In this video I am going to teach you 3 Rock the Baby style tricks.
These are classic tricks, and even though they were popular once upon a time, they haven’t
been done in a while, at least not that often, so you may have never seen these before.
But I think they are really great, so I wanted to bring them back and teach them to you right
now.
The first one is called the Swing Set, but you could actually call it a Baby Swing, because
it kind of looks like how Baby Swings look today.
That trick looks like this.
If you want to learn this trick, just like any picture trick it is going to be easier
if you just stop the yoyo and let it hang down at the bottom of the string.
then you are not pressured by trying to finish the trick while it is spinning.
The first thing you want to do is take your first finger of your opposite hand - you are
going to hook the string - make sure you come in front of the string to hook it.
Then you are going to pinch the string in between your thumb and your yoyo finger.
Make sure when you pinch the string, you pinch it right where the string is attached to your
yoyo finger.
That will create this V shape.
If you pinch it too far out the strings will be a little bit more parallel, that won’t
look quite as good for this trick.
Make sure you pinch it just like that.
Next you are going to take your pinky, and you are going to hook the string in the same
way you did with your first finger.
When you do this if you raise your pinky up too much you can see one leg will be too long.
If you drop it down too far, one leg will be too short.
Ideally you want the legs to be about equal length, or close.
Then you are going to do the same thing you did before.
You are going to pinch the string in between your thumb and your yoyo finger.
Again, pinch the string right where the string is toughing your yoyo finger.
Just like that.
Now we have these two V shapes.
Then, just like Rock the Baby, put your hand right under the yoyo and you can rock it through.
Let me show you that again from a different angle, and that will help clarify everything
that is going on in this particular trick.
To start you want to take your opposite hand and hook the string just like this from the
front.
Then you are going to take your yoyo hand and you want to pinch the string between your
thumb and your middle finger.
Make sure you pinch it right where the string connects with your yoyo finger just like that
to create that V shape.
Then you want to take your pinky and you are going to hook the string again from the front,
just like you did before.
Make sure you even out those legs as best you can.
Then you are going to come down here with your yoyo hand and pinch the string one more
time.
Make sure the string connects with the string you have already pinched.
Just like that.
Then all you are going to do is, just like in regular Rock the Baby, put your hand beneath
the yoyo and rock it through.
The second Rock the Baby variation I want to show you used to be called Dual Custody,
we like to call it Rich Kid, because it involves rocking one baby through multiple cradles,
two in this case, at once.
That trick looks like this.
Here are your two cradles, then you kind of rotate the cradle as you rock the baby through,
just like that.
Again, if you want to learn this trick, just drop the yoyo down and I’ll walk you through
it.
The first thing that you want to do is you want to put your thumb and first finger of
your opposite hand together and bring the string right over top of it.
Again, you can pull in from the front just like this.
Then you want to pinch the string between your yoyo finger and thumb, or between your
first finger and your thumb, both will work.
Then you want to take the three fingers that are outside the string and instead of hooking
the string like we have done with these last few tricks, you actually want to come in between
your body and the string, like this, and you want to lift the string up.
When you do this, one thing that is critical if you want the trick to look right is you
want to pinch the string between your middle finger and your first finger, right where
the string is touching your first finger in this first triangle that you have made.
Just like that.
That will help things line up a little bit better so that the trick looks better.
Again, just lift the rest of the strings up with your other fingers.
Then you are going to come down here and pinch the string again.
If you spread out your thumb and your pinky you can see you have got two cradles right
here.
Then, like I showed you before, when you rock it, you are not actually keeping the cradle
still and rocking the yoyo back and forth.
You are going to rock the baby straight each time, and you are just going to turn the cradle,
just like this.
Alright?
Let’s look at that trick again from a different angle.
Again, I think that will help clarify a couple of things.
To start you are going to bring your thumb and first finger together on your opposite
hand.
Then push those into the string from the front, just like that, and lay the string right over
your thumb and first finger.
Then you want to pinch the string with your yoyo hand, I usually pinch it between my thumb
and my first finger, just like this.
Then you want to take these three fingers that are not in this cradle you already made,
and bring them underneath the cradle, just like this, and you are going to push them
into the string - again, it is not like the hooking we have done before from the front,
we are going to push in from the back, from the side closest to you - and as you do that
you are going to pinch these two strings together in between your first finer and your middle
finger on your opposite hand so that they touch.
Just like that.
Then you are going to bring the cradle down so that the rest of the strings fall right
on those fingers right there, because that forms your second cradle.
Then you are going to pinch the string at the top, just like this, the same way you
did before.
Then you are going to rotate around and bring your hand underneath the cradle just like
this, spreading out your thumb and your pinky to make your two cradles.
Then you rotate the cradles as you rock the yoyo through, just like that.
The third rock the baby variation is called “alien baby” and that looks like this.
So alien baby as you can see if just the trick UFO done inside of rock the baby.
Now we do have other videos that teach those tricks more in more detail but I’ll teach
them to you real quick right here and then I’ll give you some tips on making this trick
look as good as possible.
So the first thing obviously is you have to perform rock the baby.
To do that, again just get a good sleeper, you’re gonna grab the string right about
in the middle with your opposite hand, pinch the string a couple inches above the inches
with your yoyo hand and then bring your opposite hand underneath the yoyo and point your fingers
forward and that is rock the baby.
Again if you’d like some more detail on that or a little more help we have another
video on that.
For UFO, all you’re really doing is throwing a very powerful sleeper, while the yoyo is
crooked you’re gonna throw it across your body just like this.
If you pick the yoyo up you’ll see that it’ll level out and start to UFO.
Again, all you’re gonna do is put those two things together.
Now when you put the two tricks together, what you’re going to find is that you UFO
does the same thing in this trick that it does in other tricks, if you’re right handed
that means it’s going to loosen the string pretty quickly.
If you’re left handed, it’s going to tighten the string.
So what you want to do before you actually perform the trick is you want to prepare the
string to allow for that loosening or tightening depending on which hand you are.
So you can do that with any number of string tension variations.
We’ve taught these in other videos, you can do the sidewinder, just like that.
You can also do a UFO in the opposite direction, and if you have another type of string tension
method that you like, you can use that as well.
So once you have your string properly tightened, again if you’re right handed, loosen if
you’re left handed, then you can do the trick.
Now, another thing that I like to do when I perform this trick is instead of throwing
right into a UFO and then building the rock the baby while the yoyo is UFOing, if that’s
a word, what I like to do is just have it angled a little bit cause you know it levels
itself out so if you throw it just right you’ll have just enough time to build your cradle
while the yoyo is starting to level out and then as soon as it levels out you can rock
it through and get it back to your hand.
Now one more thing that you may not have noticed that I do when I perform this trick is actually
hold the cradle back when the yoyo starts to UFO.
And that’s because when it first starts to spin on it’s side it looses control a
little bit, and it can go side to side, it can actually bump into the side of the cradle,
and when that happens, and since it’s spinning sideways it’ll wrap around those strings
pretty quickly, and you don’t want that to happen because that can get you into a
knot.
So what I suggest you do is just hold the cradle back a little bit, wait for the UFO
to settle, which won’t take very long, and then just rock it though and bring it back
out.
Again, you want to make sure to tighten your string before you do this.
So again, get it angled, hold the cradle back, rock it through, and the last thing you’ll
notice is when I get the yoyo out of the cradle you want to toss it forward just a little
bit, that will create some distance between you and the string and then you can just stick
your hand out and the yoyo will return right to your hand.
So that is the third classic rock the baby variation.
Learn them, show them to your friends, I think all of these are pretty impressive and hopefully
now that I’ve taught them to you they won’t be forgotten and we’ll start to see them
a little bit more we used to.