Oh, Magic Drop…I posted this in the general trick thread but felt like it deserves its own dedicated thread where tips can be posted for this nightmare of an element.
So I can get the rejection to happen, but I end up landing on both strings most of the time. Sometimes (when it feels like being nice to me as it seems) I’ll land on either the front or the back string. But I haven’t found which technique works to get this to happen correctly yet as it’s very random. I’ve experimented with different angles and when I think I get something that works, it turns around and basically tells me “ha! you thought you could do it but guess what…”
Those with Magic Drop experience, what am I doing and what should I be doing? I feel like there’s this big brick wall in front of me holding me back from completing Kamikaze and other tricks that use a Magic Drop.
I struggled with this for a while too, but i finally figured it out… sort of. Instead of making an L with your hand, try rotating your thumb upwards so your kind of making a gun with your hand. I find that this helps a lot to make it land on only one string.
Also it is very hard and takes a lot of practice to land it on the string closest to you, but it’s easier to land it far one.
For magic drop, the one thing that helped me a TON was to split up the string that I hold with my NTH. To do this I go into a normal trapeze, then take my other 3 NTH fingers and loop them around the string, pulling back slightly. This will make the string you want to land on and the one you don’t want to land on separate, and then you’ll just want to aim for the back one. I’ll try to make a little video on my phone to explain it better… and hopefully edit this post with that soon…
Alright here we go. So the video quality was bad, I was hunched over so it’d fit in the screen, the string kinda mixes into the background, and the string slipped off of my finger after I rolled it over my TH, but the point is that with my NTH I grab the string with my back 3 fingers to separate the front and back of the string better. This really helps make sure that the yoyo lands on the right string as I bring it over my TH.
Watching this now, I kind of realize that I’m really just making a gun shape with both of my hands, so if that helps you out, think of it like that.
Also afterwards I did shockwave into gondola, which is my favorite thing to do from magic drop :).
Hopefully this helps a bit, and also I agree with AThrower that keeping the TH thumb directed upward also helps.
What I like to do is make an upward facing L and have it pointing a little bit diagonally towards the left. Make this position ROCK SOLID. If you want to land on the back string move your NTH farther in front of you in the peak of the swing.
So would this be a “training wheels” technique to do the trick? Seems like you have to be super precise with the landing in order to hit the back string which I’m after.
I guess training wheels is a good way to put it. With time you can reduce how far apart you separate the strings. That new clip looked really smooth so well done!
I don’t agree that finding an easier or better way to accomplish a goal is “training wheels”. If it works, that’s the end of it. You learned the trick. You don’t have to intentionally make it harder again!
Yea, I’ve been playing with the “training wheels” technique but found myself still not satisfied. On the flipside, I do think I got it to happen for the most part now but my mind is baffled at the whole dynamics of the trick. I did both POV and front view (same identical attempt from 2 angles simultaneously - multi camera recording!) and saw what looks like a slack that is generated by the rejection.
Nice job man! You got it for sure. Once you get the feel and technique down, you’ll nail that trick almost every time. I still sometimes miss that rejection and then have to hop out of it and re-run the trick. It happens.
I thought I had it…I’m starting to think this trick has a mind of its own…I feel like this trick knows…after all, it does have the word “Magic” in it. It wants to lead me on like I’m on the right track and then suddenly it turns around and says “haha, you though you could do it…now take that!”
Basically now it seems like the rejection doesn’t want to happen, or I’ll land on the front string. Earlier today, I was doing several on the back, all back to back…was even working on Shockwave.
I guess maybe rewatch what I did? This trick is baffling, frustrating, has some unexplainable “intelligence” and rewarding all at the same time.
I think I’m going to go back to the training wheels method as I’m beginning to despise of this trick. Why? I can off set my hands to make it easier to hit the back string but the same thing happens. It misses or lands on 2. I almost feel like none of the tutorials address this issue. Really frustrating.
Shortly after typing this I did 4 in a row with no rhyme or reason why, just happened…then back to the same thing.
Just another hand shape for a “training wheels” method. Chuck don’t need no training wheels. Which only supports my claim that it’s not training wheels if it makes the trick work.
Imagine if the very first person who made the trick just didn’t really think about string-spreading or positioning? So the non-training-wheels becomes “canonical”. But who cares? Maybe that exact person does the trick nowadays with string positioning and spreading to ensure landing on the target string. They’re not going to call it “cheating”, they’re going to call it “playing smart and precise.”
I’m trying another technique which (for now) seems to be working alright. Rather than the string going around my TH finger, it is just going around the back of my hand, close to my wrist. You’ll see it in my nearly completed Kamikaze here:
So, what I’m doing:
-String goes around back of TH
-Keeping my TH locked in place, thumb more or less vertical, maybe pitched outward some
-Swing the yoyo as close to the TH index finger as possible - this is giving a little more control with that landing
-As the yoyo swings over, my NTH moves forward to help land that back string.
Since this is working more or less, I’m going to stick with this technique, feels pretty natural compared to the pulling the string back with my NTH technique. More practice tonight and this week, fingers crossed I’ll get more consistent with it rather than taking 30 steps back.
I may watch my POVs with my failed and successful attempts frame by frame to see why the miss happened.
Now, I’ve noticed I’ve been more successful with certain yoyos and not sure why…my YYF Replay has been a trooper, and also had quite a bit of luck with my YYF Dogma.
Something with some mild edges…Dogma, Replay, and even my Hex.
Further studying, I’m seeing a pattern here (finally). The rejection. I was playing my POV back in the quicktime player and watching both successes and failures frame by frame. You can do this by hitting the left/right arrow keys when your video is paused. The higher the framerate you shoot, the better.
So what’s going on? There’s a thing of getting the rejection to happen, and there’s a thing to get the rejection to happen in that sweet spot. Do it too late and you’re going to miss as the yoyo is already fallen past the nice opening that happens.
So with this said, I noticed in my successful attempts in my POV, the landing happens when the rejection happens at the 12:00 position, or even at my 1:00 position (11:00 if you’re facing me). If the rejection happens at my 11:00 position (viewer’s 1:00 position…yea sorry to confuse you all!), it’s too late.
I attached some screenshots below, not sure how to make them inline with captions so please refer to the file names as to what is happening.
The “LateRejection” is obviously the one that rejected too late. The yoyo missed all strings and just helplessly dangled.
“Good Rejection” was in that sweet spot, which gave a nice wide gap (MD Gap) followed by landing (MD Land).
So, the key is timing here, or that’s what it seems to be. My next venture is to see what causes a good rejection and what causes a bad one. I can say that if you swing too hard, you will get no rejection at all.
