In this video I am going to teach you a couple different ways to quickly wind your offstring
yoyo up.
The way I just showed you here, is my preferred method, but it is also a little bit trickier.
It can be a little bit more difficult to learn, so I am also going to teach you a slightly
easier method.
That way you can get started.
The nice thing about offstring style yo-yoing is, you are going to have plenty of opportunity
to practice winding your yoyo up, because you are probably going to be dropping your
yoyo and awful lot.
The simpler way to do a quick windup is very similar what you would do with an unresponsive
yoyo.
With an offstring yoyo what you are going to do is set it onto the string.
Then take the end of the string here and pinch it between your first finger and your thumb,
just like that.
Now all you want to do is get the yoyo spinning so you can perform a bind.
This is a lot more like an unresponsive yoyo than a responsive yoyo.
You will remember with a responsive yoyo, what you want to do is pull up so that the
yoyo bounces up in the air and gets some slack.
If you do that with an offstring yoyo it is going to come right off the string, and that
is not what you want because then it is just going to fall down to the ground.
This is more like an unresponsive yoyo.
What I would recommend doing is getting your hand onto the yoyo to prepare it to get your
spin.
Then pull forward with your opposite hand while you pull back with your hand that is
on the yoyo.
Then as smooth as you can you want to get the yoyo spinning.
You can see that it does not spin for very long.
You want to be able to execute your bind quickly.
Also, the straighter you can get your fast wind up, the better, because the straighter
it is the less friction is going to slow the yoyo down, of course.
You want to get as much power out of it as you can, while not adding any slack, then
immediately you can perform your bind.
If the yoyo doesn’t seem like it has enough spin then you can do what I did, which is
to drop your hand down to give your yoyo more time to wind up.
What you may be able to see is that, because it was spinning so slowly, it doesn’t up
wind up very tight.
In a previous video I talked about how if you have a really loose wind is what you don’t
want to do is you don’t want to pull the string tight because that will mess up the
way it is wound up.
Then the yoyo won’t come off the string.
When you are doing that with a wind up, where the yoyo hasn’t been spinning very quickly,
basically what you want to do is throw it very gently so that at no point are you pulling
hard on the string.
If you can throw it really gently, then that can get all the string out of the gap, and
then you can perform a proper bind and you are ready to go.
That is one of the things about these find wind up techniques, is that it is so difficult
to get the yoyo spinning fast enough most of the time you need to perform your bind,
and then you need throw the yoyo again to clear it, to get a tight bind, and then you
can move on from there.
Something we have talked about in other videos, but it is also true of offstring yoyos, the
smaller the center of the yoyo is, then the harder it is going to be able to get spin
on it if you put your thumb on the offstring to get it to start spinning.
What I mean by that is a yoyo like the Spire that has a narrow center, this diameter here
is very narrow, you are not going to be able to get a lot of spin with your thumb like
you can if you were to split your fingers and do the same thing on the outer halves
of the yoyo.
Basically, the fatter the diameter is at the center of the yoyo, the better the technique
with the thumb is going to work.
The smaller the diameter the better it is going to work just splitting your fingers
and putting your hand on the yoyo like this.
Again, once you get it going you can perform your bind, give it enough time to wind up,
and then do that kind of soft throw to clear the string, and you are ready to go.
Now, once you have that down what you can also do is you can combine that with a one-handed
offstring bind.
Again, you are holding the string in your hand in the same way, pinching the string
between your first finger and thumb.
What you can do once the yoyo is spinning is you can swing the yoyo forward, release
that string, and then pull back really slightly, and if you do it just right, you don’t throw
the yoyo out too fast, then the yoyo will bind and return to your hand.
You can combine this with the same technique because you are already getting the yoyo swinging
forward when you are doing your fast wind.
One thing you want to keep in mind is that when you swing the yoyo forward it kind of
jumps forward really quickly, that makes it a little bit difficult to get it into the
right position to actually execute this bind.
When I was first working on this I would find that even though I could get the yoyo to bind
and come back, the yoyo wouldn’t always come off the string the next throw.
I think it was because the yoyo is not spinning that fast, but I was having that really tight
pull motion because the yoyo was moving away from me too quickly.
What I started doing to make this work a little better, I would get the yoyo spinning and
then as it is swinging the away from me, I use the motion of my hand, I kind of move
forward with the yoyo a little bit, to slow the motion of the yoyo down, and then kind
of purposefully swing it up, and you can see that helps to execute the bind.
Again, you are going to probably have a loose bind, especially at first when you are doing
this, so you are going to want to clear it with a really soft throw.
That one is a little trickier, but again, once you practice it a little bit and you
can get the timing down with that swing, then you can also execute that.
That is quite a bit fast than stopping and binding, but it is also a little more risky,
so you will have to see if you can work that out.
Both of these methods are great, but I don’t think either of them works quite as well as
this third method.
The main reason is that it is very difficult to get enough spin on the yoyo to get a clean
bind that you don’t then need to clear to in order to actually start performing tricks.
Usually with those you want to do at least one throw to clear all the string out before
you give it a really powerful throw.
This next one, the clearing of the string is built right into it.
So let’s take a look at that.
The first thing you want to do is you want to hold the yoyo in your hand just like this,
that will leave the string dangling right here.
You are going to take the string, wind it over the top of the yoyo and then under so
it’s hanging off the front of your hand, just like this.
What you are going to do, it is going to look I am throwing the yoyo, it’s not really
about the throw, it’s just releasing the yoyo so that the yoyo can start traveling
the down the string.
You will start to feel it spin, kind of engaging with the string.
While it is doing that you are going to moving your hand away from the yoyo, you a not going
to pinch the string, you are going to let the string slide through your fingers as you
do it.
The reason why you don’t just start way down here, is it keeps the string controlled
so that it doesn’t accidentally go into the side of the yoyo.
Again, you are going to release the yoyo, it is going to start to wind down the yoyo.
Then, at a certain point, somewhere between 1/4 of the way down, but more than 1/2 the
way down, you are going to lift up.
You want to lift up in a really smooth motion.
What you don’t want to do, you don’t want to jerk the yoyo up so that it bounces and
gets slack.
If it bounces and gets slack then the same thing can happen.
A part of the string can get into the side of the yoyo that you don’t want, or it might
just not work at all.
You are going to move up with a really slow motion.
What that will do is it will reverse the direction the yoyo is moving.
The yoyo will then start to climb the string up to your hand.
What you basically want to do at that point is wait for the yoyo to get to your hand so
that you can grab it.
When you do that, it looks like this.
Just like that.
You can see there is still all of this string right here.
I know that was really quick, we’ll do that again.
Once you get the yoyo right here then if you did it right what is going to happen is the
string is going to go from your finger to the front side of the yoyo and the rest of
the string, this tail right here, is going to be going down the back side of the yoyo.
What you are going to do is grab on, you are going to hold on tight this time, you are
going to throw the yoyo forward like a normal offstring throw.
Make sure to keep the string you are holding with your opposite hand behind the yoyo as
you throw it.
And when you throw it, it is going to catch on the string, so then you want to string
it in-between your hands, just like this.
Now you’ve got your yoyo spinning, and then you can perform your bind.
The main thing that you want to keep in mind with this, is you don’t need a lot of power,
that is not what it is about.
It is really just the finesse of having really smooth motions and then allowing the yoyo
to come back up to your hand.
You are going to decelerate and then reaccelerate on the way up so that it is almost like a
wave you are going to do.
Then you are going to pause and wait for the yoyo to get back to your hand.
Once you get more comfortable with this, if you want it to go even faster you don’t
even have to catch the yoyo as it is winding back up the string.
You can perform what is basically the same thing as Stall in 2A where you just curl your
hand backward in order to get the yoyo to slow down to a stop and then before you catch
it you throw the yoyo right back out.
That looks like this.
And you can see you can still get a lot of power out of it and you can move right into
your tricks.
It is going to be a little bit less controlled, but if you are feeling ambitious and you just
want to go as fast as you can, it is also a good way to learn this trick.
Now when you are first learning this trick there are 2 problems you are likely to run
into.
The first one is when you are going to throw the yoyo it doesn’t actually release from
the string and spin free.
It gets caught.
That usually just means somewhere in your technique it is a little bit sloppy.
You might be pulling the yoyo up a little bit too quickly instead of having that wave
motion.
You might have too much slack in the string, so a part of the string gets in the side of
the yoyo.
Anything that goes wrong with this will keep it from coming off the string, so you just
need to be a little bit more disciplined.
The more you do it, it should work itself out that way.
The second thing that can happen, and this one can be really frustrating, is when you
pull up with your hand the yoyo, instead of climbing up the string, it kind of starts
to climb up, and then it just drops right back down, and it doesn’t wind up at all.
There are two reasons why this could be happening.
The first one is you might have a brand new yoyo.
There is something about new response pads that don’t always work super well with this
particular trick.
But, thankfully, what I have found is that playing with any offstring yoyo for about
5 or 10 minutes will break in the response pads, and then it will start to work.
The second reason this might be happening is you might not be keeping the string taut.
So when I talked about sliding your hand down the string, part of the reason you do that
is you always want to keep a little bit of tension on the string.
When you pull that string tight - you don’t want it too tight, but you do want a little
bit of pressure on that - what that does is it keeps the string tight around the axle.
That allows it to spin while it goes down, and then while you lift up it kind of forces
it to wind around the axle.
That will allow you to complete the trick.
That will also keep the string from going into the side of the yoyo, just keeping it
a little bit taut as you do it is just a good idea in general.
Of these three particular wind up techniques, you will probably end up like me, and the
third one will be the one that you always want to go to.
But if you are having trouble learning it, it took me a little while to get this one
down, definitely use the first two.
Work your way up.
The faster you can learn to wind your offstring yoyo, the more you are going to enjoy learning
tricks.
Get to it!
Those are the fast windup techniques for your offstring yoyo.