Any tips for snap starting?

Yo-Yo Tricks
1

The title says it all. Thanks :smiley:

2

Well…from a guy who just started getting it down in the last week…

Practice while holding the string only about two inches from the throw. It will be much more stable this way…even on a sub-par snap. And you can sit on the couch/in the car/whatev and practice it. As I got better, I moved up about 6 inches, then…well, you get the idea.

-bpg
aka “Snaptastic”

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3

Practice with a dead yoyo.

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4

Learn it on a responsive yoyo first. Just start snapping it and when you can get it to climb all the way up the string you’ve probably got it down well enough to spin an unresponsive yoyo hard enough to get a good bind off it.

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5

To do this I usually put my thumb in the area near the bearing kinda in that gap area and usually I put lots of pressure in that area. make sure your middle finger or pointer finger is touching the string that finger. Your middle finger shouldn’t be on the same side as the thumb to get a maximum pressure to do it. :wink: once you get that down from that area it will set you up to do that snap

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6

yoyo with no caps usually helps

7

qft

8

Go find yourself a smaller yoyo ~50mm. It’s easier for me to snap start my cafe race/dv888 rather than a Code 2/DM2

9

It takes a lot of practice. When I first learned it, I couldn’t figure it out, but every time, I got better. When I first began attempting the snap start, I would only get the yoyo about half way up the string, but with practice, I am now able to get it all the way up. There aren’t really any tips that I know of, just practice it a lot. You’ll get it eventually.

10

Make sure you have mastered binding first! If you haven’t then you are getting a little ahead of your self. It can be almost not moving at all and you should still be able to get it back up no prob.

11

I could not get thumb start.

I could do a two finger start though. It uses the middle and the pointer finger. I find it gives more grip compared to thumb start.

12

Mostly this.

But I got a great tip from Yuki in my own “snap start tips” thread-- also rotate your wrist back more in an exaggerated way, and rotate it forward along with your snap to give it just that little extra kick. I don’t really need to do this anymore, but it sure helped.

As DEADLY_SpINS mentions, master the simple front bind. Know it like it’s nobody’s business. This is really the key to it all. However, with a low-rpm spin, I find there are two related things to keep in mind:

  1. Make a silly-long loop. Like, bring your NTH almost all the way up to your TH before binding. Don’t expect it to work with the same small loops you would use to bind a rapidly-spinning yoyo.

  2. As it’s on the way up the string, lift UP (counter-intuitively) and then as the momentum starts to die, move your hand back down toward the yoyo. The initial upward motion helps impart some more momentum to the bind, and the downward motion lets you finish the bind and grab the yoyo.

Regarding thumb/two-finger starts: I can do this with responsive yoyos all day long. But for unresponsive, it makes the throw spin in reverse. You can still bind this way, but I prefer binding the expected way rather than having to mount the yoyo backwards. So in short: I would skip past thumb/two-finger starts and just keep practicing the snap start.

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13

flat rims make it a bit easier, it takes a little while to get it consistent but you just have to persevere.