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 Oh, this picture is already out of date.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.