So, I’ve had straight-up fingerspins licked for a long time now. Matador style, no problem at all. Other yoyos, I can hop up at a slight angle, and the yoyo will spin along nicely until it eventually dies or until I whip-bind it.
However,
I’ve seen plenty of videos in which the person doing the fingerspin is virtually horizontal instead of off at an angle like me. I don’t get how the yoyo stays spinning like that! For me, it lasts a mere moment and then the yoyo gets all nutty and goes all around my fingertip, quickly bumping up against the finger and then wobbling out.
What’s the technique I’m missing here? Is there a way to correct if you think it’s starting to veer off course and get nutty?
I’m not spinning 100% on my fingernail, although it is MOSTLY fingernail. I don’t keep my nails long enough to prevent a little bit of the fingertip from touching, though my skin is also dry and fairly tough from guitar-playing so it’s not a “grabby” surface.
So aside from potentially needing to use more fingernail if possible, are there any other hints?
Yeah for my finger spins I bend my finger with the Yoyo on it a little so my Yoyo is near my knuckle a little bit more so it’s upright a little bit more. Now obviously keeping the Yoyo centered is obvious but my Yoyo has a spike in the middle so keeping my finger bent a little bit helps.
Thanks, Abby. A lot of the time, the yoyo isn’t centered (like when there’s a spike or nipple!) and a lot of the videos you can see the finger isn’t in the middle of the hub. Yet they’re not spinning/wobbling out!
How long is the yoyo spinning when it goes full horizontal? The length really depends on the yoyo. For me, it ranges from 2 seconds to around 8 seconds, depending on the yoyo when it goes full horizontal.
When it goes full horizontal, is it spinning around your finger steadily, or is it just spinning really fast out of control and dies in like a second or two?
Using all fingernail definitely helps. If your nails aren’t long, you can just bend your finger a little to reduce the amount of skin touching the yoyo as you fingerspin.
Are you trying to make your fingerspins longer when it’s full horizontal because it looks better? Or is it because when you fingerspin the yoyo eventually turns horizontal and spins out on you? If it’s the latter, once it goes full horizontal, you can give a slight tug with the string to tilt the yoyo again
Or, you could get a Mo-vitation/Titan3/Prodigy/etc. and eliminate the issue all together
Well, generally 3 or 4 seconds, but I’d rather just hop it up full horizontal to begin with. It seems to be a done thing!
Fast, out of control, dies.
Partly these things. But also if I want to hop back and forth between hands, it will be helpful to have “truly horizontal” control. It’s mostly about hopping off my finger and then landing it back on again. So like, tossing it under a leg and then catching it. The guys that have these tricks at their disposal aren’t very tilted, and I somewhat associate the horizontal nature of their spins with their ability to hop that yoyo all around.
It seems counter to some of my goals, but certainly helpful for not spinning out. I’ll give it a go.
I’m not entirely convinced it’s the yoyo’s fault. I’ve used a Mo-vitation and experienced the same problem. I have a Prestige, but the “landing zone” is too small for me to even consider hopping it around. I think the Prodigy would be the same. Prestige is fun for matador to fingerspin, though… and it’s easy to stay horizontal. I just can’t hop between fingers. Even with the Mo, the goal isn’t to get your finger into the center dimple, but the channel that goes around that bump in the middle.
Thanks for the tug idea. I’ll see what I can do with that.
The first thing in doing Horizontal Finger grinds is the throw. If you throw a good horizontal throw and you are able to pick it up before the tension of the string starts spinning away, you will get a great grind. It takes a lot of practice as well. Back in 2013 when I first started I only could last 5 seconds or so. Now it is at least 8. So just practice makes perfect.
One more thing… Make sure your string will not come to close to the yoyo. Or else you will get painful fingers
Interesting… Maybe you just need some practice. Maybe it’s technique or something, because I’m not sure why, but my fingerspins are a little longer than a while back, even though I dont feel like I’m doing anything different.
You could try a Duncan Strix. It’s not a concave spot sticking out from the center but they made the flat center pretty small so it still minimizes the spinning so fingerspins are longer.
Maybe I just have my expectations set wrong? 5 second fingerspins are no real problem. I mean, I can hop up, fingerspin, watch it go around, and whip it before it dies. I’m a “basic fingerspin to bind” hipster… was one of the first tricks I learned ages ago that could impress non-beginners.
But that’s not what I want to do. I want to do some of that next-level fingerspin (“horizontal grind”) stuff, not just watch it spin on my finger until it’s in danger and then rescue it.
There are other videos that are even smoother, but this is the recent one that popped into my head:
He’s not always perfectly horizontal, but notice even when it’s a bit “wobbly” it’s still fairly horizontal and he has good control of it. But there are some parts where it’s virtually horizontal and still spinning smooth without danger of touching a finger and dying out. This is what I’m trying to do. The sequence at 1:15 doesn’t get wobbly until right before bind.
Ethan himself is showing how the yoyo is meant to revolve around the finger, and he demonstrates it… you can see that it’s not centered. And yet, it’s also not dying out! I know the Mo is designed with fingerspins in mind, but it’s not the only yoyo that can do it… most of the guys doing “horizontal grind” tricks are not in fact using Mo, but a variety of yoyos with a flat cup area.
Man… that first video really makes me want to get that yoyo
As for Ethan I always thought he didnt fingerspin using the dimple because its too difficult to todo it consistently when he’s doing all the hops, tosses, and other crazy stuff with fingerspins.
Some yoyos fingerspin longer than others. My Summit fingerspins 5-7 seconds while an Irony JP I tried did twice that if not more.
Well Im not really seeing a problem. If you can get 5 seconds on most any yoyo then you should be able to get noticeably longer fingerspins on something like a cliff or an irony
But the title of the thread isn’t “how to go longer” but rather, “how to keep more horizontal”. Being able to spin longer but still at a relatively steep axis isn’t going to help me hit those tricks like in those videos.
I understand the problem. I would try to hop the yoyo onto your finger only once the yoyo is 100% horizontal. It should be doing a UFO type motion then hop it on. Hope it helps!
Yeah, when fully horizontal with the good “horizontal grind” players you can see that the yoyo isn’t necessarily perfectly centered-- it circulates around the tip of the finger here and there. Ethan demonstrates the motion with a non-spinning yoyo in the video above. But when this happens for me it just totally dies.
but you can still do hops with the yoyo slightly tilted