I’ve been throwing for about 4 months. I can do the sports ladder up to and including Kwijibo. I can also do the wrist mount and am working on Spirit Bomb and the Hook. I’ve been stuck on those 2 tricks for a month and can’t seem to get it. I’m trying to find other tricks to add to my repertoire but everything I try lately is failing.
My 2A practice is barely moving forward at all. Doing a simple loop more than 3 times seems to be more magic randomness than skill. And my left hand? I can barely throw a single loop.
I need some other tricks that are in my skill range which I can learn so I can keep motivated. Right now it feels like I’ve been stagnant for a month.
What 1A tricks, which are not sports ladder tricks, would you recommend for my skill level?
Don’t let yourself get disheartened man, it happens to all of us. Spirit Bomb and Hook are both very difficult tricks when you’re starting, and it takes a lot of people a while to get them, just keep at it.
Have you learned the other tricks from the ‘expert’ sections of the YYE tutorials?
Plenty there to get your teeth stuck into. Once you’ve mastered all of those you could go onto youtube and start on some of ‘rethinkyoyo’ tutorials:
…or some of the less tricky CLYW ‘Cabin Tutorials’.
When in doubt, make up your own tricks! That may seem like a foreign idea, especially to someone who has only been yo-yoing for a few months, but one thing I remember from way back when I got started is that when I got in a ditch with a trick or tricks, I’d just ditch the trick or tricks that had me in the ditch. In fact, I’ve found that when a combination I’m formulating has me stuck, I’ll just put it in the back of my brain for a little while to let it marinate. Doing this really helps because this puts some elements into your subconscious that you might stumble upon later when you need 'em. When I was finishing up the “master” tricks on this website, I had skipped countless tricks to get there. People just learn different tricks at different speeds.
Maybe this story will encourage you: up till about a week ago, I was unable to hit Iron Whip. I still cannot do it consistently. I can do all the whips and whaps that you can think of, but Iron Whip has me beat. Jade Whip was always easier for me-- I can’t tell you why. (In case you do not know-- and you probably don’t-- I have been yo-yoing for just about 5 years. I practice about every day for a pretty lengthy time.)
Any way, I hope this encouraged you or offered you a path to take that you had not thought of before. Good luck, man!
Of course! I should go back to the learning section. I don’t know why I’ve forgotten about that resource. I’ve looked at Rethink Yoyo and there’s some good stuff there. The CLYW cabin tutorials are insane. I’ll watch them again to see if there’s something simpler in there.
Coincidentally, I was trying Goat Beard last night. Its lot harder than it looks.
It happens, over and over again. No getting around it. I hit plateaus all the time and feel like I’m just doing the same thing over and over and then slowly you realize you are hitting your tricks more often and then you start to learn new tricks quicker than you did before and then you hit that plateau again.
I like to have several tricks I am working on at a time so when you get too frustrated you can just move on. Practice the tricks you are stuck on every day but make sure you are refining the tricks you know. It will happen and it will feel really good when it does.
Spirit Bomb is a demanding trick to be honest. Demanding but rewarding once you land it. Take it segments at a time.
Hook requires just a good slack and enough slack to wrap around the yoyo. If you haven’t mastered it yet, try your hand at laceration. It’s a quick way to get into a Trapeze too and looks cool.
Skip around, learn more, come back. Can’t do it still? Rinse and repeat. You’ll get it eventually while still building your repertoire of tricks without stopping improving…
Maybe even start making your own combos or at least incorporate elements from tricks you’ve learned into existing combos.
So its been awhile in this post so I thought id come by and see what you are doing now Greg. I too feel I’m at a wall. Can’t do 2a cause one arm has a fistula in it. So kinda off limits for me. But I picked up 4a, but not good at that either. 1A is all I really have. So what tricks have you tried or learned with 1A since you hit a wall??
Up until recently (3 months ago) I was hitting that same brick wall for years. I decided it was time to learn some new stuff when I got back from Disneyland after doing the same things with my Strix I had bought while I was down there.
Lately, besides trying to complete Andre’s tutorials, I’ve been exploring other tutorials…many just don’t seem to be thorough like Andre’s though and I found out I have difficulty following some of the cool tricks I found over at Rethink. It’s a different formula of tutorials than what I’m used to and half the time I get through the video I lose spin and completely lose the step that they were at. So that’s another wall I just slammed right into
