Archives for September 14, 2013

Welcome back to Fixed… Saturday? Okay, I’m a little late this week, but I got some tricks to make up for it. Let’s take a look:

We’ve got a bit of hodgepodge this week, trickwise, but hopefully that means there’s something for everybody to learn. I opened up with a recent favorite move, “Pocketwatch with Extra Pocket,” a cheeky hybrid of Nate Sutter’s phenomenal Pocketwatch trick (discussed more in the DCUS FF article) and demonstrator classic Bank Deposit. This is a different entrance to Pocketwatch than what Isaac showed last time: rather than catching in your non-throwhand, you start to throw a 1.5, catch it back in your throw hand, and pull the string tight with your free hand. This cuts down a bit on the finger pain, and is also useful for setting up moves like this simple bouncy combo. The real highlight of the trick, though, is the drop into the pocket (a move accentuated best with a corny joke.) Swing hard to dislodge the snag, loop out, and bust some more sweet dance moves to celebrate.

Next on the chopping block we got another followup to a trick in the DCUS column, this time taking on Hank’s loop to triangle. The offhand loop wrap is a valuable weapon in the 2A arsenal, but not always the easiest first wrap to learn. I’ve been spending a lot more time throwing Duncan Imperials lately and strongly believe in the potential of mixing up looping tricks with string tricks, and this is a fairly easy trick that can really help your offhand regen mix-ups. Start with a frontstyle throw over your finger and then start a planet hop, but when the yo-yo returns twist your finger around the string so as to loop it back out. Use this hand to control the loops, maybe land in a split-bottom stall, boom!

I asked the Fixed Friday Facebook group what people wanted to learn and one of the requests was for wrist mount stalls. Jacob Jensen recently reminded me about Shawn Fumo’s extraordinary Wrist Mount Project video, so in the spirit of Mr. Fumo,  here are a few variations on the wrist mount stall for you to learn.

First, the most basic: throw lightly and navigate the strings carefully to get into a wrist mount stall, then dunk the strings and dismount like the end of spirit bomb to dissolve to a trapeze stall. The fact that the yo-yo isn’t spinning can muck things up occasionally, but hopefully muscle memory will guide you through. The next sequence is debatably even simpler, though not necessarily easier: after mounting, open the strings back up and hop the yo-yo up through the gap. While this one takes some practice, it’s very satisfying to use the wind of the stall to continue into a regen. After that, we have a variation on the first exit that minimalizes yo-yo wobbliness and adds in a bit of fancy arm movin’ to boot… but really all you’re doing is using your non-throwhand to mount the yo-yo on the string behind the wrist mount.

The next trick with the black Imperial is actually fairly tech: throw into the wrist mount, but instead of landing on the string, let the yo-yo pass on the outside and mount on your non-throwhand finger. You should be in a variation of the kink mount; don’t drop those throwhand strings unless you want a knot! My favorite exit for this is a little tricky, but very satisfying: dismount from the stall and use the momentum to maneuver the yo-yo up through the gap, undoing the kink and looking like the craziest flyaway ever. If you have a really responsive yo-yo you can loop out at the top, but if not you can try to catch it in a trapeze or whatever.

The move after this is an original one seen briefly in the DCUS video, a variation on dumptrucks through the wristmount; basically, open up the kink with your non-throwhand, turn the whole formation over, and kick the yo-yo out the bottom and back to your hand. Following that, we have an advanced variation on the bounce house trick from our “Huh? Wha?” FF segment: get in the wrist mount, pop the stalled yo-yo up into the top string, and bounce the yo-yo down and out. I end the wrist mount mini-extravaganza with a sketchy attempt at stall spirit bomb, if anybody can do it better go ahead and show me.

The next trick explores one of my recent favorite moves, the frontstyle pinwheel into shoot the moon. Pinwheeling out of a frontstyle throw gets the yo-yo right above your head and slightly in front of you, which lets you power into one of those awesome-feeling shoot the moons that passes right between your arms while barely missing your face, hopefully. It’s a little scary, and even scarier when you connect it to a behind the head stall, but I gotta do what I gotta do. The trick after that takes the danger quotient down a notch with a fairly safe & silly behind the back pocketwatch sequence that more or less speaks for itself.

The next trick in the video is fairly “tech,” in the sense that it may be too subtle to look new, but… heelflip suicides! You’re probably all familiar with kickflip suicides by now, this is their slightly more finicky younger brother, distinguished by the loop rotating the opposite direction. Throwing a loop towards your body is a little more awkward than throwing it away from your body, but I’ve found you can make it a little easier by turning your non-throwhand towards yourself for a gorilla-style stall. It can be frustrating, but really quite rewarding once you hit it.

Speaking of kickflip suicides, somebody else asked for some fixed 5A this week, so I threw in a little tribute to Singapore next: Dice thru triangle kickflips. It definitely looks like a banger, but if you’ve ever hit the original DTT then you probably have the counterweight skills necessary to hit it—just focus on getting a big floaty loop and you’re golden.

After that, a brief return to shoot the moon land: continuing the idea of “broadway shoot the moon”, a terrifying concept that Ed & Bryan got surprisingly comfortable with at Worlds, this trick has you following the yo-yo from a shoot the moon into an undermount stall… except, you have to turn your body 180 to catch it. Yikes! Watch your head, but do give it a try.

The final trick uses the most gratuitous unnecessary slomo yet, but I wanted to get all the way to the end of the song, so WHATEVER. This combo is a tribute to Jason Lee’s first chopsticks combo in Glasslab Experiment 006, one of my favorite combos ever. It opens with a dumptruck-type motion that transitions the yo-yo from the finger to the thumb, stalls over on the other hand like a trapeze-bro, then mounts back on the finger. After the final hop, I like to let the twists naturally unwind themselves, which might be construed as laziness, but hey! That ain’t happening on a spinning yo-yo, so I’ll count it as “using my tools to my advantage.”

Thanks for tuning in to this extra-long installment of Fixed Friday! I used Duncan Butterflies and Imperials. As always, post any questions in the comments, download the song off of my Soundcloud, connect with other afixianados on the FF Facebook and the Yoyoexpert fixie megathread, and have a great weekend.