and Haycock are perfect modern examples of this – watching them play they are unmistakeable – often imitated – but never faked. There is a sense of identity – suddenly holds, moves, even tricks you’ve maybe seen before become infused with a fresh personality.
The real challenge, I find, is making a trick sufficiently simple for me to both want to learn it and enjoy doing it. In the past i was drawn to long, complicated, proprietary tricks. Because I knew they were mine and I felt like it was new territory. But I’ve definitely shifted into a seek the simplicity phase where it is equally challenging to find something that is simple but fresh and fun to do.“
Isaac: “Since the ‘modern’ style of yoyoing is so young, we have to take inspiration from the non-yoyo world to make any sense of what we’re doing. Some of today’s best tricks are made like this, and the reason why they’re the best is because everyone can make the connection, not just yoyoers. A good combo has no borders.
Another thing to take note of is utilizing all your possible zones. A really long combo done in front of the player is boring, it usually doesn’t catch enough attention. A well-scoring combo will consist of tech placed inside-arm, outside-arm, overhead, over arm—basically, cover as much area as you can.”
Gabe: “I personally dislike combos that are disorganized. If you’re throwing in hops, boings, stalls, grinds, arms, etc. into one combo, it’s just a disorganized mess. Even if every element is cool, when you throw them all together, your elements don’t get the recognition they deserve because they’re surrounded by too many other moves that don’t complement it. The trick then becomes forgettable. Good tricks are memorable, and having a strong theme and focus is key.”
Isaac: “What kills a combo for me is when a player stays in a mount for a while without accelerating through the trick. What I love about the Russian style is that their combos only consist of ridiculous transitions, so you can barely tell when they are in a mount before they’re already out.”
Rafael: “A trick is boring/bad if no effort is put into it. If you’re just taking existing elements from two popular combos and putting them together, there’s no effort in creativity. If you come up with a new hold but can do nothing with it, there is no effort in construction.
Overusing the music metaphor again, if you’re just doing other people’s combos, you’re that dude with a guitar playing covers on the beach. People may enjoy it, even give you props for playing their favorite song, but when Tom Morello parks across the street you’ll be as good as dead. Good tricks and combos come from trick artists.”
Mikhail: “Never-ending combos. I attribute this to ‘contest yo-yoing.’ Yo-yos spin longer, and regens save time to get more points, but holy crap when a trick should obviously end at a trapeze, and they just regen out of it to regen out again it feels like a run-on sentence that should have clearly ended a while ago but it just didn’t and kept going because it could and it didn’t even use a comma to break up the thought and just started a whole new thought because it was easier to just keep going even though the statement was clearly over and came to a natural and fitting end but nah never mind let’s just keep going for a little bit because I can and then an abrupt. End.”
Spencer: “I don’t want to say that any tricks are bad, I think if someone came up with it and it brings them joy then it is a success.
If a trick or combo is boring it is probably having trouble distinguishing itself. With the abundance of tricks that exist now, it is very easy to create something that may be technically new, but has nothing fresh about it. Which is strange to say—because people make fresh tricks out of old holds, old moves, old tricks all the time—but there is also a lot of new tricks that don’t seem fresh because they don’t assert themselves to anything beyond a series of moves someone put together. Does that make any sense?”
Technical yo-yoing may rightly be regarded as one of the most unapproachable styles, but persistent practice and mindful trick design can also make it one of the most impressive. This is by no means a complete summary of the wide world of tech, but hopefully is enough to inspire you to try some kink mounts.
So I’ll preface this by saying “it’s been fun”. It’s been fun, and I’m intensely proud of having made this column a weekly feature on YoYoNews.com; proud of helping to document “the state of fixed axle” during what has been a fascinating resurgence. When I first fell in love with throwing wood, information on its necessary skills and disciplines were few and far between. Progression had stagnated to the point of a dare or punchline, and seeing which long combos could be hit on a No Jive or a Butterfly was the only “fixed axle style” out there. Drew and I set out this year to simply have some fun and see where we could go, but that attitude evolved as we developed a lexicon and identified the directions that best fit this weird medium. Along the way, we had some battles, wrote a preposterous amount of text, and posted up some 2 hours of thematic video. In the back of my mind has been the idea that some guy or girl who finds themselves obsessed with chasing the simplicity and tradition inherent to fixed axle will have an archive of conceptual ammunition to go on.
This week, I wanted to go back to one of my favorite wells, albeit one that is not normally a natural for fixies – picture tricks. Generally, these depictive string formations are much better suited to bearing play, if only because they take a long time to develop. Remember though, that the original picture tricks were classics like Eiffel Tower, Rock the Baby, and Texas Star. Even Sleeper, Creeper, and Shoot the Moon are visually named, suggesting that all of yo-yoing has its roots in pictures.
Luke Hildebrand sent me a black version of his diminutive delrin throw, the Emmett. Despite its small diameter, it’s pretty solid, and I figured the steel axle would give me enough sleep time to pull off some of these. It did not disappoint, and I’m pretty sure this is the only metal-axle fixie I’ve thrown on FF this year.
I start off with a tough one called Deadpool. To me it kind of looks like the wisecrackin’ Marvel Comics character, so bizarrely portrayed by Ryan Reynolds in that Wolverine movie. Unfortunately, doing this on fixed means, you have about AN second to hang out in the actual picture if you intend to get it back to the hand, so this one came out kind of like a “morbidly obese Deadpool”, but it’s the thought that counts. This trick uses a mount similar to Drew’s classic 20th Century Fox/Flying Ice Cream/Spiderman-in-a-Propeller-Beanie sequence.
Next up, we’ve got my own interpretation of a John Bot classic. Although I initially named it “Space Invader”, I soon realized it was just a frontstyle version of his trick, Cat Star. I do like dropping mine into Eiffel and then braintwisting out. John was the first player who really showed me that picture tricks could be a modern style in and of themselves, and I found his “story tricks” to be absolutely brilliant. My Bionic Rudolph trick uses the same basic mount as his StarFox/Bandit-Elephant sequence, but ends in a seasonally appropriate bit of Xmas flair.
The 4th trick is not picture-ish at all. Whatever, I was just messing around with the Emmett.
At :30, we have one of my favorite tricks ever, Star Within A Star. I heard that this was a boom-era Sky Kiyabu invention (although I could be wrong). Possibly the most awesome work of symmetrical string geometry I’ve seen, and I love how you can pause in the Triforce picture before completing it. Immediately following it, we have a variation I call Sands of the Hourglass, which is kind of my own take on the classic Hailey’s Comet (1-handed Star mounted in trapeze).
The next two tricks are some of my more complex ones, and they require a degree of delicacy on fixed axle. At :50 is Flux Capacitor, which I’m sure I’ve highlighted on FF before at some point, and then after that is a weird trick I call Conjoined Twin Towers. I really don’t fully understand how it works out, but you basically get two Eiffels which are totally interwoven, and yet it drops neatly out. Yo-yo’s… how do THEY work? 1:10 shows another John Bot gem, Takeshi’s Ray Gun. Easy to get into, and brilliantly simple in concept, I do homage to John in my next trick, the star-to-trapeze formation I named “Johnbotulism”.
Pretty much every old-schooley thrower has some variation on the Flower trick. They are perfect for small demos, and say what you will about the pitfalls of princesses and ponies… little girls love the flower trick. They also dig on the Flutter-By trick, which I get into at 1:40. That one has a habit of snagging on the way out, so it’s a bit sketchier for a school or library show. And, speaking of things that flutter, my last trick for this week was named by Drew Tetz as “The Great Blue Heron Or Something”. Seeing as it looks only vaguely like a bird, the “Or Something” is absolutely integral.
And that’s a wrap. Mind you, I don’t think we’re done with Fixed Friday by any means. Though I’m taking a vacation for a couple weeks, I’ll still revisit this column in the new year. It might not be a weekly or bi-weekly thing, but as thematic ideas become apparent, we’ll be there to try our best to document them. Thanks so much to anyone and everyone who has checked out this corner of YoYoNews.com all year, who’ve left us feedback and suggestions in the comments, and who have, themselves, pushed fixed axle play forward through all of the videos, instagrams, and support of small manufacturers. As I said at the top, “it’s been fun”.
So I’ll apologize in advance for the apparent cop-out layup. Except it’s Thanksgiving weekend and my engorged body is incapable of either throwing myself into a ton of hard tricks OR actually caring about it… so consider that apology for what it’s worth.
One of our dear readers – we HAVE them! – inquired in my last column about whether we might dedicate an entry to “long-sleeper tricks”. He offered that while we have produced much content in the realm of 1-and-done stall moves, stop-n-go’s, and the like, FF has largely ignored the bizarre art of hitting protracted tricks involving many string-hits (bear in mind, such tricks max out around 10s on fixed axle). Although we have kind of overlooked those tricks, I think if you’re willing to go back through the archives, there have been several examples to the contrary. Regardless, there is certainly a good reason for our focus on the shorter stuff. I’ll get to that, promise. In any case, this vid combines #throwbackthursday with #fixedfriday, and is essentially a compilation of some of the longer tricks I’ve done on wood. Even more than that, I guess it serves as a fun little scrapbook chronicling my own development as a fixed axle player. Hope you dig.
I remember talking with Jack Ringca (who has always been a pretty awesome fixed axle player, himself) in 2006 about doing Cold Fusion on fixed axle, and specifically on a classic wood-axle Russell. That conversation lit a fire in me somehow. I decided to make that challenge my own, and I rolled it up a hill like Sisyphus for half a year before finally hitting it. I found it WAY easier on either a Proyo or No Jive, both of which have immeasurably smoother axles. Part of hitting a long trick on a fixie is simply throwing hard, and with an untreated Russell axle, I will either snap a string or scorch the wood with a single throw. This can be ameliorated by allowing some Vaseline Intensive Care Lip Therapy to cure on the axle overnight (thanks for that tip, John Higby). Learning to cope with those fickle Russells helped me to understand the importance of a smooth axle and, subsequently, ensured my eventual head-over-heels love affair with No Jives. Mind you, I still burn No Jive axles sometimes, and even the smoother, harder TMBR ones (hence the column’s name). It sucks, but at least it smells great.
In 2007 or so, I had no idea what to do with a No Jive beyond just trying to do the same tricks I did with a bearing. Somehow it felt as though doing a long trick on a wood yo-yo translated to being “a good yo-yoer” back then, and I was eager to chase down all of my favorite tricks on that medium. Branding, Hook, Suicides, Brent Stole, Gyroscopic Flop (initially suggested by Jack as “impossible on wood”), Mach 5, Pop N Fresh, and eventually, Spirit Bomb. I found it more tantalizing to be the sort of yo-yoer who could hit those modern classics on wood than to invent the next round of “post-modern classics”, myself (to be fair, I was still making up lots of tricks, but nothing remotely classic). Ironically, most of my stall-based stuff that actually IS progressive and relevant was born out of my missed attempts at longer tricks.
I have come up with some tricks that are at the edge of what a fixed axle will typically allow, in terms of spin-time. Smallpox Blanket comes to mind, but Would even more so. The TMBR Irving Pro is probably more capable of long, technical tricks than any fixie out there, and I’ve never hit that particular trick with any other yo-yo.
In terms of the classical canon, Spirit Bomb represented a line my mind drew in the sand from the start. While not a particularly long trick, it was the first one I came to that I really didn’t think could be done on fixed axle (when in fact, it can be done on almost ANY fixed axle). That line gets erased and redrawn, I’ve found, but it’s always there somewhere. At IYYO in New York that year, it became a fun challenge to hit Spirit Bomb on a No Jive. I was amazed that some guys (Red, Yuuki, Tyler) were able to hit it first try. Adam Brewster, Brandon Jackson, Joey Fleshman took a few go’s each (Adam also hit Superman!). And others (André, Sebby, Samm Scott) took the better part of a night to nail it at ECC, but they all got it dialed. It took me over a week of trying before it finally made sense, and it really opened me up to the truth that a) my technique was really not very good, and b) WAY more than you imagine is possible. That second realization is pretty much entirely responsible for anything/everything cool I have done with a yo-yo in the last 5 years. If even a small part of you believes that you can do something, it’s almost as though you already have – you just have to go through the motions and do the math. Fixed Axle Spirit Bomb became an obsession to me, and I made it a point to be able to hit it on ANYTHING, up to and including the O-Boy in the video, the woodies I made in Steve Buffel’s garage, and Colin Leland’s first ultra-thin TMBR prototype.
For awhile, my standard of impossibility was reset at Kamikaze, but in early 2009 I hit it on a FHZ with a Technic axle, and then again with a No Jive. Pure 143 seemed like a lion, but if you can manage your response through the bucket, it’s really just a kitten. Rancid Milk is a fixed axle killer, and I’ve never been smooth enough through the intro to take a shot at it, but Colin poked his head through that glass ceiling with a purpleheart Irving Pro. And while I thought White Buddha and McBride Roller Coaster (did he invent that trick on a transaxle? Jesus, I hope so) were easy tricks, they just seemed too LONG for wood. With the TMBR axle innovations, though, I could knock them over with spin to spare (OK, not much). Breath is one of the few tricks out there that I’ve never seen done on fixed axle, know could be, and that I’d really like to see. I can get through it on a bearing, but I’ve never been fluid enough to even make a reasonable attempt on wood. Maybe someday. If you beat me to it, I’ll send you a yo-yo and a high five.
By and large though, I’ve moved away from this content, which is why the video is populated mostly with content from years past. Tricks, to me, are like surf spots, and pulling off Kamikaze with a No Jive is a bit like stroking into Pipeline on a 10ft balsa longboard from the 60’s (minus the legitimate threat of crushing death). I’ve pulled up to those long tricks and worked through them with my wood yo-yo. Been there and done that and taken the moving digital postcard to prove it. There’s a value to it, absolutely, but you don’t need to keep coming back. While a long trick on your Imperial feels cool and may momentarily validate your sense of yourself, it’s hard to argue that it’s really the best use of the tool. What we’re finding in the past few years is that fixed axle yo-yo’s ARE BETTER at doing some types of tricks than their bearing counterparts. There are unexplored coastlines full of tricks to explore with high response and short-spin, and that’s where I want to go.
It was, however, extremely fun to look at these relic videos and recapture some of the feeling of hitting these tricks for the first time. To imagine that Cold Fusion ever felt hard on a wood yo-yo is just crazy now, but hitting it that night for my first No Jive video felt inexplicably awesome. I hope it will suffice for this column, and I wish you all the best as you load for bear to take aim at your own monsters this week.
This Fixed Friday, we’re keeping it short & sweet with a little something for everybody—or, at least, one or two tricks for a very specific type of person. Double regens, double trapeze, and the double scary snapstart to flinch. Let’s take a look!
The opening trick is probably the easiest to learn out of this batch, a simple pinwheel-based repeater to transition between a cross-armed 1.5 stall and a split-bottom stall. One of the first stall combos that most people learn is the trapeze>trapeze brother repeater, and this could be looked at as a continuation on that theme. This trick should be fairly straightforward, provided that you’re comfortable with the mounts, just try and focus on controlling the regeneration through the pinwheel and land on the proper strings. While it’s not that impressive on its own, I have sung and will continue to sing the praises of these particular mounts and highly recommend adding them to your stall mixup combos.
We’ll follow up that stall staple with something a little further outside the box: thumb start to flinch. If you’re not familiar with Flinch, it’s a high risk thumb stall that Ed Haponik likes to do, noteworthy because you gotta catch it directly above your face for it to count. Doing it in one motion from a thumb start is a good way to mix it up, and also a good way to knock your teeth out if you’re using a heavy unresponsive yo-yo. Practice your thumb starts to reverse lunar landings and then move your head in the way when you’re ready. Become the envy of your friends!
Another mount I wanted to explore this week is the inverted undermount stall, seen immediately after the trapeze in the next combo. This mount had an increased burst of popularity with the advent of Ando’s arm tricks, but is somewhat finickier with stalls because of the tendency to turn the yo-yo. One neat thing it sets up, though, is the cross-armed dumptruck seen in slow motion here. This can set up in split bottom, a repeater, or any number of things… but the dumptruck is the cool part, so who cares?
Next up, we have velvet stalls. Now, legit fixed axle 3A tricks are probably still a ways off, but we do have this mount in the meantime. Since velvet rolls is basically double braintwister, it opens with a double throw and the right hand mounting an undermount stall. Your yo-yos should be responsive enough that the mount triggers the other yo-yo’s return, at which point you roll backwards and mount it in an under mount stall on its own string. Seem complicated? Unfortunately, it’s harder than it looks… but once you get the hang of spacing your hands out properly and hit it a few times, it starts to fall into place.
The next trick is kind of a conglomeration of weird orphan elements, so I don’t know how to talk about it too much, but Nate’s pocketwatch element sets up surprisingly well for Sebastian’s “hammer time” element.
Double trapeze stall is actually considerably easier than the velvet stall, but looks really scary because everything happens all at once. Actually, I shouldn’t say “looks”; it IS really scary because everything happens all at once. You’re going to want a solid grip on double trapeze before even attempting it, but if you’re a 3A player, I highly recommend giving it a shot ’cause looping out feels awesome. Though everything still seems just barely out of reach, there’s plenty of theoretical craziness that could come out of this: double trapeze-bro stalls, double dumptrucks, double kickflips?!
I’d like to end this clip with a classic: the super disco regen. This one is a lot of fun, not too difficult, and fits into combos between throws, so I definitely think it’s worth learning. It plays off of the multiple whip concept you see in contest laceration tricks so often where you rotate your hand around the yo-yo extra times for an element, but in this case the element just happens to be a regen. Basically: throw a soft frontstyle throw, tug the yo-yo back, and when it gets near the top of the string circle the yo-yo with your hand. It takes a little bit of practice throwing soft and getting the “hangtime” necessary, but it feels great, so do it! Suckers. Oh yeah, and if that’s a little too easy, you can always go for the triple that I hit at the end… that’s on you!
Thanks for tuning in to this week’s Fixed Friday! Don’t forget to tell us what tricks you’ve been working on in the comments, in the Facebook group, and over on the YoYoExpert Forums.
Hi, Nate! (Oh, Hi everyone else, too!)
This week I’d like to spend some time looking at a concept put forward by the inimitable Nathan Sutter, longtime member of Duncan Crew and Team SPYY, a fellow alumnus of 365yoyotricks.com, and runner-up at this year’s Fixed Axle Championship of All the World. Nate has put forward a slew of incredible yo-yo elements throughout his career, including (but not limited to) Plastic Whip, Figure Nate, and Shoot the Moon Down Under. At the WYYC this year, he also showed off his Pocketwatch concept, which led to at least 2 consecutive hours of string-burning trick-circlage on that god-forsaken carpet. He also demoed the idea (in an unresponsive context) during his fantastic Alternative Freestyle.
I’d been meaning to explore this idea more since returning from Worlds, but it took me a few weeks to allow the mental carbonation to settle. Pocketwatches are one of the most abrupt and fundamental ways to go from dynamic (spinning) to static (not), which is a key vein running through the fledgling fixed axle style. Although you can get into Pocketwatch with any kind of yo-yo, I feel that it’s best suited to the fixed realm. For one, there’s no distracting bind required to get into it on fixed, and since many of the regenerations out are inherently off-kilter and tough to control, it’s useful to have a yo-yo that’s bent on returning to your hand.
The basic idea is to allow the yo-yo to wind part-way up the string, then grab it before it gets to your throw-hand. Pulling down on the yo-yo abruptly should cause it to cinch and hold, creating a temporary “string-lock”. You can then “do stuff” with the yo-yo partly wound (yet not spinning) until you give it the centripetal force necessary to break the string-lock and spin to life once again. At first, I saw this as a cool novelty concept, but couldn’t really see where it could go. However, as it happens, this concept takes everything fun and kendama-ish about Mark Montgomery’s radical A-minus tricks from a few years back, AND adds the bonus of being able to recall the yo-yo easily.
I hope you enjoy these variations.
The core Pocketwatch concept (demonstrated by Nate in the FS link above) involves flinging the yo-yo around casually with the air of a gentleman waiting for the bus. As you’ll see, most of my examples focus more on trick applications – how can Pocketwatches be applied to, say, a whip, a wrap, a hop, a laceration, etc. Most of the vid is pretty stream-of-consciousness, but there are a few points I can elaborate on. First, if you’re gonna try these tricks (or, more preferably, your own) be prepared to break A LOT of strings and yank the bajesszus out of your throw-hand middle finger. I probably used 10 different yo-yo’s in filming this quick video and had to wrap my finger at one point (what a weeny).
One thing you’ll find is that there are some striking similarities between your everyday Stall-based play and Pocketwatches. The rhythm feels similar, but more importantly, a dead Pocketwatch can be mounted, at which point it effectively IS a stall. What’s different is that while a Stall has tons of potential energy behind it (being almost fully wound), a Pocketwatch’s energy is blocked by the string-lock. This means stuff like kickflips are possible, but anything involving a regen into another hold is more difficult. Also, whereas you can’t really do Eli Hops, Lacerations, and other “dynamic” tricks within a stall, it’s pretty easy to do them in a Pocketwatch setup, provided you’re careful about keeping things straight.
One trick that I think is worth mentioning is “Eat Pray Love”, which was developed collectively at Worlds by Nate, Drew, and myself. I love the way it goes from the Kendo prayer-catch to the “Love” hold between the elbows. It’s one of the few examples in this vid where the cinch is seamlessly integrated into the rest of the trick (the underarm cinch at 0:12 is another).
I can’t claim to know ANYTHING about the Moebius sub-style, but Pocketwatches definitely lend themselves to taking the string off your finger. I go outside for a couple of Pocketwatch Moebicides (am I using that term correctly?), and I really like the idea of looping with one hand, suiciding to the other, and then continuing to loop.
I reference one of my favorite simple kendama tricks at 1:32 in Faster Than Gravity. Snap-start into a vertical Pocketwatch, and then let the bottom fall out. The catch is actually really easy, and you can drop into a normal Trapeze or a Lunar Landing.
The wrap combo at 1:50 is also pretty fun. Needless to say, my wraps are nothing special and totally elementary, but how often can you really DO ANY WRAPS with fixed axle? Using a Pocketwatch hold enables you to forget about that whole pesky, yo-yo-must-keep-spinning issue. You can always just restart it later!
Another of my new favorites is the Hard Restart at 2:18. If you slam it straight enough and hard enough, you can blast through the string-lock you’ve created and bring a Pocketwatch immediately back to a fully-spinning Trapeze. Bear in mind, depending on your restart, the yo-yo may be spinning the regular way or in reverse when you do this. Another way to actively reengage the spin is to wind the yo-yo OVER the string-lock and do some loops, gravity pulls, or Planet Hops before SLAMMING the yo-yo down and through the cinch. Just as offstring players have shown us through the years, there is a LOT we can explore here.
Near the end, you’ll find a fun reference to Adam Brewster’s Folding Gates concept. 5 years later, I’m still fascinated by what he was doing in Bend and Fold. It’s hard to do folds with a stalled yo-yo. I messed around with this in a Tunnels context in the Static 1a Applications vid, but the yo-yo wants to squeak and squirm around so much, it’s pretty tough. But the Pocketwatch hold keeps it in line a bit, and a simple fold out of a GT Pocketwatch is pretty manageable.
Needless to say, there’s some other stuff in the vid as well, and all of it is PATENT PENDING!!! Although, I probably owe Nate royalties anyway, since it all starts with his concept. Hope you enjoy playing around with this concept. Let us know what you find in the comments!
Hi ho, everybody!
I hope it’s been an awesome week, and that you’re ready to kick off those hard shoes, slip on your best organic type-8, and rock out with a refreshing late-summer fixed axle spin session. I read someone on the internets this week describing fixed axle yo-yoing as a “current fad”. As somebody who’s been pushing it (sometimes obnoxiously) for about 7 years, part of me took that as a compliment. However, I don’t see it the same way, exactly.
To me throwing fixed axle is a two-fold path. It’s obviously a great way to connect with our heritage; with the roots of yo-yoing. Our art began on the high-friction noble disks of yesteryear, and every day I try to take time to appreciate the scope and breadth of what yo-yoing has become over almost a century of innovation. Fixed axle is also a really natural way to push forward though. Playing modern 1a is its own challenge to be sure, but sometimes it can be difficult to see the creative potential. There are so many great players throwing down so many amazing tricks these days, it’s easy (albeit unfair and untrue) to slouch into the belief that you can’t come up with anything new and significant. With fixed axles though, it feels like there is room for a game-changing trick concept almost every week. For years, wood was relegated to the creative prison of the antiquated and/or novice, which has set the stage for the revolution we now enjoy. I literally wake up in the middle of the night thinking “Oh my crap, I can just Dumptruck into that Wrist-mount!”, after which my wife slaps me. Similarly, the empty space in our fledgling fixed axle style is perpetually beating us about the head and neck, and it’s comparatively easy to feel innovative.
Has it gained popularity? Absolutely. At Worlds, pretty much everybody wanted to be Drew. I saw more butterflies and kickflip attempts than I have in summer meadows and suburban skateparks. But I like to think what we’re trying to build is not so much a fad, but a valuable and lasting counterpoint to the mainstream. If it makes you happy to feel like a hipster, go for it. But I think it’s safe to say that what we’re not trying to define ourselves against the current so much as check out newer, smaller connected streams.
In any case, this week I wanted to go back to where we started and look at a standard trick element and it’s applications to fixed axle. Going back to our original model, the video starts with basic concepts and technique, and then gets into some more interesting applications at the end. This week is all about Buckets (and their kissing cousins, Triangles).
In the initial trick, I show a pretty standard entry into a move I imagine most of you have tried by now: a Drop-in-the-Bucket Stall. Discovered by Thad Winsenz, Buckets are an essential aspect of modern string geometry, but are so ubiquitous that they often they pass almost unnoticed in freestyles. In fixed axle, they demand a bit more attention, and will readily reward the unfocused with a snag, a whack, and a knot. That said, they work great for stalls. Since a lot of the string is accounted for, you may want to practice with a slightly longer string than you typically play with in order to make sure you can regen out of the holds.
One of the key discoveries from a few years back that made Buckets way more useful was the Instamount concept. There are several ways to get into a bucket directly from breakaway (or a laceration). In the 2nd trick, I show one of my favorites. As the yo-yo comes around to your non throw-hand side on breakaway, use that non-throwhand index to pull a string segment out over your throwhand thumb and an adjacent segment with your throwhand middle finger. This will open up a nice little 3-string formation, and as you might guess, the one in the middle there makes a perfectly serviceable bucket. While the traditional mount can waste precious time, I can get directly into this version, even with an Imperial.
If you elect to hit the string closest to your body instead, you land in a really cool and immediate triangle. A Green Triangle is essentially a bucket mount minus one extra bend in the string. They have different feelings, but very similar DNA. The tough thing about triangles on fixed axle is that the doubled string at the bottom can easily cause a snag. This is usually easily avoided by reversing the yo-yo’s spin. It’s tough to see, but on that Instatriangle, I threw with a reverse breakaway for that reason.
Next up, we stall that Instabucket out in a trick I call Infinite Instants. I’ve shown a version of it before. In this one, I stall out an Instabucket, regenerate to a Man-Bro stall on the other side, rinse, repeat.
At :30, we get into what may be the ultimate Butterfly Horse trick, Manly Bucket. I have no idea who came up with this gem, but it was first shown to me by Danny Severance on his trusty purple FH2 in 2008. It took me awhile to get it dialed on a No Jive, but man – nothing feels better. It’s pretty easy in concept – just a totally traditional Bucket entry… only you have to do the whole setup during the breakaway. Not a huge problem with an unresponsive yo-yo, but a knuckle-seeking No Jive (or Danny’s FH2) will be dying to punish your hubristic hands before the yo-yo gets to your shoulder. It’s an exercise in control, and as the next few tricks show, it can be stalled out directly or after a hop.
At :50 I come back to another triangle. Though this is not a bucket, the wrist-whip which begets it demonstrates how closely related the elements are. I like this mount way more than the ever-present Brent Stole, but like that Instatriangle I showed earlier, this one will usually require a reverse throw on Breakaway.
Around the 1-minute mount, I start getting more interesting. My bearing play is replete with pinch-mounts (maybe that’s why I love Lunars so much), and this Pinch-n-Roll move is one of my favorite ways into a Spirit Bomb Wrist-Bucket. To hit that on a No jive, I find I have about 5-6 tries max before I need a new string. TMBR’s are certainly more forgiving.
Seth Peterson and John Bot taught me the pull-mount Bucket that leads to my trick Hyacinth at Indy States one year. It’s one of the most aesthetically interesting mounts I’ve ever seen. At 1:20, I go ahead and turn the thing upside down while stalling it out. Was kind of surprised to discover that it works! Anyway, I did the whole Hyacinth trick on 365, and again for my video Big Deal last week – which you should go watch!!!
Ladder Mounts I learned from Jeff Coons of the Millbury Crew. I think Andre does his a bit differently, but they arrive at the same place. The beauty of the Ladder is that most of the segments are actually “safe zones” which you can drop without a knot. Not so with this middle one, which is a true Bucket. (The segment from your throwhand thumb, incidentally, yields a triangle – go figure.)
I come back to Instabuckets at 1:39. It’s me this week, so there’s gotta be a Snap-Start trick. You could just as easily hit this from Forward Pass, but this has more panache! Same mount as that original Instabucket, but you gotta be ready to grab that segment to land it off a snap.
Last two tricks, I think, are pretty cool. It’s possible to Dumptruck out of a bucket, but I had a hard time coming up with a consistent example. Dumping INTO an Instaucket, however, is pretty simple and feels great. I’m calling them Dumptruckets©™®. (I heard what you said, Drew Tetz! Next year, all the kids will want to be ME!)
And finally, speaking of mashup repeaters, we have a trick I’m calling Planet Bombs. Basically, an alternation between a Wrist-Bucket stall and an undermount stall, this one has a distinctly Planet Hoppish feel on account of the no-flip regens so common to stall tricks.
Aaaaaaaand that’s it! I hope you found something you could sink your teeth into, conceptually. If you have a chance to explore some alternate concepts in the fine art of bucketry (or if you have some applications you hold dear), I hope you’ll let us know about them in the comments!
It’s Friday, stinkers.
As this goes to virtual press, I am almost certainly dragging my pop-up camper (with the minor assistance of my minivan) across the breadth of my beloved state of North Carolina, toward the serene inevitability of the Atlantic Ocean. But even though I’m probably two tires deep in the East Dismal Swamp – which is a very real place – we can still hang out via this column, right?
This week, I wanted to focus on things you can do when your left hand goes pins-&-needles after sleeping weird on it, while you are baking with an enormous unwieldy oven-mitt, or after you have a horribly tragic accident while juggling battleaxes. One of the great things about fixed axle (and responsive yo-yoing in general) is that even when you reduce your number of available hands by 50%, you can still have a rad session.
Most of you #fixedfriday faithful probably gravitated to “the way of the static axle” BECAUSE of the constraints, as opposed to in spite of them. That is to say, you were looking for the creative challenge inherent to short spins and tug response. Constraints are actually really good for creativity. The pseudo-defunct term “0a” refers to looping tricks done with 1 hand, which for years, was what most modern players associated with fixed axle yo-yoing. As evidenced by Drew’s Planet Hoppery a few weeks back though, there’s a lot you can do with these simple motions. Around here, we put “da funk” in defunct©™®, and the limitations of a single hand just means you have to dig a little deeper to get inventive.
Trick #1 might be old hat to you by now, but it’s worth revisiting. There’s nothing like simple inside loops to express the carefree, gleeful character of fixed axle yo-yoing. It’s THE original 0a trick. To stick a bit of a post-modern twang on it, try going right into an inverted Lunar hold after a few. Incidentally, this also works great as a means to switch from forward loops to a “downward” trick like Hop the Fence or Zipper Stalls.
So you’re down to 1 hand… but no one said anything about your legs, right? The 2nd trick is one of my most simple 365 entries from last year, Man & His Pants. The name is obviously taken from “Man and His Brother”, which itself, is short for “Man on the Flying Trapeze With His Brother”… which, when you think about it is a really weird name on par with “Seth P Makin’ Da Zines In Da Back (For Da Girls)“.
You’ll have to forgive me from 0:17 to 0:56. I received a call from my younger brother, John, and since I was doing 1-handed tricks, I elected to take it. Whatever, I can multi-task. I’m pretty sure I featured the Snap-Start move at 0:17 in my Tape Measure video, but it’s July, and who can even remember? In any case, this is actually one of my favorite Steve Brown tricks called “I Like Your Style, Ed Haponik“. Yeah, I have a Steve Brown trick named after me. My lip gloss be poppin.
Next up, we’ve got a fun fixed axle take on the classic Plastic Whip. I’m always surprised to find how few people do sidestyle P-Whips. I learned them from Shawn Fumo, and I find them so natural. They also work nicely as an intentional stall-whip. The hardest part is regenerating stably out of it.
Shoot For the Moon is probably the most wonderfully iconic, quintessentially “perfect” yo-yo trick of all. We’ve said it again and again. I could probably have saved a lot of time and flash card space by just doing a few Moons for this week and calling it a day, because you’re not going to find a better use of a free hand (stop it, you). However, on the off chance that you’re somehow sick of standard Moons and want to up the ante, try doing Over-Unders, alternating between StM and Nate Sutter’s Under the Moon variation. It’s a great way to work on improving your control.
The sequence around 0:48 is unfortunately a bit tough to see what’s happening. Essentially, you’ve got 1-hand trapeze stall, followed by a 1-hand bro stall (essentially the same “reverse Lunar” hold as described in trick #1). Then, I go back the other way to a 1-hand Double-or-Nothing stall, followed by the 1-hand equivalent of a 2.0 bro-stall. Basically this is a sort of 1-handed Rewind. You could go up to 3.0, but you start to run out of string, which is necessary for the regeneration.
At 1:02 we have another great Steve Brown trick. Steve has a great directness and simplicity to his trick construction, which is hard to find these days. I love how outside the box this catch is. Most of us want the yo-yo to keep spinning with every fiber of our being. Even in this modern fixed axle thing we’re doing, we only want the yo-yo to stop in very specific circumstances (i.e. on the string, in a stall). Whatever though. I can snap-start, so why not just catch the yo-yo in the middle of WHATEVER, knowing I can reinvigorate it a moment later. It’s a great trick.
Next up (1:09ish) is a Drewish Dumptruckish kind of thing. Just a regular breakway into a throw-hand chop stall (technically this is YET AGAIN the same catch as trick #1, but it feels different due to the breakaway). A typical Dumptruck would have the yo-yo flipping over in space before regenerating so that the spin direction change is cancelled out (that was the most insane audience-specific jargon-sentence I have ever written). In this case, you’re just turning your wrist out, which has the same effect, allowing you to continue the breakaway stalls ad nauseum.
It seems like months ago I discussed the concept of Straight-String Redirects (it was). 1:19 is another example. 1-hand undermount stalls can be tough with that pesky opposable thumb in the way. This is a great drink-in-hand-while-grilling trick – perfect for mid-summer.
The next two tricks are simple underarm things. In the absence of a 2nd hand, your arm (not unlike your leg) can be pretty useful. The first example is a simple bicep stall, which is great for showing off your guns to the ladies… who are always impressed by muscle-bound guys hell-bent on showing off their fixed axle yo-yo prowess. The second one features one of my favorite holds. I love the precision of that weird bent-arm, over-the-shoulder chopsticks catch. Especially with a wood yo-yo, if you bump it even a little, it’s going haywire. That said, it’s actually pretty easy and segues nicely into a Lunar Landing catch.
I’ve done quite a few 1-hand Stop N Go’s where you find yourself in a 1-hand trapeze, pull up into a stop, and kind of throw it back down. This one is a bit different, as it starts from a standard Plastic Whip. Definitely doable with the average fixed axle yo-yo, but balancing the tension to work for both the whip and the stop can be tough. The final trick is a sillier version of the same. I love it, but it definitely needs to be fleshed out and cleaned up. After the stop, the idea is to get the yo-yo bouncing up and down, kind of like a cross between the classic trick Frog in a Bag and Gravity Pull. Bounce as much as you like. When you release the yo-yo, it should fall free, but bear in mind the bouncing can twist the string a bit, causing it to catch a few times. It’s a work in progress.
Alright. If you’ve taken the time to work through all of that, then I’m at the beach and my camper is fully unfurled. Have a great week. I’m going surfing.
New trick from the Lodge! Great arm trick both created and taught by Chuck.
Return Top: Yeti
Trick Concept Founder: Chuck
Music: ‘It’s Nasty’ by Grandmaster Flash
Player: Chuck
CLYW player and sock enthusiast Charles Haycock gives us a solid tutorial for one of his own original trick concepts. Yoyo used is the Summit by CLYW x OneDrop.