figure 8 help!!!

hey everyone, i just wanted to ask you for tips on figure 8, aparently i can’t do the trick at all, i really need help on it, i’ve searched all over youtube and google and have found nothing, i think i need help from yoyoers who can do it WELL.

Here you go.

This doesn’t look the same as the Jason Lee video… unless its just not done as smooth.

Yeah, you’re right. I can do Figure 8 as well as some variations of it. It’s a hard trick to explain but some tips I have are to:

  1. Be sure to drop the single string off of your throwhand index after you hit the 1 1/2 mount.

  2. The movement is all in the wrist. You have to have the right amount of subtle movement or else the yoyo will probably reject off the string.

The movement itself is hard to explain so I suggest doing what I did and just watch Jason Lee do it and try and decipher it. It’s not too hard, I’m sure you’ll get it and be hitting it as smooth as Jason Lee soon.

2 Likes

Definitely the ‘not smooth’ point. I still haven’t mastered it, you really have to follow the yoyo with your throwhand.

1 Like

the very beginning shows you!

1 Like

MATT! youre alive! lol

i appreciate all the replys on this - i keep practicing this so i’m sure it’ll hit me eventually but right now its more hit and miss and twist

Yeah! I’m still throwing, I just don’t post much anymore but am trying to get myself back into it. I’m definitely going to try to make it to Ohio States next year, I couldn’t make it this year.

Sweet! sounds good man.

On topic: when I learned figure 8 I found it easier if I kept all the strings tight so that there was no slack at all.

1 Like

Jason still plays like he is using a tug-responsive Freehand. He keeps the slack in the string to a minimum, which is what you must do to avoid getting the string snagged and getting your fingers tagged.

That is one of the reasons everything he does appears to be impossibly smooth, and how he gives little movements like Figure 8 such a different appearance than other players.

It helped me to try to push my elbows away from my body. Also, both pointer fingers simultaneously point away from your body, then switch to pointing towards your stomach. You end up drawing little figure-8’s with them, from the 1st-person point of view.

Hope this helped. Try some variations(maybe from double-or-nothing?), and let us know what you come up with!

-Jacob

1 Like

Is it some kind of invert?

I truthfully do not know what you are trying to describe with “invert”, but I credit my own ignorance of the terminology of yo-yo-moves.

But the trick is a little repeater, that is performed exactly how it looks like. It actually is pretty easy to learn, if you get to see somebody perform it slow, choppy, and sloppy.
White Buddha mount, keep the yo-yo going the same direction, curl your fingers in, pass on the inside of the arms, then point your fingers out and pass outside of the arms. And repeat.

The magic of the “flair” it has stems from how the yo-yoer applies their own personal execution to the two simple movements, and the timing and rhythm/spacing between them.

Youtube search “Jason Lee Figure 8” brings up a list of plenty of tutorials, and the ones that actually have Jason performing his trick in them are by the username Citadel712. There are ~20 variations that have been filmed and posted.

-Jacob

Try this, I worked it into a combo and I think I explained it better in this one.

1 Like

Yeah the biggest thing I found I was doing wrong was that when i would make that first swing inside my arms after the 1.5 mount i wasn’t swinging out far enough past my NTH and it either would cause an extra twist when landing back into the 1.5 mount or the string would reject off. I can do it pretty good now