a state of surviving; remaining alive
a natural process resulting in the evolution of organisms best adapted to the environment
something that survives
Hello good people of YoYoExpert! It’s your friend Q, with anohter one of my words.
Survival.
That’s right, this is a guide to surviving (And hopefully enjoying) your first yoyo contest
Note: I hope to keep this an ever updated thread, with many contributions. I have asked such contributors to post below.
The very first thing you want to know is what contests are in your area. Quite a few states have a contest for people native to said state, or you may want to attend another state’s contest. If your state doesn’t have it’s own contest, check for regional contests. Regionals are usually a bit more intense to start out with, there are more people, better players, and usually bigger names there. It’s a lot of pressure. But go big or go home. Check on rules, time restraints and the like. Location and transportation is also a huge thing. Public Transportation is your friend,. But most organizers will put the hotel close to the venue.
Before you get too excited, it’s always good to write down a few goals. I know it always helps me. Whether it’s trying to work a trick in, get a little faster, or just not suck, goals are always an awesome way to further your play.
Music seems to be one of the things that gets brought up most when talking about contests. I know that it’s one thing that I stress out about when I’m getting ready for a contest. One thing to remember (If your out to place well.) is that music is important, but not as much so as the performance. The judges like to watch tricks, not watch a pretty little ballet. Now if you’re like me and like to put opn a show, then music is important. People love changeups, clap along beats, and old favorites. One song that always seems to get a crowd’s reaction is:
That song truly is a favorite among crowds. (And a staple on any DJs list)
Guys, I can’t stress this enough, when you get a peice of music, stick with it. At MWR, I had one song that I had practiced for months to and then changed it for Apologize by One Republic maybe three weeks before the contest. Bad Idea.
This is the most important step. Practice all of your tricks, to your music. Work on parts of the freestyle that you aren’t comfortable with. If your song has a switch up, USE IT!! Make a sudden switch in your tricks, go from frontside to sidestyle, anything!! You have to use what the music gives you. Milk it for everything it’s worth.
Also, work on harder tricks more than things like Matrix, or braintwisters. The hard tricks need top be smoother, all the time. Practice in front of a mirror. Videotape yourself, nmake sure you make the easy tricks look easy and the hard tricks look easier. If you’re not comfortable with doing a trick, don’t do it.
Take breaks often. I always stop throwing for a couple days when I’m working on freestyles. Do something else. I think you’ll find that the Hiadis form yoyoing will do you wonders. It also helps me to gain a better perspective on the tricks I’m trying, and what I can do with the music. When I don’t play, I still have my music playing, it’s just a good habit.
This is a nice thing to do when you know for sure you are going to be at a contest, get on the forums and see who else will be there. I’ve met some amazing people by doing this. You guys know how I feel about the people in yoyoing, so I won’t go into detail. Just make a thread, find some people to meet up with and make buddies.
“Contestant ready, judges ready, music ready”
These are some of the most nerve racking words you’ll ever hear as a yoyoer. This is where your hands may start to shake, you might get sweaty, you may even forget what your song is. Don’t get nervours, whether you do well or not, you should be having fun. You should never be in your first contest expecting to win, nobody is. So just relax.
It’s always nice to have a group of people to look at if you get really nervous, people who will just wave and smile at you. Old friends, family members, maybe even your new friends. Just have a support center there for when you do get nervous.
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Hey guys, Samad here. I just want to share a few tips when competing.
When on stage, expect yourself to mess up. Nobody’s perfect, and it’s less likely you’ll land your FS perfectly for your first contest. Try to have some extra time at the end of your freestyle, so if you mess up, you won’t finish late. Plan your tricks so the FS ends… maybe 10-20 seconds if you were to land your tricks perfectly. Also, make sure to find your weak points for each trick, and try to improve on that, so you are less likely to mess up.
Another thing I find that helps me out, is to get on stage before your freestyle. If you know what it feels like to be up there before freestyling, it can really help while you are up there.
Finally, always be sure to being your freestyle with tricks you can land 100% of the time. If you land your first few tricks perfectly, it’ll really boost your confidence.
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From Icthus:
I have a few tips as well.
Before you compete, at least 5 minutes, you should wash your hands. This will help if you have clammy hands. Also like Samad said. If you can before the competition starts just walk up on stage and throw a little. Make sure you are facing the crowd. even if they aren’t paying attention it will help you.
Also make sure you pic a song that is at your speed of yoyoing. Don’t try to pick a song that you like and it be too fast. This will only look bad.
MOVE AROUND!!! This will show that you are a little more sure of your yoyoing. Helps the judges score you a little better.
DON’T stay up all night the night before the contest. You will have such lag that you won’t hit anything.
Energy drinks don’t work unless you yoyo with one all the time. They won’t make you faster.
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From ed:
so here we are - advice for your 1st contest.
• get there early and help set up. it’ll give you a chance to meet the organizer and (probably) a few of the judges.
• competing is cool, but no need to jump in to freestyle right away. if you’ve never done sport ladder, you should. it gives you the chance to yo-yo in front of a judge without being stressed up by the attention of the whole room. plus those tricks are worth learning. and for the love of god, DO THE 2A LIST, even if you can only get to ‘skin the cat’. ladder is super fun, and i still do it at worlds.
• while i agree that it’s great to use a song the audience will get into, i would consider it a personal favor if you not choose ‘cotton eyed joe’… or really even click ‘play’ on the youtube link. please. think of the kittens. use something that you will be able to tolerate listening to 500 times or so. if that applies to ‘cotton eyed joe’, i’m pretty sure it indicates that you need to be frozen in carbonite and fed to the sun.
• yo-yo contests are always way more about connecting with other yo-yoers than about dominance. don’t be that guy who shows up to his 1st contest with the delusion of kicking butt and amassing glory, then flips out when he hits nada and gets 23rd. do your thing on stage, but consider it a learning experience. focus on meeting a bunch of more experienced people and trade tricks with them.
• that little ‘applause wave’ thing that you might see people do between tricks on youtube? wait until you make finals at worlds to incorporate it. let your tricks do the talking, and practice them enough so that you can maintain a steady level of contact with the audience/judges while you perform them.
• smile. look like you’re having fun. if you mess up terribly, laugh it off and keep going. the ‘whirling vortex of emotional strain’ look will not earn you those elusive ‘performance points’, i promise you.
• plan to go out to the dinner (if need be bring your mom, who is cooler than you think). most contests have a dinner afterward and a lot of the cool kids will show up, hang out informally, and bust out even crazier, riskier tricks than they did at the contest.
• don’t bring your whole collection. when i go to a contest, i like to bring 3 or 4 yo-yo’s max. a lot of players like to bring their case (either for trading, or for the more hilarious ‘status’), and it ends up weighing them down like an anchor - afraid to leave it alone and compelled to go change yo-yo’s every 20 minutes. if you ‘need variety’, trust me it’ll be at the contest, and ‘hey what yo-yo is that? could i try it please?’ is a solid way to meet people.
• remember that it’s a yo-yo contest. cancer will not be cured via your success and monks will not set themselves ablaze should you ‘fail’. it’s a cool, unique thing that we do, and it’s fun all on its own. you don’t have to grope and stress out about ‘making’ it a good day.
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From YoYoExpert:
Basic tips for starting freestyle for competition.
The key is to pick tricks that you can do - the more difficult the better but you want to be able to land them on stage in front of people.
Missing tricks you get negative points which can really drop your score down overall and lose time to do others - so pick the best tricks from your repertoire that you can do consistently and link them together with some fun music!
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(Courtesy of Elephark)
Your priorities should go something like this, in this order, and not in any other order:
- Consistency
- Efficiency
- Variety
- Difficulty
The first rule of winning freestyles is consistency. I’ll say it again. The first rule of winning freestyles is consistency. So what should you do about it? Above all else, focus on consistency. Pick tricks you can do, then practice them until you can’t mess them up. Why? Because messing up is worse than doing nothing, both math-wise and performance-wise. And when you get onstage your chances of messing things up multiply. Two times zero is zero. Five times zero is zero. Zero is good. Get your trick failure rate to zero.
The second rule, which often goes hand-in-hand with speed but is distinct from it, is efficiency—not wasting time. Time is quite important in freestyles because you really don’t have very much of it. Restarting your yoyo is dangerous. Switching yoyos can drop you a place or two. Aside from that: extra throws, adjusting string, pausing before or after your tricks, pausing between or during your tricks, showing your triangles excessively, having to think about what your next trick is, and so forth. Time-wasting behaviors creep in without you realizing it sometimes. Tape yourself freestyling, then compare it to a world-winning freestyle. Be critical and honest, and pay attention to the differences you see. The guys who win are also the ones who can cram all sorts of points in every conceivable space. Even easy little pinwheels and things hardly take any extra time but can net you points if you can make them look worth it. A few points here and there can add up real quick.
Got that? Okay, next thing you want to do is put in some variety. By this I mean you need to make sure you have lots of different kinds of tricks in your routine. If two tricks start with the same mount, either find two different ways into it or ditch one. Don’t repeat anything if you can help it, and avoid using any tricks that look like any of your other tricks. The advantages are threefold: you’ll increase your chances of having your tricks appeal to any given yoyoer (and hence judge), you’ll decrease your chances of missing potential clicks due to repeated stuff, and you’ll also cash in on extra performance points. Those are starting to get more important these days, so don’t ignore them.
After you have…ahem. AFTER you have those down, start focusing on the difficulty of your tricks. It’s a delicate balancing act. The harder and/or flashier the tricks, the more they’re worth—but also the riskier. So you have to pick a set of tricks that are high enough above the basics to get points, but not so hard that you can’t consistently do them. You can increase efficiency (more points faster) by increasing speed, and that also increases difficulty. Know your weaknesses and manage your difficulty. Don’t bite off more than you can chew, or you will choke onstage and you’ll probably be mad at yourself for months because you know you very well could’ve done better. One of the saddest sights, in my opinion, is seeing someone who should be taking top 5 choke hard and get 10th or 15th or 20th.
