I’m curious lately how many people actively practice 2a, or even single handed looping. I have dabbled for quite a while now and made close to zero real progress. Sometimes it works (kinda), most of the time it doesn’t, but either way I have no real discernible reason why. For those of you who have actually managed to improve, was there something that clicked at some point that made it all come together? It seems to me that looping is such a subtle art that it is difficult to verbalize or write about the nuances in an effective way for newcomers to understand. I won’t say “you got it or you don’t” but it seems like that sometimes.
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The best advice i’ve heard regarding 2A is to only practice perfect loops. Meaning if the yo-yo goes sideways don’t continually try to correct it - Return it to your hand and start with a new throw. I think it helps, you spend your time focusing on how to properly loop instead of practicing how to correct bad loops.
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Try this… Shawn Fumo’s Looping Guides
He also gives the advice: One piece of advice that everyone seems to come up with is “Only Practice Good Loops”.
I do one handed looping and related stuff a lot. Still not that good at some of it.
As with most yoyo tricks, it’s all practice (I know, it’s the pat answer).
I have been playing 2A for a couple years now…not SERIOUSLY, maybe a couple hours a week on average. I can loop left-or right-handed. (My current hang-up is both at once.) The previous advice sounds solid to me–if your loop starts to feel wonky or you realize you’re not timing it quite right–grab the yoyo and start over. Being able to do a snap-wind or a similar trick for quickly rewinding a yoyo is a big time-saver, too. I am trusting that you have mastered the forward pass, which is essential for looping.
Try practicing hop the fence too, I found that quicker to master than looping and it was a big help to me. It’s the same form as looping but you have gravity working for you. And make sure you’re working with a good, very responsive looping yoyo. Keep the bearing well-lubed with thick lube and change your string frequently. Nylon string such as Kitty string works best. Fresh strings have a nice bounce for looping.
Hope this helps! Good luck and keep practicing!
I have a go at it every now and then. It is a frustrating exercise usually. I can often do 10 decent loops but after that it gets messy. The lack of good tutorials does not help. I am not really sure what I need to change to improve beyond putting in my 10,000 practice loops!
Do any of y’all have your own definition of what you think is “perfect” looping? I know some guys keep the yoyo slightly off vertical axis when
A slight tilt is the most stable position for looping. Tilt right to about 1 o’clock for RH loops, tilt left to about 11 o’clock for LH.
A perfect loop for me is w/the slight tilt as noted, and the yoyo doesn’t dive going out or climb coming back. The dive or climb is more of a function of string thickness and gap size, so tuning the yoyo to eliminate that is part of learning loops and makes them more consistent.
Kent’s tutorial helped so much since he actually shows a POV.
Advice:
-work your weak hand as much as your dominant hand.
-carry a looper everywhere so you can practice every chance you get.
Yeah that was one of the better tutorials I’ve come across, thanks. Haven’t had a chance to try it yet but looking forward to it. I had always wondered at what point I should be starting the wrist flick to initiate the loop and I think his video is the first I’ve seen to actually call that out
the yotricks videos helped me a lot. I got a Deep State recently and it’s such a pleasure that I’ve been doing a lot more responsive throwing than usual.
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Two years ago I actually got good at one handed looping. Proper hand movement, nailing 25 good loops each time. Then I just lost it and it was all fails and / or bad loops or just corkscrews. I never got it back and rarely practice looping anymore since the fear of getting it and then losing it again haunts me. Even one handed looping, in my opinion, is waaay harder than 1a. Maybe that’s why we don’t hear about it very often. The precision and repitition can be very daunting.
I learned by exaggerating certain movements to see how the effect the loops. For example flicking your wrist harder causes the yoyo to tilt towards 12 o clock. I can’t loop with both hands together yet but I’ve only tried putting them together for the last two weeks
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I have experimented with different string lengths.
Different string lengths mainly effects whether you loop up or down and the size of your loops
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Agreed, but I had great success with straight-out looping using a much shorter string than I use for 1a. This was from the advice of 2a people. I think it all depends on personal preference and what gets a person to the point where a person can successfully execute proper looping.
I want to get into 2a, but not sure how. as of now, i have two yomega brains i use. not the best, but its all i got at the moment. the yoyo keeps turning and flopping. im not sure if its my yoyos or my throw.
btw i use slick 6 if that helps. whats wrong?
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More than likely a bit of both, but more that the yoyo is holding you back. Yomega brains are not good for 2A (or much of anything else for that matter), they are really designed to mostly go down and return easily, basically a down and up player. Not saying they can’t be used but the clutch mechanism makes it difficult to do decent loops, especially for a beginner.
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ah. okay thanks. I know that in 2a your supposed to use two same yoyos. at the moment, my other choice is using a yomega raider and a yomega fireball. but they respond very differently though
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The approach I would take is to get decent at one handed loops with either hands. Either the raider or the fireball are good for that. Whatever one you use be sure to keep the bearing lubed so the response is good. (The sleeve bearing in the fireball is commonly referred to as a bearing.) Once you get confident at using either hand, then move on to two handed loops. I personally like raiders but most people are moving to the yoyofactory loop series of loopers.
There’s a nice selection here: 2A - Looping Yo-Yos – YoYoExpert
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Yeah - Loop 360 are really great for learning basics loops on without breaking the bank. They are lightweight and really consistent:
Loop 720 are also great - they are like Raiders except really setup to stay responsive and again consistent - also great for learning on:
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