Thursday, July 19, 2007

Spirit Bomb!!

Matching Higby Flaming Freehand Zeros!

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.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Wrist Dismount

888 and Milk

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:
Milk Does a Body Good

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.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Atom Smasher

Custom Takeshi Mod Higby Painted FH2

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!

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Freehand Day 2

Takeshi Mod John Higby Painted Freehand 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).

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

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. ^_^