I was watching Jacob’s new video about ATC and there was a point brought up that got me thinking:
Learning tricks vs owning a trick
I’m wondering how you folks of the forums go about smoothing out a certain trick to that point?
I realized I have the tendency to learn something step by step, land it a few times without embellishments or flavor, and then kind of hit a point where I notice I got it, but it’s not as smooth as others or as I would like. Kinda feeling unable to pass that threshold if that makes sense.
Video in question:
6 Likes
fradiger
(the world is a beautiful cat and i must meow meow meow)
2
I think there’s a few things to keep in mind when approaching this, the first is that in order to make harder tricks/elements look good you obviously have to get simpler and easier stuff down and clean. After that I find it helps to understand the trick extremely well, I like to deconstruct it and figure out why things work the way they do, connect steps to existing elements and mounts I already know, etc. Once you have that solid understanding I then just ask myself what steps can be combined and executed, are there any unnecessary elements to cut out or flourishes that can be added (some functionally useless elements feel good to do and look cool ).
Then it’s just a lot of repetition, many players spend months grinding the execution of their favorite tricks to get them to where they are now
Like fradiger said, a lot of it does come down to practice. You will get smoother from intentional, focused practice. However, not all practice produces an equal product. The little details really do make a difference, and I think that definitely applies to making a trick look cool while you’re doing it vs just being able to do it. My biggest tips are
Record yourself. You’ll be able to see what you’re doing that looks right and what doesn’t.
Maintain good posture.
Keep your arms still (i.e., don’t go chasing the yoyo trying to catch it, but make it move around you).
Practice the way you want to perform it. If you practice lazily, you’ll reinforce playing lazily.
I hope none of that comes across condescending, as I look horrible when I play lol. These are things I need to work on too, and I’m trying to be more mindful.
I think if you can hit a trick on command, you’re somewhere in between “learning” and “owning”. For myself, learning is when I can hit the trick sometimes, and when I don’t hit it, I don’t known why. Learned is when I know the theory, for example when I don’t hit it, I can coach myself to improve the next time. Struggling to think of a better word for this next one, but executing is when you can do it on command and can hit it upwards of 90% of the time. I think owning is when you can use it in a combo, and the trick almost becomes an element that another yoyoer can notice and say “oh, I can recognize elements from (insert trick here)” but your combo is not that entire trick.
For me to get to owning a trick, it takes an uncountable times of reps. I think I definitely own trapeze, trap and brother, double or nothing, matrix, and kwijibo, and the GT from brother mount, but those are the tricks that I’ve linked together and grinded out for the last year and use them on autopilot, and kind of get bored of them too. I’ve made a couple of other tricks from kwijibo and the brother trap, thats the only reason why I guess I own them.
Something I’ve really enjoyed learning is little repeaters like these, and also magic drop/shockwave. I learned magic drop and shockwave last year for example, but I’m finally able to hit it on command with my wife’s freehand, but I really don’t work it into other combos.
Bite sized chunks that are easy to get a ton of reps in, particularly like many of Tsukasa Takatsu’s tricks. I can do the takatsu drop reliably, no fumbles, reliable rejections every time, but the flow isn’t there yet.
These are the ones that I’me more attracted to, because I think I can own these faster than candy rain and yuuki slack. I’ve been trying to learn yuuki slack for the last 4 months, and candy rain for the last month. I’d rather learn a smaller trick faster, instead of dissecting a video on youtube longer, but thats because I know I’m limited by my attention span.
Another part of “owning” a trick for me - and I own very few tricks - is gaining greater access to control of the style and expressiveness. I am slowly on my way there with Candy Rain, which I am fully obsessed with, and I passed a stage where I could get it smoothly in my usual style - and then I started adding stylistic variations. Sometimes it’s twitchy and each of the landings in drops is separated by a millisecond and it’s got a tap-TAP timing. Sometimes I make it ultrasmooth and floaty and continuous. Sometimes I make the yo-yo come around fast and whip around my finger land hard, other times it’s a high floaty arcs and soft landings. One of the things I’ve noticed about the few tricks I really own is I have more fun with them jamming out to music, making the yoyo dance differently with the heat.
Yeah like making tricks looks really good is usually way harder than just being able land a trick, even if it can be landed consistently IME. Execution is something i have been trying to focus on more and more but it is definitely hard.
This video has some fantastic tips that can be utilized to make your tricks look better. The main thing is practice and repetition, but having clear things to focus on like the tips Akitoshi shares can help speed up the process of polishing a trick.
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