I can go on youtube, find a tutorial, and learn pretty much any trick in 10-30 minutes and have it memorized. But I can’t make my own. At first I could, then after 2 years it was hard, now I havent for some time. I know the usual do random things and stuff, but it is always a boring gt in the end, or an hourglass type thing. I just cant make up elements that look cool. It is so frustrating, I have yoyoed 3 years, and can do any trick on youtube at a certain speed of course, but can’t make my own. I have actually stopped competitions completely. I used to go to 4-6 a year, now I went to Indiana States and thats it. Please help, I stopped for 5 months until after christmas, and really want to keep yoyoing. I am not at the thought of quitting, but I love meeting people, and I don’t want to go and not compete.
I’m definitely not as good as you are, but I know I learn a lot more by learning basic pieces instead of tricks. You’re not looking to usually make elements, but find new ways to put them together, and I feel the simpler things in yoyo’ing might bring out some new ideas if you revisit them.
Well, whenever I make up a trick, it’s usually during the learning process of a tough trick. I’ll miss the mount or do something wrong and it’ll end up really cool! That’s my advice because whenever I think I’m never gonna make up another trick I always do!
Thanks. I think my problem is I see these simple things that people just do to"Waste TIme" like an extra spin or hit this string ,spin then reverse it all, I guess I just want my parts to count towards the trick. Tomorrow, music on, yoyo spinning, all day.
I know this isn’t the advice you want to hear, but it’s a thought I’ve had a few times when I’ve seen threads like this one:
If you watch any kind of event featuring choreographed routines, the individual elements are not all unique to the competitor. Take figure skating: any given routine is going to feature essentially the same jumps, with very little variation. Gymnastics floor event; you’re going to have to perform certain elements and if you’re lucky you’ll chain them together in a passably artistic way (but not usually).
Even something closer to our own interests: freestyle BMX (or fixie) tricks and skateboarding tricks. There’s room for innovation I suppose, but there are still a finite number of tricks that elite competitors will pull out, and maybe on occasion they’ll add a new one to surprise the spectators.
Why insist on making every single piece of a routine a personal one-of-a-kind trick? Why not put together tried and true elements in new ways, and execute them with conviction and style? I would rather see an expertly-performed Yuuki Slack or Paul Han laceration then some hourglass thing where a few of the string hops are unique. I don’t even spot the uniqueness in most of these string hopping/underpassing tricks. I might sense that something is somehow different, but for the most part I think to myself, “Ugh, another 30 seconds of two hands close together with 5 string segments and a yoyo bouncing all over the place.”
This is all the opinion of a relative “outsider”… I’ve NEVER made my own trick, will never compete, and am happy just to mess around. So I can’t pretend to know how you feel. But I do think that taking 10-30 minutes to “learn a trick” is a different thing than mastering a trick that impresses you and then mastering it to make it your own. Look for opportunities in nuance rather than creating “from scratch” just for the sake of it.
Thanks a lot Greg! Those words have wisdom. You have kind of just changed my thinking. Although I will still make up my “own” tricks, I will focus more on combining used elements rather than making it up completely.
I’ve had a problem where I’ll create a trick that ends the same way as a lot of players or looks similar to a lot of players styles/tricks, that’s why I’ve changed my style 3 times from technical to weird stuff to simple yet flashy and this time it’s sticking.
I just do repeaters because they’re fun even when I compete, I mean you don’t see very many people on-stage doing repeaters because it doesn’t rack up very many points. One thing I do is getting inspired by someone who doesn’t compete often or at all (Spencer Berry for example) so that when I make my own variant of a trick they’ve made or take an element from a trick they’ve made It’s different then most people who study off of players that compete.
I may not be helping at all but I’m just explaining something that’s happened to me and what I did to correct my issue. Hope this helps though! Just find someone who’s style you really dig and copy a thing or two from them and then you’ll start developing more stuff.
Sometimes thats just what happens. Ive gone months without creating a single trick. Other times i end up making combos every single day that are prettdifferent. It gets really frustrating when you wantowni and you cant do it. Sometimes my process is to stop yoyoing for a couple days. It kills me i.side since its become almost like an extention of my body, but i usually come up with new tricks on the spot when i havent yoyoed for a couple days.
Thanks for all the replies! I am going to just wake a few elements, and recycle a few. I am also going to be focusing my style on being slow but making everything blend together very smoothly.
I am not all that great ( have not thrown in a year ) but whenever I want to make tricks I watch Guy Wright. He does so much off the wall stuff. And that is the style I have come to prefer myself. Technical but not insanely fast.
I think it’s worth noting that there are shades of grey between making up new “tricks” and making up new “combos”. I’m certainly not the one to judge when a trick stands on its own, but for example: when I do Kwyjibo I usually just hop right to the cross-arm trapeze thing and go from there; then at the end I typically go from the trapeze to a Jade Whip before the bind. It’s not canonical Kwyjibo, but I wouldn’t call it a new trick either. I also wouldn’t be the first person to transition from Kwyjibo into the Matrix, but are we making a new “trick”? I wouldn’t say so.
That’s not meant towards you specifically, MYNAMEISZen, though obviously your post is what triggered the thought.
