How do you remember tricks / learn the steps that make up a trick?

Yo-Yo Tricks
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I’m not quite sure how to phrase this question – I’m still a beginner, going through the basic tricks on the (edit: another site) ‘1a’ list, and while I’m making progress, I find that I keep forgetting tricks I’d previously learned. For example, ‘skin the gerbil’ – I could do that one while I was following the tutorial, but now it’s a couple of months later, and it’s completely gone from my mind; it looks familiar when I watch it and I think I can do all the elements, but I couldn’t tell you the actual sequence of moves involved any more.

This also makes it difficult to learn more complex things, because just remembering all the steps is a problem, let alone doing them.

How do people keep this sort of thing clear when learning tricks/combos? Do you think “breakaway, yoyo goes clockwise around index finger on non-yoyo hand, then reverse direction over ring finger, comes under yoyo hand, around the wrist and onto the second string” (or whatever it is), at that level of detail, or is it “trapeze to brother to 1 1/2 mount (or whatever)” (and if so, how do you handle new elements that aren’t part of a smaller trick). Or do you, I dunno, mentally play back a video, or have a series of images in your mind, or mentally hear someone reading out the transcript of a tutorial, or something else?

Pausing/unpausing videos is a pain when my hands are wrapped in string, so I keep on wanting to try and come up with some sort of notation for yoyo tricks so I could get everything written down and just look at the description when I’m learning, but there doesn’t seem to be a standard way to do that. Every time I start trying to make one, I realise how many things would need to be covered for ‘which finger the string goes around’ or ‘which string does the yoyo land on’, etc. (and there’s also the fiddly details ike ‘make sure the string is at the front/back of your fingers’, or ‘use the ring/middle finger on your yoyo hand to keep the string out of the way’, etc)

I don’t expect there’s one simple answer, I’m just hoping to avoid having to learn things by brute force repetition if there’s a better way to remember stuff. (and keep it remembered)

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I think a lot of its repitition and muscle memory. Once you have done the same trick so many times you can execute it without thinking about it. Many good yoyo players will perform their tricks while looking at the audience or camera and appear to be doing the tricks without thinking about it, muscle memory.

I think of a good musician playing a live concert, they have played these parts and practiced so much they can interact with the croud and not have to really think about it too much.

I believe the elemnts you perform most often will be commited to muscle memory over time. Tricks you do a few times but not regulalry you may forget. The musician may know the current set list very well, but to play some of those songs from 20 years ago they may have to revisit them. All of this is solely my opinon, hope it helps some.

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A lot of videos you see will have people in them who have been yoyoing for years. People build their own style and use the tricks that suit them over time. Some people can pick things up very quickly, but for many its a grind over many years building you own set of tricks you like and commit to muscle memory.

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I find the best way for me to remember tricks is to go from mount to mount (even if they’re not always common mounts). So essentially every trick has little “checkpoints” that I (try to) keep track of. I find this also helps for trying to combine tricks, when I find an element that is similar or puts me into the same mount as another checkpoint, that makes it easier to chain them together. At the end of the day, there is no replacement for intentional practice to learn a new trick/element. Our brains are naturally good at picking up patterns and will work to make a new pattern familiar, it just takes some time to make those pathways in the ol mushy computer :brain:

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I have a list of all the tricks I know and whenever I do a throwing session I’ll “warm up” by going through the list and doing each trick once. It’s getting tedious as I learn more tricks but I think it helps. I might start cycling out tricks I don’t need to remember soon though.

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3 things

Repetition

Repetition

Repetition

You have to do things slowly until you can do them without thinking.

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When I’m learning a new trick, I break it down into sections and learn each section individually before linking them together and working on the flow of the trick. Each section usually begins and ends in some kind of mount so there’s a start and end point. This way helps me to figure it out easier and then, as a bonus, I can use each of the individual sections as elements to be used in my own tricks and combos.

As far as remembering tricks, like the others said, it comes down to repetition. If I don’t do one for a while, I will usually have to go back and look at a tutorial to jog my memory. If I really enjoy a trick or element, I’ll have done it so many times that I can usually hit it every time without even looking or thinking about it.

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Also, try not to get bogged down overthinking it. I just had this realization myself. I’m the type of person who analyzes my next 10 steps before i even take the first one. Turns out this isn’t that kind of activity. It’s like everyone says, it’s just a toy. Play with it. Everything else will fall into place as long as you’re having fun. I know it sounds hokey but it really is that simple. Like everyone has said, repetition breeds mastery. Your muscles will learn and remember. And every once in a while i get the feeling like I’m forgetting tricks, and I’ll go back through the list of tricks on yye tutorial page or the trick ladder or some similar list. Sometimes it turns out I’ve forgotten about a trick i havent worked on lately, but also I’ve found another funny thing happening; i find the better i get at tricks, the faster i can run through them. My entire trick lexicon appears very small leaving me going “wait, that’s all the tricks i know?!” At that point i pick a new trick to learn thats kool looking and has elements and mounts that can be used with others to form combos, just like the others have pointed out.

Tldr: just keep going. You’ll forget, you’ll remember, you’ll make up new tricks eventually and build your own style and flow. But it all stems from having enough fun with your throw that you spend time playing with it. As one beginner to another, dont think, just throw! Good luck!

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9

I mean there is no hack to make you remember tricks. Usually if I can remember the first few elements I will remember the trick. I also learn and forget a ton of tricks. There are some tricks I want to remember so I practice them more. For the most part though if I learn a trick then I’ve learned the yocabulary and can incorporate that when I’m just vibing and playing yoyo. Some harder elements I like to practice a lot bc they’re hard and I don’t want to lose them but for easier tricks I know I can relearn them at any time and not have trouble. I will say it does get easier to learn and then remember tricks with practice like learning and remembering is a skill and you will improve at it if you keep doing it.

For learning tricks I go slow like element by element and then by the end I’ll have a good sense of what the trick is and don’t need to think as much as when I first started it. I wouldn’t try to add too many steps at once though bc it can be too much mental accounting.

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Write them down and add a link to the video for easy access. Its frustrating when you can’t find the tutorial you’re looking for. Circle back every so often to “relearn”.

You’re going to forget, there’s no way around that. As you repeat them it will get easier, that muscle memory will kick in they’ll just happen. It’s cool too as you can come back to some of the tricks you couldn’t quite get, all of a sudden they are no problem.

I get frustrated because I can’t remember the names to tricks! lol.

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Thanks, everyone! It seems like I just have to work harder/practise more, so fair enough, I can certainly do that.

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just blame it on your underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, nah i’m just kidding, i learn them elements by elements, so sometime in a tutorial there will be steps, so watch the whole tutorial first, stand up, pick your yoyo, forgot about the first step and watch the first step and replicate it, then bind your yoyo, watch the 2nd step then do 1st and 2nd step simultaneously, eventually you’ll do the whole trick, and once you learn the whole trick do it again and again for that whole day, and do it atleast once a day the day after, and the day after, that way you won’t forget about it

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I would suggest teaching every trick you learn even if you private the videos. This enables you recall the tricks better and know the steps. Watching tutorials before attempting the trick makes things go smoother too. If you can’t remember skin the gerbil, that’s a problem bro. I ran into the problem of forgetting which direction my GTs go out from. Making a simple sheet of tricks grouped into their respective mounts is a must!!

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Meant the playlist not the breakaway trick. Jacob had a good way of organizing back then, a new player can learn a lot of fundamentals.

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