Learning A New Trick: Uncommon Ways To Help You Land It

Yo-Yo Tricks
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Hello y’all! I really want to attempt to make a nice little guide/to-do list of things you should perhaps think about and do as you are practicing a trick. Sorry if this is a rather bad guide, this is my first attempt here  :cry:

1.Slow Down The Video Yeap! Slow videos down to study them! It really seriously help often! I’m sure many by now know about Youtube’s new built in slow(er) motion feature, but for those who don’t know about it, if you click on the little “Settings Gear” on the lower right of the video, click on “Speed”, and click on slow down by 50% (0.5), or 75% (0.25). However this may distort the video at some points (makes it look unclear, in other words) and as a result can be a bit harder to make out what they are doing.

Also while I’m at this, make sure to turn your video resolution up. It can make learning the trick much easier because it is easier to see, which helps out alot more than that sounds. Remember, the higher the resolution, the better the internet speed required. However though, 80%+ of people should have internet speeds good enough for 720p-1080p HD

2.Check Hand/Finger Movements A HUGEEE help! Don’t forget this! If you are saying “why am I not getting in the position they are in”, chances are there was a simple hand movement or different finger used to do something. Do this for every step of a trick you learn, as it could save you much frustration. Also, if you find yourself getting in a position that’s a tad different from what is shown in a video, rewind the video and fix it immediately!! This could very well cause problems in future steps, making the trick not only more time consuming to learn, but also straight up more confusing. Don’t be lazy, you’ll regret it.

  1. Positive Thinking, And Only That Let me tell y’all a little story here. I remember thinking the Brent Stole was going to take me months! I remember thinking when doing the trapeze to 1 1/2 mount in Pyjama Man, it was going to take me forever! Now I can do them all with pretty darn decent consistency, and only took a few days. Of course it SEEMS like a super long road, but I can promise you it will not be as long as you think :o Negative thinking does nothing but bad and is simply upright pointless. Just work gosh darn it!  >:(

  2. View Different Videos View different videos! Don’t be a fanboy/girl to just one person or group, that’s not a good thing. There’s a good chance that there is, perhaps, a better tutorial for you than the one you’re watching. Look and search around.

  3. Rushing Through It Does Not Help Come on now. Slow your booty a bit. It doesn’t help, as some may think. Hopefully I speak for most when I say “1 good looking trick > 5 bad looking tricks” Rushing through it won’t make you better, and although you may learn it, it might come out messy and bad looking.

  4. Sip Some Mountain Dew Self explanatory.

  5. Words Over Visuals It is very very possible (although perhaps not the most likely) that reading is a better option for you as opposed to seeing how something is done. If you want to find out or not, or if you know you gain from reading instead of seeing,  every single (I think) video at www.rethinkyoyo.com’s tutorials have words on the screen as opposed to somebody talking. Try those bad boys out!  ;D

Another thing to go with this is search the forums! Be it these ones, or some other yoyo forums, look up for help on a trick. (especially before you post another topic about something that’s been asked 80 million times >:() Look up a trick first. And if not, then I think you are more than free to ask a question on here!  :smiley:

  1. Different Conditions And Scenery Although Zach Gormley said this in an interview, I thought maybe I could share this. He did indeed talk about how a change of scenery (indoors vs. outdoors, house vs. park, etc.) helps him make new tricks (which could perhaps also help you learn them). And because Zach is a God and all, he is never wrong  :smiley: The link to this happens to be righttttt here: Trick Theory: Interview with Isaac Sams & Zach Gormley

  2. Watch TV I’m not sure if this will help y’all out or not, so I’m not sure on this. But watch TV! This doesn’t seem to necessarily help per say, but it does make working on a trick more FUN.

  3. Long Sleeves/Coat/Sweatshirt Off Maybe this is preference, but I DREAD yoyoing when wearing anything more than a T-shirt. If you’re working on a trick, especially an arm trick, try changing to a t-shirt (or no shirt I guess, lol) that doesn’t cover any part of your arms other than above your elbows.

Welp that concludes what I have for right now! Do you guys use any of these? Do you use any certain secrets you’d kindly like to share? If y’all would like, please leave them down below :smiley: Hopefully this was of some help. :o Cheers!

5 Likes
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Good job! I personally use a few of these already. Another thing I would add is exaggerate motions at first.

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Small problem, last time I had a “sip” of a caffeinated drink, I bounced around my house for 3 hours. I’d probably get caught up in counting how many pieces of fuzz are on my string. ::slight_smile:

Anyway, great guide. Hope to see even more suggestions smashed in there!

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dont the majority of media players have a frame by frame forwarding function?

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@WH0TH3MAN Thank you very much, greatly appreciated. And I shall definitely try that hopefully in up and coming tricks, thank you for sharing.

@Fuzzwad Oh my golly that was hilarious :smiley: :smiley: I guess your name matches what you do when drinking pop :stuck_out_tongue: And thanks for the feedback.

@kadabrium yes indeed they do! I actually think I meant to add that in there, thank you for sharing

UDPATE: Added tips 7-10 Cheers! ;D

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Regards to “rushing through it”–

Definitely what you meant by this is true: there’s no race to learn the trick. But I will say this: some elements “click” or begin to work properly when you let the momentum carry the yoyo through. Pausing, even when it’s where the tutorial shows a pause, can sometimes be more of a hindrance. Every now and then when I hit an impasse I go, “You know, I could just try going into the next part even though I’m not 100% sure what to do…” and the trick reveals itself to you.

“Ahah! That makes so much sense now!” The most recent one like this was Chris Mikulin’s Twizzler Repeater. I had to just “go for it” in order to understand the trick.

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Ah yes that is very true! As I believe the same has happened to everybody at some point or another. Thank you for the clarification :smiley:

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People still watch TV these days?? ???

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Well… we watch Netflix on our flat screen displays. Close enough? :wink:

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I was working on Waynegasm the other day. I tackled the trick like so:
1-Watch the tutorial a few times, see what’s going on.

2-Try the trick as if I were going to try the trick like I knew it. I knew I was going to fail but why not give it a whirl?

3-Take it an element at a time, “cheat” and manipulate the trick somewhat so I can get the yoyo on the string so I can get to the next part.

At this point I found this trick to be very discomforting and decided to lay it to rest for the next couple days…

4-Decided to pick back up on it (I already memorized the tutorial and what I’m supposed to do) by being easy with my motions, don’t do it as if I were showing the trick off to somebody

5-Dedicated a 15 minute break to just this trick. I normally don’t drill a single trick down but felt like I needed to with this. I plugged in the headphones, tuned everything around me out and just began working on it. Within several minutes the trick felt more natural. Finally, I nailed it.

6-Just because I nailed it doesn’t mean that I’m done working on it. Nope, I spent the weekend doing this trick just to get it even smoother and presentable. I still miss but I’m becoming more accurate with it, and looking much more natural doing it.

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Foofy69:

Excellent advice. Thank you for posting that. There are a couple tips I’ve discovered for myself that seem to work so I’ll share them here:

  1. Keep your hands up! I tend to drop my hands down to belly button height. That messes up my string plane and causes the yoyo to tilt. Just keeping your hands up will keep your throws and mounts more consistent which will give you more time per throw to practice your moves.

  2. Learn by steps. Get each step down solid before you move on to the next. If you’re working on step 9 and you have to keep reminding yourself what steps 5, 6 and 7 were then you’re not going to be able to focus on step 9.

  3. Find intermediate steps. Let’s say you have steps 1 to 7 down solid and you’re trying to learn the rest of the trick. Look to see if there’s a way to just mount the yoyo in whatever position step 7 is. If so, then just throw that mount and continue from there. For example, you may find that half way through your new trick you’re in a 1 1/2 mount. Great. just throw a 1 1/2 mount and practice the 2nd half.

  4. The transitions are always the hard part. We tend to think of a trick as : Mount, move, move, another mount, hop, mount, move, mount, end. When we practice these we practice by steps (see suggestions 1 and 2). When we can do all the moves in order we think we know the trick. But we really don’t know the trick until we can transition through each of the moves until it’s all one smooth sequence. This reminds me of an obscure reference from a part of my past life :smiley: which is:

  5. Ok, years ago I made my living as a professional magician. I know, what a weird job. I did trade shows and way too many kids shows and I worked at a magic shop during the day. There was a great magician who’s name I’m now forgetting who gave a lecture which I attended. He said “Once you think you know a new trick, you don’t. Practice it for 30 more days before you show it to anyone. In that 30 days you’ll be amazed at how much better your presentation is.”

I think this can also apply to yoyo. Once you know the moves, you don’t really know the trick. Get those transitions down, flow from position to position. Now you know the trick.

Great topic. I love talking about how to teach and learn effectively. My 2nd job is teaching music (guitar and mandolin) in the evenings so it’s always interesting to me to find out how different people learn.

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Yes, this is great advice as well. Especially the 30 days thing, you might be able to land a trick consistently after a few days, but if you try to record it or show someone? Yeah, doesn’t usually work too well.

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@AngryGumball: Wow, that is a very interesting way of going about a trick. You attempt to go through the full trick before knowing it? And you memorize a whole tutorial before learning the trick? Do you go through every trick like that, and if so, how well does it work learning like that? Maybe I’ll give that a whirl. ;D

@GregB: Hmm… I never knew the concept of “string plane” existed and would of never thought that a low yoyo makes it tilt more. Interesting info. I agree with everything you’ve said, especially #2, and I believe #3 is something that can make anybody a better yoyoer. That 30 day thing is spot on as well. Thank you for sharing and contributing :smiley:

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Depends on the tutorial. If they’re short (Waynegasm, Wrist Mount Tower, Coyote Combo) I’ll watch it several times to drill it in my head.

CLYW Cabin tutorials - I take it a bite a a time and treat it like smaller tricks. Picking up Classic Yuuki Concepts took about a week at the pace I took it at and did it like this:

Segment 1:
Magic Drop (Front String)
Double on
Slacky move
Pop out of the magic drop move back into a trapeze

Segment 2: (Once I felt comfortable doing everything from the previous segment)
Rejection thingy that gets you into a modified wrist mount
Slacky wrist mount move that lets you reposition your TH so it feels like a normal wrist mount

Segment 3: Finish the trick with the exit moves…with this I actually had trouble hitting it and decided to exit my own way :slight_smile:

Its easier to remember a more complicated trick in sections, also allows me to spend some time working on certain elements and see what else I can do with them besides what’s in this trick.

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So if its an “easier” trick, you watch the full tutorial until you have it down? Interesting. I also very much like your segment process and breaking it into mini tricks. I think it can help alot treating it that way. Segment 3 I myself tend to do a lot, mainly because I get frustrated (talk about irony) :smiley: but I also see it as a good leap forward to making up your own tricks.