Hey all! So I just got thinking about my practicing habits and about how I’m generally very happy with them! And how I’d like to explore what makes good practice and bad practice! And what makes a practice good or bad 
First off a small amount of background on me: I was home schooled/unschooled my entire life. In other words I’ve always guided my own education and have gotten pretty damn good at learning in general. I’ve also always looked at learning as something to be improved on, and pay attention to how I’m doing it. I’ve also been juggling various arts since I was very young, not sure exactly how young but very. So I’m generally talented in terms of stuff like yo-yoing.
I’d like to first state that the goal of practice for me is to have fun and learn as fast as possible. (Without sacrificing depth of learning.) Do any of you have other goals around practice?
The first phase of practice, learning the fundamentals, whatever they are. For me I found the first was learning to throw a good strong and straight throw. I recently started seriously practicing 5A and found that catching the counterweight was the fundamental I needed to learn here =P.
I find it’s best to look at these fundamentals and see that they’re something that will take you longer than everything else, because they make learning everything else much easier. Every time you approach a new kind of trick there will be a larger hump than usual, but then every other trick in that area will be easier to learn after that.
The next phase that I will talk about is the mastery phase. You know how to do it, and can most of the time, but need to get to doing it every time no matter what. Something that can help here is developing a routine, practicing the same tricks in the same order that you think would look good on stage. That way you know what you’ll do next and can work on flowingly transferring between them. Finding multiple ways to do the same trick. Can the yo-yo stay completely still the entire time? Can it move up and down or side to side at different parts? Can it go faster or slower? (I feel that basically every yo-yoer far far far underestimates the power of slowness in their performances.) And then of course, practice, practice, time, and more practice will always help.
That’s all the wisdom I have to offer on the phases, I know there are more, but I don’t think I’d have much advise for the others other than practice.
I’d also like to say that I will switch yo-yos every five minutes or so while practicing, and I think this helps a lot. It makes me be versatile and it makes what I do matter more than the thing on the end of the string. I believe it helps me a lot.
What do you all think? Do you agree or disagree with any of my advise? Do you have any advise to add?
Just like Studio, I find a few moments to throw here and there… coffee break, waiting to pick up the kids, or a bit at night while watching TV with the wife.