Is there a book or website out there that covers yoyo trickery in a way that breaks things down more?
I’m starting to realize tricks are comprised of individual elements, and these elements are what I think need to be learned first before attempting or understanding other tricks. Maybe this is obvious and I’m just spinning my wheels, but is there a list of all the elements it takes to put together all the tricks? I feel like a list like this would be more helpful(personally) than trying to learn a bunch of complex tricks. Even the verbage used is confusing sometimes. I want to learn a trick and start watching the tutorial, only to find that the “trick” in question is really just a combo of multiple tricks, which they themselves are comprised of individual elements.
I just feel that if all the elements were broken down and there to learn, I wouldn’t hit roadblocks when trying to learn these combo tricks. Thoughts?
You’re overthinking it. Just learn a million tricks and you’ll see how things build on each other and concepts come up over and over. Also remember that yoyo is literally infinite and people make up brand new elements all the time. Concepts might be a better idea to think about vs elements. The best thing to do tho is just is learn a ton of tricks and go out of your comfort zone to learn stuff you wouldn’t normally learn ime
I feel this. Almost every trick is just other tricks. So I thought theory dictates if I get these down, the rest will just follow. Just click that learn tab at the top here, and burn through the list. It’ll achieve what you are after. Then at some point your goal will shift without much, or any thought.
I AM overthinking it and that’s sort of the point. I want to overthink it. But I know due to experience that someone out there overthought it more than me a long time ago and figured out what I’m trying to figure out.
The point is you gotta learn tricks. You can think about this stuff as much as you want, that’s not going to help you crush tricks tho. The only way to do that is to go learn tricks and practice.
Also I understand the impulse to try to theory craft your way through learning and I have been there before as well, but yeah…no shortcuts really in yoyo.
This is a really interesting question and one that the answer to is always evolving as the way we play yoyo changes. In my personal opinion, the way I look at ithe distinction between "trick’’ vs. ‘‘element’’ vs. ‘‘combo’’ is that each of these is a seperate function that a certain string formation could play within the larger context of whatever yoyo movement you are trying to perform. My view is that a good yoyo trick has a "‘narrative’’ of sorts that makes it interesting, a set of components that flow together and tell a story in a way. I define the way that these different categories fit into the “story” as follows.
Trick: A complete whole movement; could consist of one or multiple steps. This is defined and repeatable
Element: A smaller movement, and subsection of a larger trick. These can usually be categorized based on the type of movement they are e.g. mounts, whips, slacks, etc.
Combo: A series of tricks put together, with less cohesiveness than putting elements together to form individual tricks.
The same movement could fit into multiple of these categories as you observed. For example, performed by itself, Double or Nothing is a trick. But, within the trick Cold Fusion it takes on the attribute of "element,‘’ because it is only one part of a larger complete whole. Combos come into play usually in a performance setting. For example, a competitor might have a series of whips that they do within their contest performances, such as Brent Stole → Reverse Brent Stole → 1.5+ hook. However, the exact order of these might change slightly based on the rhythm of the song used, or they might do a different variation of these tricks, like doing a 2.0 hook instead or doing one of the Brent Stoles behind the back. The point is though that making these changes doesn’t really fundamentally change the individual tricks or the combo itself, whereas taking Double or Nothing out of Cold Fusion would make Cold Fusion impossible to do.
IMO the most masterful, classic tricks are the ones like Rancid Milk, where the individual elements themselves are so unique along with their combination that they combine to form something instantly recognizable and iconic.
Of course, this is just my personal typology - I don’t think there’s a set consensus on these matters. And of course there’s some inherent subjectivity - what feels “complete” is different for every single person. Some people might see a set of moves as a combo, and another may see the same as one trick. But for me personally at least making these distinctions is helpful when I am making my own tricks and trying to see what I’m missing in a certain situation.
Henry is right. The people who overthought this in the past didn’t come up with any amazing list or method. They came to the conclusion that it’s a futile effort to try and break down modern yoyo elements any more than what already exists for newer yoyo players.Yoyo is too complex and infinite to make a finite list of elements and stuff past the very basic/classic stuff.
Just keep learning tricks, and if you’re struggling too much with a trick, just learn something else and revisit that old trick once you’ve gotten better from simply playing more.
You might enjoy Ross Levine’s podcast Kill Your Yoyo if you haven’t already checked it out. He will often discuss trick building and theory with the guests.
Listened to the one with Mark McBride after reading the Yonomicon. Anyone that was trying to dissuade me earlier in this thread should maybe just keep quiet next time you can’t add anything of value to the thread but ignorance and negativity…thanks again to @SlowThrow for turning me on to the book.
Lol don’t be salty. You literally asked a question. The Yonomicon is cool for sure, but it’s in no way a comprehensive list of all the elements it takes to put together all tricks. Enjoy your book though and have fun playing! I just answered your question yo.
No offense, but your answer was the equivalent of telling a guitarist, “Just go learn songs, you’ll figure it out.” There are underlying principles, techniques, and theory involved with pretty much any art. That’s all I was interested in. I’m not an advanced player trying to “crush tricks” as you put it. I’m into getting lost in the flow and enjoying myself. Sorry if I didn’t word my question better or come off as salty. All love.
If you learned a bunch of songs and could play them well on guitar, then you probably learned a ton of technique, underlying principles, and theory to get there. My opinion is still that it’s hard to reduce yoyo to a comprehensive list of all elements like that is my experience and opinion.
Idc about this like it’s whatever…just don’t get salty when people answer the question as you asked it instead of how you meant to ask it. Like
Like come on this hella dramatic. I was sharing my experience and yo, that was from my experience learning to play yoyo and a valuable knowledge dart tbh lol I definitely wasn’t just trying to be negative or answering from a place of ignorance. I think the best and easiest way to learn to play yoyo, is to learn tricks, easier to harder. You learn the technique by doing that ime. If you just wanna flow and have fun, then just go do that and idk why this question would matter then tbh. I thought you you were asking a headier question about all the elements of yoyo idk
I think his underlying point is that the Yonomicon is a great jumping off point, once you’re done with that I think there are other resources of elements to go further.
Implying that it’s ignorant and negative to say experience trumps theory in regard to learning yoyo tricks I think shows heavy bias stemming from lack of experience.
If the book was the answer you were looking for, awesome. But for content more advanced than what the book offers, there will be no book at that point. It’s going to come down to just experience of learning new tricks and figuring out how you personally feel about trick theory.
Because trick construction (as a general concept) boils down to personal preference in a way that has not been solved, and what you personally like will be learned through experience and practice of actually playing.
Mark McBride is a legend.