This trick is called Punching Bags, and it looks like this.

As you can see, Punching Bags are really looping Tricks, but instead of looping in your normal direction the Punching Bag goes in the opposite direction. If you want to learn Punching Bags, the first thing you really need to do is make sure that you have completely mastered Hop the Fence. All Punching Bags are, is Hop the Fence, but instead of doing the trick straight down, you are going to go straight forward. There is another trick you may want to learn called the Fountain, where you do the same trick straight up into the air. Eventually you will want to get good at going from one to the other. So going from straight down, to straight out, and then even pushing it up all the way into the air. We will get to that one later.

When you are learning your Punching Bags, make sure that you have a good looping yoyo. Make sure that you have really greased the axle or at least that it is playing very responsive, if that is how your yoyo is setup, because the more responsive the yoyo plays, the easier this trick is to learn. The other thing you may have noticed, is that I have cut my string just a little bit shorter for this video, and that also makes learning the Punching Bags a little bit easier. You don’t want to get too short, but play around with that and that may help you out.

Just like Hop the Fence, when you are learning this trick you want to remember that if you are right-handed it is going to tighten the string, and if you are left-handed it is going to loosen the string. While you are learning this you are definitely going to be doing some string adjustments.

Like I said, you are going to be starting off with your motion of Hop the Fence, but what you want to start doing is pushing the yoyo forward. Actually, what you are doing is you are anticipating the direction you want the yoyo to go. When you are doing Hop the Fence the motion is a little bit down or even angled forward a little bit. So, for Punching Bags you want to to be angled straight out, and that is where you get the name from, it is this idea that you are pushing the yoyo forward, as it comes back. Right when the yoyo gets about right here, you are going to pull back a little bit and then throw it back out, so you can see, that is where the punching motion comes from. Actually you want to push just a little bit higher in your motion than you want the yoyo to go out. If you want it to go straight out you are going to be pushing up just a little bit. The yoyo is going to fall on its way back down, so as you can see my hand goes up a little bit and that helps me to get that straight out motion.

Punching Bags are very challenging to learn, but once you get them they are really great. You can do them very fast… you may even be able to do them faster than a Loop. The better and better you get at them you really can just crank them out. There are all sorts of tricks that you can do with Punching Bags, especially when you get into Two-Handing, Two-Handed Punching Bags are very impressive.

Work on it, keep trying it. Start with your Hop the Fence, and just start pushing it up.

And that’s Punching Bags.

This trick is called the stall and it looks like this.

The stall, it was just that little motion that I did with my hand. The idea behind the stall is that you are trying to slow the yoyo down, slow it down, so that it either stops or almost stops and then throw it right back out again. This allows you to go from trick to trick a whole lot faster without actually having to catch the yoyo.

The easiest way to work on the stall is just to start with your normal throw. Instead of throwing it straight down like you normally would, you actually want to throw it forward a little bit so that it swings around towards you. That way when you catch it you are already catching it back here. Instead of catching it we are going to stall. The idea behind the stall is to just bring your hand back with the motion of the yoyo to slow down the whole motion. You might even be pushing your elbow forward a little bit just to get that whole motion. You are going to bend your wrist back. All of that is to cushion the yoyo, to slow it down so that you can throw it right back out.

If you get really good at the motion you may even be able to it without the yoyo even touching your hand. That is not necessary, you can allow it to slap your hand a little bit. The key is to get it right back out.

Unlike the flip, where the flip is always done on the opposite side of the yoyo as the string as it comes up, a stall is always done on the same side of the yoyo as the string is. So if the string is on the front of the yoyo then your stall is also going to be on the front and you are going to just whip it right back out, just like you would a forward toss.

What that means is that it actually couples very nicely with your flips. If you want to start off with a forward toss you know you can do a flip right out of that, but the yoyo is going to come back with the string on top which means that you can do a stall immediately. So you want to do a flip right to a stall. Just like your flips this motion is infinitely repeatable. Because of that you can throw in stalls just about anywhere in your looping routines. You can even turn a stall into a regeneration; if you want to do a flip to a regeneration into an around the world… stalls they just work great like that.
So, get used to them. Learn them. They are kind of like the icing on the cake when it comes to looping tricks. They are a little bit easier to learn with butterfly style yoyos so you should get one of those to learn this trick.

That’s the stall.

This trick is called Regeneration and it looks like this.

If you look at the trick you might notice that the Regeneration is really just a flip, except it is a flip used to add spin to the yoyo. So, as you are working on this trick you really want to make sure that you have your flips down because this trick is completely dependent on that skill.

The only difference between the Flip and the Regeneration is that instead of bringing the yoyo back immediately, maybe to do another flip, you are going to bring it back a little bit larger, you are going to make the motion larger so that it will sleep. Again, a flip you are just going to go straight out, but for a Regeneration you are going to kind of make the motion bigger. It is going to come around so that it will go down and sleep at the bottom.

What is great about Regenerations is that if you are doing looping tricks, or Around the Worlds or anything like that they can be thrown in anywhere to just keep the motion going so that you do not have to stop your routine. Like I already showed you, if you want to start with a forward toss you can do a Regeneration right into the forward mount. Maybe you want to do a forward toss off to the side you can do your Regeneration right into your side mount. You can even do it from your loops. You can just do a Regeneration right in the middle and just get right into your tricks. You can group several string tricks together and then use a Regeneration to keep the motion going to add trick to trick to trick. It is just a really great trick.

Again, learn your Flips; bring them into Regenerations as a transition. That’s the Regeneration.

This trick is called Flips and it looks like this. Flips, they are really the opposite of a loop, and just like looping is easiest to do with a thinner yoyo, flips are a lot easier to do with a wider yoyo which is why I am using the Luminator. Just like looping, which is just one motion continually repeated over and over again, flips are different in that it is two different motions, and they are going to be opposite to each other. So, you are going to do one flip up and then down. Or if you are doing it down towards the ground it is going to be forward and then backward. That is what makes the flip different than the loop.

As you are learning your flips there is a very easy way to tell whether you are supposed to do a forward flip or a reverse flip, so I will show you that right now. Whenever the yoyo winds back up the string, the string is either going to be towards the front of the yoyo or towards the back of the yoyo. Your flip is always going to go in the opposite direction as the string… as the string is winding up the yoyo. If the string is coming up on the front side of the yoyo then your flip is going to come towards the back. The same thing is true if the string is coming up the backside of the yoyo your flip is going to go over towards the front. If you are trying to do a flip and you go on the same side as the string is coming up the yoyo it is not going to end up being a flip it is going to end up being more of a loop. So like I said they are kind of the opposite of a loop because the flip is always in the opposite direction.

When you first start learning how to do your flips, you can start off the way I already showed you which is throwing the yoyo straight towards the ground and you can do your flips front and back. You can also do them straight ahead, like you saw me doing earlier. That is a lot more challenging.

When you are trying to perfect your flips what you are going to find is that they are a lot easier to do if you always keep your yoyo finger completely perpendicular to the yoyo. So as you see me do my flips I am always keeping my wrist bent a little bit and I am always trying to keep that finger straight out so that it is perpendicular to the motion of the yoyo. The second thing, if you want your flips to be straight, you want to line up the string on your yoyo finger exactly with the groove of the yoyo. That will make sure that your flips are always coming off straight and you are always pushing them out the right way.

Like I said it is easier to learn them down on the ground at first. Eventually as you get better at them you can start pushing them up a little bit.

That’s the flip.

If you’re really working hard on your looping tricks what you’re going to find, eventually, is that your string is going to get really messed up. There are a couple of tricks that you can use that actually look really cool that also help you adjust your string, and these are called UFOs.

To do a UFO, instead of throwing the yoyo in the conventional way, what you actually want to do is throw the yoyo in such a way that the yoyo ends up sleeping parallel to the ground. If you throw the yoyo off to the right it is going to tighten the string. If you throw it off to the left it is going to loosen the string.

To do this trick you want to start by throwing you yoyo so that it ends up spinning almost parallel to the ground. You actually want the string to spin out over the yoyo. To achieve that, while it’s spinning you just put your hand right over the top. To bring the yoyo back to your hand you need to swing it out and then pull your hand back in. As soon as the yoyo gets parallel to your hand it’s going to come right back. The same thing is true when you throw it to the left across your body. Get the yoyo sleeping, get your hand over the top, and then get the yoyo parallel to your hand; it’s going to come right back. Those are your UFOs.

If you want to add a little bit of style to it, when you throw your yoyo across your body you can even pick up the string. This is called a Sleeping Beauty. That’s just another way to loosen the string very quickly. Crowds really love it. If you really want to get into your two-handing, or even into just any type of looping these tricks make it a whole lot easier.

This trick is Around the World, it looks like this.

Around the World starts just like your basic loop; you are going to start with a forward toss. But, instead of allowing the yoyo to come right back so you can loop it out you actually want the yoyo to sleep so that it can go all the way around and do the trick.

One of the things that you need to be aware of as you do this trick is that wherever the yoyo stops its motion that is where it’s gonna get slack and come back to your hand. That’s true whether you stop it right in front of you, which is what you want to do, or, even if you get it right over your head and stop the trick, it’s gonna come back so you want to be aware of that.

What I do to make sure that I get the motion all the way around is I actually think of throwing the yoyo off in the distance, and that seems to give it just the right momentum to get all the way around.

When you do this trick you don’t actually have to stop at one Around the World, you can do as many as you can as long as the yoyo is still spinning.

This trick isn’t that difficult. Give it a try. That’s Around the World.

This trick is called Hop the Fence. It looks like this.

When you are doing this trick it is important to know that the string is going to get tighter if you are right-handed; it’s going to get looser if you’re left handed. So, once you’ve got that, you’re ready to work on the trick.

When you’re doing this trick, you throw the yoyo down and on its way back up, right when the yoyo get’s to about here, what you’re going to do is push your yoyo hand forward, right over the yoyo, and that’s going to cause the yoyo to flip over.When I do the trick you will actually notice that my hand flips while the yoyo flips. You don’t actually have to do that. You can do the trick with your hand staying upright. But, for whatever reason it gives you a little bit more control to flip your hand, and that will actually lead nicely into some more advanced tricks like the punching bag. So it’s a good idea to get that motion down right away.

Just like any looping trick, Hop the Fence is not the easiest trick to master, but keep working on it. It’s a gateway to a whole bunch of other tricks, and you’ll love it.

This next trick that we’re going to show you is called the Leg Wrap Trap. It looks like this.

To do this trick you are going to start by throwing a strong around the world – sideways – and as it’s going around you are going to step forward with your yoyo leg and let it pass right between your legs. You want the yoyo to continue around in a circle motion step forward with the other leg and let it pass right through. To end it you are going to land on a trapeze.

When you put it together it looks like this.

That’s the Leg Wrap Trap.

This next trick that we’re going to show you is called the chain Wrap, and it looks like this.

When you’re learning this trick you can practice it with either the yoyo dead, or you may find it easier if the yoyo is actually spinning. The trick involves four around the worlds, two of them are in the front of your body and two are in the back. You start off by throwing a strong breakaway, and you are actually going to let the yoyo go all the way around and stick your arm out and let it pass right underneath your arm. From there you use your arm to push it to the rear of you. It’s usually a good idea to just practice that move first.

Once you’re comfortable with that you are going to move on to the next step which is throwing an around the world behind your back and pulling it in front of you. This step also you can practice alone – throwing it around. The key to this trick is that as the yoyo comes around you want to actually bend your arm in as if you were putting your hand on your hip so that you can pull the yoyo back in front of you.

Once you have all of these steps you can put them together and it will look like this.

That’s the Chain Wrap.

The next trick that we are going to show you is called the Guillotine It looks like this.

When you’re doing this trick you want to start off by throwing a strong Breakaway, and when you do the Breakaway you want to actually let the yoyo pass right around your neck. Before it comes around and hits you in the face you want to turn your body and stand upright so that the yoyo can pass around the side of your head and then across the front of your body so you can catch it.

When you put it together it looks like this.

That’s the Guillotine.