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Diablo Trick A Day Until Thanksgiving

I have succeeded in my quest! I got two diabolo's on October 30th, and I have learned a trick a day until Thanksgiving! What is significant about Thanksgiving? That is when I next see my dad who taught me how to diabolo originally. Last Thanksgiving (his birthday is right around Thanksgiving each year) I gave him a newfangled Mr. Barbache Finesse G2 Diabolo. Dad (Grandpa Tom) has a bunch of old wooden Diabolos from when he was in high school and college, so I thought he would like it. He seems to like it a bit, but has had trouble translating his tricks with little diabolos to a big 5" diabolo.



So, the last 3 weeks I have learned a trick a day, and hopefully I can learn some tricks from him, and then I can show him how to do a whip or two at least to make his life easier with the Finesse.





Here is a list of the tricks I've learned:
Day 1: Roll Start, Tilt correction. (October 30)
Day 2: Toss/Catch and orbit. (October 31)
Day 3: Foot Hop. Rotation corrections. (November 1)
Day 4: Wrap Acceleration, CCW Sun and CCW Sun acceleration. Toss Start. (See Day 11) (November 2)
Day 5: Horizontal Whips. (November 3)
Day 6: Right Handed under the leg (W/ Toss and catch/Right Backside) (November 4)
Day 7: Leg Orbits (Around right leg) (November 5)
Day 8: Half Sun (over the shoulder sun). Front to Back Sun. Forced Sun (November 6)
Day 9: Left Handed under the leg. (W/ Unwrapp and Wrap) (November 7)
Day 10: Acceleration Orbits! (November 8)
Day 11: Sun Power Thrusts! -> Climb the string! (November 9)
Day 12: (Day off in the mountains: Climb the string from yesterday) (November 10)
Day 13: Power Burners (Right Hand Wrap whip, similar to Power Thrusts) (November 11)
Day 14: Quick Start, Stop And Go (catch, Toss Start).(November 12)
Day 15: (Sun) Quick Start -> Sun Power Thrusts Quick Start -> Power Burners(November 13)
Day 16: Right Stick Grind, Cat's Cradle (Right Backside) (November 14)
Day 17: Combos: Right/Left Backside, sun, under the leg. Right/Left Backside, sun, cat's cradle Climbed string with left back wrap.(November 15)
Day 18: Trapese to Cat's Cradle (right and left kind of) (Chinese Whipped once LOTS of speed)(November 16)
Day 19: Neck Trampoline, Double Sun over Arm(November 17)
Day 20: Chinese Whip! Double Sun Over Arm and Under Leg. (November 18)
Day 21: Spaghetti (Knot) Throw -> Neck Trampoline(November 19)
Day 22: Pass the Spaghetti Quick Start -> Chinese Whip (November 20)
Day 23: Over the Arm Bounces (November 21)
Day 24: Thanksgiving Day (November 22)
November 19th: Spaghetti
November 20th: Pass the Spaghetti
November 21st: Over Arm String Bounces. -> Cross Arm Toss (Pretty much the same as Double Sun over Arm from a few days ago)


Links: http://diabolotricks.com - LOTS of tricks. Good Flash animations
http://thediabolo.com - Great videos.
http://www.diarhythm.com/e/index.html - Simple to very Advanced trick movies

Me and Jesus

Me and Jesus (by Sonny Hood)

Me and Jesus,
We're the best of friends.
From the time I see the sunrise,
until the long day ends.
He's my savior,
I can count on him.
Me and Jesus,
We're the best of friends.


Sometimes I start my day,
things don't go right.
It's an uphill battle
it's a constant fight.
I just look to Jesus,
in Him I can depend.
I know he'll always be there.
He's my faithful friend.



You take one step forward,
then you slide back two.
You know what I mean,
It's happened to you.
You can look to Jesus,
He'll lend a helping hand.
You know He'll always be there,
He's your faithful friend.



We all have our good days.
Sometimes they turn bad.
Sometimes we feel lonely.
Sometimes we feel sad.
Don't be discouraged,
say a prayer AMEN!
You know He'll always be there,
He's our faithful friend.



Lyrics and Song Copywrite Sonny Hood. Lyrics and video used by permission of Sonny Hood.

Performance was at the Men's Summit 2007 at Hermit Basin Lodge on November 11, 2007.

Leadership Starts Here: Summit 2007

Slideshow of the Bethany Men's Summit 2007 (Images)

The theme for Men's Summit 2007 was Leadership Starts Here! The seminars were lead by Eric Anderson, and were on being a Soldier, Ambassedor, man of Integrity, and a Leader (SAIL).


The first night at Hermit Basin Lodge, after a time of worship, Eric Anderson gave a lesson on being an Ambassador for Christ to our families and to our world.


Saturday we opened the day with ham and eggs and a lesson on integrity. Then there was fishing, hiking, skeet shooting, 4 wheelin', Hermit Basin Aerobics, juggling, meditating, and fellowship. We wound down the day with a performance of "Me and Jesus" by Sonny and Greg Hood, followed by a lesson on being a Soldier for Christ.


Lyrics: Me and Jesus

The Sunday morning lesson was on being a Leader in our families, church and the rest of the world. After our final breakout session, Warren lead us in communion and Sonny bid us farewell with another round of "Me and Jesus".


("Me and Jesus" used with the permission of Sonny Hood. If you see a picture that should be removed from the set, please send me an email or leave a comment. If you have pictures you would like added to the set, either send me a link, email or bring a CD to church.)

Sun, Half Sun and Leg Orbits Oh My!

So I've been trying to learn a trick a day for the next two weeks. Not sure I learned a trick today, but I managed to add speed to the diabolo by doing something that somewhat resembled an acceleration orbit...

At the request of my silly cousin who lacks imagination from too many video games and not enough radio and books... here is a video of my trick from the last three days: front back sun, half sun, and leg orbits.

Diabolo

Okay, so I finally broke down and got a pair of Finesse G3 Diabolos... I had my gall bladder out a month ago, and I couldn't do much for a week, and I decided I should order a set of Juggling Skarfs. But shipping was too much, ...

Yada yada yada... I have a yellow and orange G3!

I'm learning fast, I got them last Tuesday I think, and I can pass it under my leg either way, and do orbits around my leg. Yesterday I worked on a double clockwise sun (front then back). Today I worked on a half sun from a shoulder catch today at lunch.

Got out my Mini Motu waiting for the microwave after practice, and the thing feels really weird and small. Managed to do a spirit bomb and some shockwaves, but I was having trouble with just landing a trapeze. Very odd. Front throw tricks like Nanda Kanda and Boingy Boingy did not seem weird though, just the breakaway throw tricks.

I actually am much better left handed now since it hurt less to throw left handed after my surgery...

Super Kickside

I love this yoyo. Not sure why. It was my first "real" yoyo (or my first cheat yoyo if you are Richard). I just like the shape and the hybrid response (siliconed). I think it just feels more like I remember a Duncan Butterfly feeling than the other Yoyojams. Oh, this picture is already out of date. I've completely burned through this string, another green string and now I have an Orange Soda G-String on it. The gString is nice since it is about 8 inches longer than the green highlight strings. The mechanics of tricks are a bit different with the longer string, I'm still having trouble catching the bouncy on 720s; however, I find every 10 tries or so I can do a 1080 followed by really cool yoyo/bouncy interactions that don't result in a knot. The other 9 tries I get a knot when the bouncy catches on the ball.

Oh, the bouncy is nice, but maybe not heavy enough? I find I can do Atomic Bomb much easier with the bouncy than with the die, but tricks like butterfly and windmill it just feels like the wieght is not quite heavy enough. But when I try a nunchuck combo and the counterweight catches on the yoyo and slams into my hand... it does not hurt as much.

I've been working on left hand a lot. I guess you ARE supposed to do 5A ambidextrously... I can do simple tricks like barrel rolls and dizzy baby left hand. I'm working on nunchucks. My breakaway is really inconsistent... but I find I can do 360s easy and 720s occationally. Nothing fancy like a wrist mount or kwijibo.

Thomas Dietz Alert!

I know I have been mostly blogging about 5A yoyoing... but I saw this and just have to say WOW! I think this might be better than Thomas Dietz 6... During the 4th scene, the one with 4 clubs (after 3 ring pancakes) I was thinking: Hey, I can do that! Then quickly that changed to, whoa... I guess I'll never be able to do that!

I would totally dress up as Thomas Dietz for Halloween, except I was Thomas Dietz last year.

OW OW OUCH!

Okay, so I am definitely switching to one of these rubber bouncies tonight. I moved my die from Lyn Fury to my Kick Side. I really prefer the Kickside, plus I'm getting smoother in my 5A yoyoing with a responsive yoyo. A few times now it has snagged and come back unexpectedly. Okay, nothing new there, BUT a few times it was because the counterweight string went into the yoyo and caused it to bind and my hand ended up smashed between a yoyo and counterweight at insane speeds. My right index finger and middle finger are still smarting from a nasty snag earlier when I was practicing this Nunchuck Combo. I can make it thru the combo about 10% of the time now, but no where near as smooth as the video, and he is kind of slow.

I learned to bind poorly left handed. It is easier to bind on a left hand throw since I'm more used to the motion, but on a right hand throw I bind from a left handed trapeze as long as Lyn Fury is spinning fast enough. (Lyn is very unresponsive.) Now that I swapped to my Kick Side, I'm learning much faster left handed since I don't have to wind so much since I don't have to bind most of the time, and can bind it when it is going quite slowly.

Unless it snags. Ouch! My fingers still hurt.

Definitely need to switch to a bouncy ball, the sparkly one in this picture should match my orange kickside.

Recommend A Proyo?

So I was given this fabulous Proyo by John Higby. We already had 2 proyos, and I had written them off as worthless hunks of plastic. Yesterday I played with the Higby yoyo a bit, and found I could do loops better than with my raiders, and almost as good as with my NXGs. So I pulled out the old blue $2 proyo and messed with the string a bit. It was double wrapped and I single wrapped it. It still was not happy. So I unscrewed and rescrewed it a couple times to get the wooden spindle spinning more uniformly, and pow, it is 50 times better than it was. I almost managed to do warp drive a few times.

I still think the Yodel 2007 outperforms it by miles, but I might start recommending these to kids who ask what they should buy.

Pluses:
+ REALLY CHEAP. (In both senses of the word)
+ Unscrews to get out knots.
+ Wooden Spindle gives better sleep times than fixed axel.
+ Returns without binding.
+ Easy to sleep (if not over tight string tension).

Cons:
+ Narrow Gap.
+ Cheaply made and feels too light.
+ More sensitive to string tension than a bearing yoyo, which is bad for newbies who always wind the rong way.



Here is my preference for looping:
NXG >>>> Proyo > Raider > Modded Raider.


Note: I think my modded raider is cracked and was overcranked, but Pat claims he tests every Raider before he ships, so I'll just assume that Modded Raiders need some kind of expert godlike skill to use and leave mine on my shelf until it rusts.

Juggling in Wisconsin

We travelled last week to Wisconsin for my Grandma's funeral. We determined that Grandma and Grandpa have a total of 87 kids, grandkids, great grand kids and great grand kids.

Here is are my cousins Adam and Brody. Brody can juggle 3 balls reasonably well. Adam is better at yoyos. Hopefully we will get to visit them again soon under better circumstances.

I'll post some pictures of us yoyoing if I can find them. Brody has resisted learning to bind, but Adam can do a normal and reverse bind and a few simple tricks. I quickly taught him atom smasher (I thought it was funny to teach Adam Atom Smasher), barrel rolls, and a few picture tricks. It was weird how much different his Hitman feels than mine. It just feels heavier and slower. Not sure why... it doesn't seem like dual silicon would make that much of a difference.

We tried to teach our 4 year old cousin (2nd cousin?) Tristan to yoyo, but he was more interested in dragging the yoyo all over the place. He almost managed to get a NXG back to his hand a few times, but lost interest before we could perfect his technique!

Spirit Bomb!!

These are our Flaming Freehand Zeros, painted by John Higby. They are crazy responsive with the Duncan friction stickers. I find I can still do most of my tricks, but I have trouble with Boomerang and Poppin' Fresh. Oddly, I can almost do Kwijibo, but no boomerang, which should be way easier. Lots of fun, but now I want a Takeshi Modded Flaming Higby Painted Zero!

I've landed two spirit bombs in a row! (And I just messed up the dismount on the 0th and 3rd, so almost 4 in a row.) The secret to landing the second hop seems to be passing your right thumb past the top string (with your hands crossed) and grabbing the lower string to open up the triangle nice and big. Then point your forearm up more than is comfortable to get the middle string (was the top string) centered between the two top ones making the triangle. This was on my Milk, so now I need to learn it on my Kos which is more responsive.

Wrist Dismount

Here is a picture of my 888 and Milk! I really like the 888 a LOT. I came very very close to buying a Higby edition, but somehow managed to control myself. It spins forever, and is totally smooth.

Yes, I am allergic to milk... but the yoyo does not seem to be bothering me:


Gaaaa! I spent 30 minutes yesterday remembering how to do the dismount from Spirit Bomb. I managed to do a Spirit Bomb at lunch, but before bed I managed to land the second hop twice, but both times got a knot for a dismount. So I failed to do just the dismount like 153 times in a row. Finally lying in bed I remembered it is a dunk, not an orbit... and jumped out of bed (Dawn now knows I'm crazy) and did it 3 times in a row. Yey!

I managed to do a full, if not very impressive, freehand Atom Smasher today. I did it right first, caught the counterweight in my left and did it left handed, and managed to smash the counter weight around and nailed the bind at the end. I doubt I will ever be as impressive as the great Steve Brown, but if I do it 500 more times I will maybe at least look like I know what I'm doing.

Atom Smasher

Not sure what I think of these caps. They are kind of cool, but I wasn't there. Obviously I'm not one of the "Best Players". (Especially since in 2004 I couldn't even do Brain Twister.)

Atom Smasher seems more interesting free hand. I've done it succesfully about 4 times in a row, then failed to do it since. I can almost do left handed windmills. I can do a right handed windmill to trapeze, then left handed windmill, but usually fail to give enough momentum for the trapeze. But, I'm landing the trapezes 40% of the way along the string now, instead of the 15-20% of the way along like I was before. It looks a lot better, and I'm getting better at aiming left handed. I think I usually land (Old Man and his) Brother closer to 25%, so maybe I'll get better at that trick too? (Maybe not, the sister string, or double extra string for Double Brother get in the way.)

I practiced Spirit Bomb for a while last night and this morning. I figured out what I was doing wrong, but I keep landing the final pop on the inside of the triangle. I was doing something funky with my left hand to get the strings out of the way to allow me to land it, guess I need more practice. I honestly don't know if my last successful attempt (first time I tried on my KOS a month ago) was before or after I started doing the funky thing, hopefully before.

I have bad slack on Boomerang, so it snags with the stock Free Hand Zeros. I can feel the slack on my responsive Hitman, but it is not responsive enough to care. Need to be smoother!

Freehand Day 2

I have gotten a lot better at trapezes, and I have started practicing Windmill. I have managed to do a few consecutive windmills, but usually I have trouble just doing one. For some reason I want to throw the counterweight around too soon. Seems pretty easy though, easier than learning to juggle the windmill. I practiced Aerials for a bit, but I can't manage to do one after anything but a pinwheel or around the world. I still can't bind left handed, but I practiced a normal bind for a while, and I get cleaner binds with that than I used to. Half the time it just slips, but I remember when I got a knot 50% of the time, so that is an improvement!

After managing to knock the cap out of this pretty yoyo, I threw a blue Duncan die on my Lyn Fury. The Lyn Fury is my least favorite yoyo. I used to think it was the color (yellow and black), but I love my KOS and it is the same color. Still I might throw a half Lime Green Lyn Fury into my cart next time I order from yoyonation. I'm not worried about dropping my Lyn Fury. Currently it has no shims and is double recessed silicon. I'm tempted to add some thin lube, but I like that it is easy to bind right now.

John Higby e-mailed me back, the fabulous string on Dawn's FH0 is gString. I just e-mailed an order off for some Regular Lemon Aid and Orange Soda and SSE Aquamarina (figure it will match my 888).

Learning Freehand

Here is the auction picture of my new John Higby painted Takeshi Modded Freehand2. I will get a few better images once I have time to upload some images to flickr. This yoyo looks Zsweet when spinning. The red and yellow mix into the perfect yellow/orange blur. The yoyo feels much more solid than my takeshi mod FHZ. The side caps look kind of silly, but they feel much nicer than the paper caps normally on a FH2.

I decided to document my Freehand en devours more than I did (re)learning to yoyo the last four months. My entire documentation of my yoyo progress is a note made in early March that I finally learned to do Atom Smasher, and I can do Split the Atom every time.

I just got 6 shiny new John Higby painted yoyos. Three of them came with cool bouncy ball counterweights. Since I now have 6 counterweights (three came with my Takeshi modded FH0 I got a couple months ago), I thought I would give 5A yoyoing (Freehand) a try.

Today I learned to hold the yoyo in each hand. And I am able to do alternating trapezes a few times each time I throw. I can't really throw straight with my left hand, or bind the yoyo back left handed. I also tried a few tosses of the yoyo and counterweight, and managed to catch the string a few times, but end the end I did a run away dog down the hall. Once I got home, I practiced a while more, and found that grass is great since it both cushions the fall, and keeps the yoyo from running away.

I find that I feel like I have a club left hand, much like trying to juggle 3 balls in my left hand. I'm wondering if I should learn some more basic 1A tricks left handed to help with 5A? I've been planning to learn some 2A, so maybe that will help. I actually can get my first loop right on my left hand more often than my right; however, I can loop dozens of times right handed, but the yoyo quickly goes out of control left handed.

Not sure what this has to do with chilis, but obviously I'm not blogging about food so maybe this will motivate me more. ^_^

Cholesterol 2007

Well, I'm not using this blog for anything else... so I might as well put SOMETHING here...

I got my cholesterol results back from May 22, 2007. I've been eating pretty badly of late, I have been eating lots of chicken wings and oatmeal cookies. BUT, I've been juggling, yoyoing, footbagging, and joggling enough to cancel it all out I guess:

Total Cholesterol=137
Triglycerides=91
HDL=34
LDL=85


Two years ago my Triglycerides were up over 300, so that's a good improvement.

Must be all the chilies and Oatmeal I'm eating.