2A Discussion Thread

General Yo-Yo
461

The 1080s are great for beginners, just that you have to be ready to buy new ones as the 1080s might break when you play them as they are kind of fragile. I would suggest a pair of vortexes to start off with, since they require little maintenance and are playable out of the box.

But 1080s are great as well and are currently my main 2A throw.

2A really isn’t as hard as people make it out to be, it just requires perseverance. It only took me 4 months to nail my milk the cows and double loop the loops, im also even nearing mastering my vertical punches and fountain.

462

I wish there are more 2a players in this era.

463

What are your thoughts about Duncan Pulse as compared to Yoyofactory Loop 808. When I use Loop 808 it feels like too slim and it doesn’t flip while looping. When I do 1 loop with it and catch the string is on the upper side and can barely do 2 loops. While with Duncan Pulse almost did 10 loops do you think that its because of the shape difference. And Loop 808s axle is just a bit bent do you think this affect performance?

464

The thing about 2a, every different yoyo will play differently just like in 1a. However in 1a with different yoyos you generally don’t need to change how you play, while 2a requires you to adjust your technique (move your fingers differently) for different setup/different yoyo, otherwise it won’t loop properly. Once you are really able to loop, you can loop pretty much any looping yoyo.
If you can loop certain yoyo and not the others, chances are you are still unable to control the loop, simply the yoyo setup might just suits how your hand moves while the other does not.

I had some tips:
I think loop numbers doesn’t really matter and one should not practice or judge how good someone is by how many loops he can do. Instead focus on controlling the tilt well, the yoyo on your right hand should tilt slightly to the right relative to the string, and the yoyo on the left tilted slightly to the left relative to the string. It can be seen in two ways:

  1. Straight loops, yoyos tilted outwards (right tilt right, left tilt left).
  2. Tilted loops, straight yoyos (the loops are tilted inwards on purpose so that the player can focus on the straight yoyos). This is basically the same, the yoyo on the right hand actually tilted to the right, but the loop is tilted to the left so the yoyo goes straight instead.
    One of the most important thing that is usually left behind is how your hand moves while looping. Bad hand movements = bad loops. Watch many high level 2a players and try to mimic their hands, you’ll notice that they barely flip their palm (most beginners mistake is to twist their hands around in circular motion instead of soft and controlled flick) the power is mainly from the finger and wrist, not arms.
    Your yoyo MUST be able to sleep quite easily, otherwise you don’t learn anything, believe me on this. Don’t, in any case, lock the yoyo setup so that it cannot sleep as to make looping easier. Locked up yoyos will help bad loops, but don’t teach you good loops. In fact, once you can loop with a properly setup yoyos, it’s actually more difficult to loop locked up yoyos.
    One indication of a good setup is you don’t hear loud screeching noise from the string rubbing the response, but rather clean high pitched sound coming from the bearing. Bad setup sounds like “creech creech creech” while good setup is like “piii piii piii”
    Turns out I wrote too much than I expected ha
2 Likes
465

Good side of the force : piii pii piii
Wrong side of the force : creech creech creech
:slight_smile:

My loops were great like 2 months ago,i was able to double loop pretty good but now i lost it,i’m selling my 1080s and i think i will mod some fireball because i feel like the 1080s are to slow and in part because fireball are 3$ at my target

466

And do you think that Loop 808 its not flipping because of axle bent?

467

Nope, bent axle don’t affect how the yoyo flips, your skill does. Practice more and you’ll eventually get it.

1 Like
468

A 1a player would throw a fit if they bent their axle.

469

Bump bdump.

470

Wow it has been almost a year.
It’s kinda frustrating that there is not many high level 2a players in the world, let alone in this forum, and most of them are Japanese which doesn’t seem to talk on forums much.
Even I’m not really good at 2a, I still know better about 2a than most players around here (my country), heck I’m probably the only one who is still doing it all these years. Others are the usual ‘try few months then give up’ kinda people. Whenever I had questions or difficulties, I pretty much had to solve it myself, and it’s frustrating sometimes.
Now I’m working on perfecting certain loop combos that sometimes mess up, vertical punches, more loop wraps variation, tangler, behind the back loops, getting the feel of that certain fence combo that goes outside-outside, and learning the exit for fence wraps. From there my goal is more complex loop and fence wraps, tangler variations, and some clione based tricks.

471

I still do 2a😀
https://www.instagram.com/p/BFCUh8RuaiO/?taken-by=parvarsingh_
https://www.instagram.com/p/BErLRoIuarr/?taken-by=parvarsingh_
https://www.instagram.com/p/BEjiZrYuajO/?taken-by=parvarsingh_

472

Yeah, what I meant was in my country. Re-reading my previous post I forgot to add that, my bad.

473

Well, the trick ladder at the California State Yoyo Championship use to be 25 1A tricks and 25 2A tricks so I started trying to learn 2A. But now I don’t even see the trick ladder offered. In any case, that’s why I wanted to learn 2A, so I can learn the full trick ladder.

Of all the advice in these 30+ pages of comments I think the best was to keep my hand facing down. I kept wanting to make my throw, turn my hand palm up like I was going to catch the yoyo, and then flipping the yoyo around my hand while turning it palm down again. Keeping my hand palm down seems to be working a bit better for sure. But I have to admit, when it does work, I don’t understand why or what I did differently. I’m just trying to be aware of what it feels like when it does work and then try to make the loops feel that way consistently.

474

There is a certain… how should I say, ‘attack angle’, where the best spot is. Like, how you push the string against the yoyo.

I know this probably seems like too much detail for something that looks simple, and normally you don’t think about this at all, it just happens. However, I learned this the hard way after looping the wrong way and having to unlearn for years, I personally prefer if someone did tell me this way.

(Normally the yoyo on the right hand is not only tilting to the right but also very slightly turning left, but it’s not important.)

You want to push about under the tilting side of the yoyo depending on which hand, almost like ‘hugging’ the yoyo. For the right hand it works like this (when the yoyo is near your wrist). This is the closest I could explain with a 2d picture.

Red is where you normally push on.

If for some reason the yoyo starts tilting more to the left, you’ll want to straighten it up by pushing like the blue color below slightly downward. Keep in mind that you’re attacking based on the yoyo direction, not the loop direction.

Turning your loop direction to the left suddenly can also cause the yoyo to tilt to the left, and vice versa. In order to turn properly, you need to prepare.

Green is a little bit tricky to explain but actually I feel the easiest. If the yoyo starts tilting to the right, you’ll want to slightly ‘pull’ the loops upwards, as if holding the yoyo from tilting further.

A good way to learn this is to loop in one direction, say facing to the north. From there gradually start turning 180 degrees while still doing loops so you end up facing south. Do this in both directions. For the first time, just focus on getting the tilt right and do very small turns at at time. Once you can do this easily, you have mastered loops.

I hope that helps.

1 Like
475

THIS ^^^^^^ started making sense to me last night. I was actually feeling how applying pressure at different points was correcting the tilt.

Then I tried outside loops and it all went downhill :stuck_out_tongue:

But it makes sense. For a short time I was totally understanding what you’re depicting in that image.

476

Just found this thread for the first time. I have been thinking about trying 2A, what is a good starter set for a total newb at 2A? I have done 1A a good bit though if that makes any difference

477

Unlike 1a, there is nothing as ‘beginner’ set 2a yoyos. You could start with a pair of any well known 2a yoyos and still using them in the next few years. The only difference is probably the setup, where beginners tend to have narrower gap to make loops easier and more forgiving.
My only advice is set it up at least wide enough to keep the yoyo spins cleanly without grinding the string. Don’t get tempted to narrow the gap, but instead work on doing better loops.
2a takes time but it’s worth it.

478

Great! Thanks for the advice

479

I know this thread isn’t as active but

has anyone tried the C3yoyodesign Initiator? And are they any good if you’re just starting out? I couldn’t find any reviews on this yoyo. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!

480

This thread is still active, it’s just there isn’t many people talking about 2a in the first place.

As far as playability concerned, they are great. I only tried for a few minutes with other person’s setup, so I don’t know much.