Slacks - neutral string tension, open loops eluding me!

I’m practicing a pretty easy slack trick called “Gondola”. I religiously check for neutral string tension before practicing it, but by the time I’m in the Houdini Mount, I’m already creating tension somehow. “Fine,” I think, “I’ll actually make it a twist or two too loose to compensate… I should then be neutral in the Houdini”.

No luck. I have only 3 or 4 twists in the slack, but it’s enough that I’m not reliably hitting my nth index finger. I tried the trick with a brand-new string and it was ridiculously easy to hit with a nice open loop. But after a few minutes of play, testing for neutral on my string must not be giving accurate results and I can’t seem to reproduce that nice open loop.

The few times I’ve tried Revolutions, I also get twists.

I must be missing something fundamental… So, the questions that come up for me are:

  1. What’s the most accurate way to test for neutral? I throw a sleeper (or not, if my yoyo is already dead), pinch as close as I can to the yoyo, and let the string hang loose between the pinch and my throw hand, fairly close together. It doesn’t twist, it’s just a nice “U” shape. Anything better? It’s not rocket surgery; I don’t know how you could test better than that.

  2. Does the speed of the throw affect the loop? I’ve seen people throwing beautiful slow slacks around, and I like this approach. But the slower I am, the more opportunity there seems to be to get a twist.

  3. All tricks will eventually create tension. How the heck do people throw these into the middle of long combos? I can’t imagine getting to the middle of a trick and feeling confident that I’ll get a nice loop of string when I try to throw a slack, and yet people seem to do it often enough.

Am I just ridiculously unskilled? Do other people have similar problems?

I should mention that the results aren’t much different from string to string. Fat Kitty, Bulk Poly, Slick 6, Toxic… I manage to mess it up on whatever string type I try.

Every time the yoyo goes up or down the string twists 1/4 of a twist, also, test for tension while spinning, neutral tension will change if you wind it. In other words, winding creates tension. I usually throw a sleeper and then into a trapeze, bring your fhands together and grab the middle string on the right side, this should create a UFO type action, loosening your string.

Yeah, I can do the tension-adjustment tricks (which are pretty neat on their own!).

I’mma have to eat a little crow here. After posting this, I went to practice more. I think the string stayed “neutralish” if I re-adjusted each and every time… maybe it’s not as bad as I indicated (though I couldn’t seem to do it for the life of me up until I posted this thread!).

I’d still be interested to know how people can throw slack tricks into the middle of a long combo!

They throw in mini sidewinders or they throw horizontally and let it drop a bit. They adjust it, they just do it in a fast, appealing way.

There are some strings , rare but not uncommon , that when you throw it the string will twisted 3/4 of the twisted making the strings tension ridicously high . Maybe you just playing with that kind of strings , but:

1 the best way to relieve or strengthen the string tension is to do a UFO or Sidewinder

2 Yes

3 Ask them :))