Hello everyone in April there will be the national yoyo contest in Uk and I was thinking to participate at the contest as contestant and not only just to to go and have fun with the people.
I did 3 contest before but I always went there randomly with no preparation just pick up a song and go in freestyle, just for the fun of it.
I wanted to ask if any of you have experience with contest and how to prepare for it, will be interesting to have a “guide” from people that know seriously how to do it also to control the adrenaline and the perfomance anxiety which I always fight about with classical music exams and overcome just with experience.
Also if there are any tips and tricks and how and what to choose to make points!
I will try to do my best mate, I would like some tips to see if I can get properly ready for once
I noticed that filming my combo very frequently and playing in front of people help for the stage anxiety (is the same as music) but I am curious to see if there are some tricks also how to prepare the routine!
Put together a series of tricks that you are comfortable with and fill up the amount of time required for your freestyle. Practice your freestyle for a couple of hours a day for as long as you can before the contest. You need to start thinking about your entire routine as a single trick, if you can’t complete the entire routine without errors you haven’t completed the “trick” without errors. Try to end with a banger, a hard/flashy trick that will seal up the routine. I found it’s not really necessary to practice to your song choice every single time unless you are choreographing your tricks to the music. An easier, more consistent routine will put you in a better place than a hard routine riddled with mistakes.
The nerves never really go away, but you’ll obviously get more comfortable the more you compete. I would try riskier stuff at state/regional contests since those would mostly be attended and judged by people I knew really well, which eased the nerves a bit. Your biggest enemy is going to be sweaty hands. I would always wash my hands with dish soap a couple mins before freestyling, it soaks up the oil and keeps your hands pretty slippery. I would also go with the slickest string you can find to help combat sticky hands.
You are going to screw up, everyone does. When you’re practicing find easy outs of your common mistakes. Don’t panic if you make a mistake, just roll with it and recover as best as you can.
It really is just practice in the end. If you’re competing frequently you will have a base freestyle that you’re comfortable with and then you can sub in new tricks as the year goes on. I practiced for around 8 months when I competed at Worlds in 2006, and just modified that freestyle for Nationals later that year. I competed in Scales Over 30 last year and even then I would only practice my freestyle when I was yo-yoing for 3 months or so leading into the contest. You just need to dial in a routine and practice the hell out of it, the rest will come with experience.
Thanks for the advices guys and Brian for the very completed answer, lot of food for thought!
I was thinking if the combos has to be a bit “simplified” as you said and cut down some very risky elements, I have to say that my tricks for now are very risky between slacks and various flying elements and knots behind every corner, I think the chances to mess up are very high with the tricks I have now, I wonder if it will be better to try something more straight even losing couple of points and introduce lot of rail combos and speedy stuff, maybe apply a bit more the body and use the arms, behind the back and similar stuff, I think horizontal elements everywhere I can do couple of nice things that have low risk in there.
I started to study it today even just for the sake of it, still not sure if I will partecipate as contestant but at the end of the day I have nothing to lose except a nicer experience!
There was a series of Videos on You Tube where Gentry Stein runs through it. Maybe check it out.
As far as sweaty palms. I have found Non Fragrence Antiperspirant deoderant works well. I apply about a hour before needed. Then wipe off. Seems to help.
