Breath Yoyo Trick Core

This is the trick Breath and it looks like this. To start this trick you are going to set yourself up for a One-and-a-Half mount but instead of hitting the top string and making the yoyo go around the index finger of your yoyo hand, you are still going to hit the top string but you are going to make the yoyo go around the index finger of your opposite hand. There is going to be some requirements you are going to need to set yourself up for later on in the trick. Number one is as you hit this initial mount you have to start with having the string on the base of your index finger of your yoyo hand immediately when you start to hit this One-and-a-half-ish mount here. The way to do this, is you are going to need to create some separation with the strings because if you put it on the base of your index finger, these two strings end up getting close enough together were the yoyo could hit both of them like this. So to get it out of the way what you can do is from the throw and when you are setting up for the One-and-a-half mount you will see that I take my ring and my pinky finger of my yoyo hand and grab onto the string coming from my yoyo finger and that way when I go into the One-and-a-half mount I then have enough separation with both of the strings there.

The next part is we are going to make the yoyo rock to the other direction and it is going to swing over to the yoyo side of your body and it is going to go over the top of the index finger of your yoyo hand here and you are going to from there try to swing the yoyo up and hit it like you are going to hit a One-and-a-half mount. From here you are going to need to drop one of your strings from your opposite hand and the way to make sure you drop the right string is to look at the two strings coming off from the bottom of your index finger here. You have one that is going directly to your yoyo finger and then you have one that is going to the end of your index finger of your yoyo hand and you need to hold on to the string that going directly to your yoyo finger, so you can even pluck it with the thumb of your opposite hand and curl your index finger in to drop the other string. To make this element look as good as possible what you are going to do is drop that string off the index finger of your opposite hand as you mounting on the second mount here. From here all you are in is essentially in a One-and-a-half mount, but you will be rolled over with an extra wrap around the index finger of your yoyo hand.

So from here what were going to be doing is we are going to be setting up the first and second slack of four slacks that are in the trick Breath. So what we are going to do is we are not going to teach you the first slack right away, we are going to be teaching you what the yoyo does first and then we will throw in the first slack element later. So what we are going to do is starting from our One-and-a-half-mount with the extra wrap we are going to roll in the direction so that it undoes the extra wrap and then we are just in the regular One-and-a-half-mount. Once you are in the regular One-and-a-half-mount what you are going to do is take the thumb of your yoyo hand and what you are going to do is you are going to take this string that is coming from the index finger of your opposite hand and push it into the webbing of your thumb so you can pinch it like so.

Once you have that pinch you can then set yourself up for what is a variation of the trick Crazy 8. Which is like that but we are going to be setting up the Crazy 8 variation a little bit differently then you would normally do the Crazy 8 trick. So, what you are going to do is instead of actually pinching both of the strings like you would in Crazy 8, you are going to have the webbing of your thumb in here, but the loop coming from the yoyo is actually not going to be pinched at all. The tough part about this is we gotta somehow, during the Crazy 8 trick, make sure this loop right here doesn’t fall off your finger during the Crazy 8 portion of the trick. One piece of advice I can give to you is as you swing it over, make sure you do the trick as slow as possible but without stopping the motion of the yoyo. So the way to do this as slow as possible is try to elongate your rolls in sort of a flashy way rather than just making the yoyo roll with your wrist doing most of the work. So make sure that you get your hands and arms involved and you can even roll it in such a way that your hands end up at least eye level or even above your head. So if you slow down the roll enough that will be just enough for you to make sure the loop coming from your index finger will not end up falling off as you do the roll like so.

So once you end up doing the Crazy 8 and you learn how to do this element we can then try to incorporate the slack into it. The first step again is going to be, we are in the One-and-a-half-mount with an extra wrap we will then unwrap it and continue going in that direction with the pinch on our thumb, and what we are going to do is in order to incorporate the slack you are going to swing the yoyo over to the other side as the first part of Crazy 8 and we are going to start to throw the slack at this first part of Crazy 8 right here, and once we do that the slack is going to carry around and you are going to extend the rest of your fingers out like so. Pointing to the opposite side of your body and that will swing the slack over to the other side where you can then catch it with your opposite finger as the yoyo is rolling on to the second part, exiting out of the Crazy 8. Once you do that you will have exited out and you will be in a One-and-a-half mount but with the index finger of your opposite hand curled in there like so. That is the first slack of Breath there.

We need to now set ourselves up for the second slack of Breath so the yoyo still moving around in this direction. So we are going to continue to swing it around, but we are going to make it go over the top of our hand and are going to intercept it with our thumb of our yoyo hand as well and we are going to swing it like this where the yoyo ends up going inside these strings as you roll around. Then the thumb is a placeholder to make sure that the yoyo will go to the inside of these two strings that are in between your two hands here. Once you have that set up you can then do this trick in pretty much two steps and then we will combine the two steps later so we will throw the slack around like this. Where you are going to start from the outside and throw the slack to the inside and make sure you twist your hand so you can allow the slack to carry around like so. Once you catch it in this position here, you can then swing it then over into the One-and-a-half mount. To put that together, that is going to be, we will throw it over into this position, then we will then throw the slack over and carry the yoyo over at the same time like so. Again, you are going to want to make sure that you move the yoyo in a constant motion but as slow as you possibly can and that will allow yourself to have room in order to throw and catch the slack as the yoyo is moving so make sure that you have an elongated motion with your arm during the second slack as well. From there we will finally be in a One-and-a-half-mount, and what we are going to be performing is we are going to essentially take a roll out of the One-and-a-half mount. But it won’t actually roll to make an extra wrap around the yoyo. It will end up rolling to the inside of this top string here, and then it will pretty much go in between the two strings that you have in between your hands and it will be just be a silly little roll essentially that goes around the index finger of your yoyo hand. Once it goes around you can then curl your index finger in order to get rid of that extra wrap. Some tips in order to get this to happen is number one in order to go in between these two strings, you should separate it out by taking the three fingers of your yoyo hand and pulling the string out of the way like this and then you can also cheat with your thumb as well so that way you have plenty of room in order to get the yoyo in between the two strings.

That first and second slack sequence is really hard to get down and having the breakdown will help but to really make this trick look good you are going to need to influence some elegance on this trick by making sure the yoyo is fluid all the way through the first slack and the second slack as well. When you are doing this trick you should always be having the yoyo be moving to make sure the trick to look as elegant as possible.

So from here is going to be probably the toughest part of Breath, is you are going to be in that One-and-a-half mount but now you are going to be throwing a One-and-half mount Suicide and catching that suicide, and there is going to be a lot more parts to it as well. But the important part is that when you throw and catch this suicide, you have to catch that suicide absolutely perfectly. The suicide is more difficult by default because you have less string to catch with it than you do with a regular suicide. One thing to work on is you are going to be really need to be paying attention to your string tension, even though we have four slacks in here and that your string tension should always be perfectly neutral for those slacks, is you shouldn’t just be checking your tension like this with the whole length of the string. Since the suicide in this trick is dealing with the first five or six inches of the string, you are going to need to be checking that area of the string coming directly from the yoyo and seeing if that is twisted up and that will tell if you have the suicide loop you need in order to hit it perfectly without any twists and make sure it will hit your pointer finger as well.

The way to check that is get as close as you can to the yoyo, pull the string about five inches apart, let this slack hang over here but just look at this slack here and see if there is any twists as well. That way you will know if you are ready to throw the suicide during the trick. After you throw that suicide and you catch it, what you are going to be doing also instead of just doing a regular One-and-a-half suicide is you need to set yourself up for the third slack in Breath. So you will notice that as I throw the suicide, I am doing something with my yoyo hand as well where I am pinching a string in my thumb and then I am holding onto a slack as I throw the suicide. The way to do that is you are going to be letting go of this One-and-a-half mount at the same as you pinch the string coming from this finger over top and putting it in the webbing of your thumb and grabbing the string right there and make sure you pinch it to set up for the slack. Once you have that pinch set up you can then throw the suicide, and then now the slack will be hanging right over here after you catch the suicide perfectly. This slack is going to swinging back towards the yoyo side of your body and then it is going to be swinging towards the opposite side of your body. Then you are going to throw that slack into the yoyo in this fashion where the slack loop coming from your thumb, that side of it has to go into the gap of the yoyo and then the other part of the slack has to go to the outside of the yoyo away from your body and that will set you up for the final slack in Breath.

So from here we are now ready to drop the string off of our thumb, and as we are doing that we are also going to be curling in our index finger of our opposite hand and then pinching the string with our thumb as well so now the yoyo is hanging underneath our opposite hand, and we have the string hanging between our two hands forming a slack that we are going to be using later. As we are dropping the yoyo off of that mount, the is going to want to swing around our opposite hand and so we are going to let the yoyo swing around the opposite hand and continue around until it hits the index finger of our yoyo hand and let it drape over top like so. One other thing you are going to need to do is you are going to want to let the string slide in between the pinch a few inches, so that way you can have the yoyo not here, but you want to change the hold so that way it is more lined up with these proportions and that will help you hit the slack later on.

You are going to want to make sure you slide the string as the yoyo is swinging around the make the trick look more fluid. As you learn how to let the string slide you are going to have to learn how to transfer the pinch so after you let the string slide as it is swinging around, you are also going to be transferring the pinch not from just your thumb to your index finger but you are going to transfer the pinch to your middle finger and your index finger of your opposite hand by the time you reach this hold. From there, we are going to now go for the actual slack once we hit that hold, so the yoyo is still swinging around and we are going to let the yoyo swing to the opposite side of our body, continuing its motion. Now we are going to be picking the slack up from our thumb of our opposite hand and it is going to be the string coming straight from your yoyo finger here so pick that up and that will form the slack loop on your opposite hand. You will then swing the yoyo to the opposite side and you will then throw the yoyo into the slack like so. Where the yoyo is actually going to be hitting the slack, pretty much like coming from the outside and it is going to be hidden underneath your hand so you are really need to learn how to position your hand. To position it you are going to be moving your thumb forward and be pushing the pinch of your index finger and your middle finger, you are going to be pulling that backwards so that way the slack now not facing this direction but now facing this direction. As it is facing that direction you can then throw it on the outside loop on the slack facing away from your body.

Once you hit that slack you will end up in a mount that looks like this. All that mount is, is just a trapeze where you pick up with the index finger of your yoyo hand, and then you pick up with the thumb of your opposite hand on the string segment coming from your yoyo finger like so. That is the mount you will be in after you hit the slack. So all we are doing from here is the final dismount of Breath which is you just simply just you dropping those two strings off of your fingers that I just showed you that you pick up. So we are going to add some flare to it as well by making the yoyo pop up into the air as well. The first way to dismount it, is that you can pretty form like a bucket mount where you separate the strings apart from your body so that way it looks like the two string segments that are coming across here are actually separated out to the point where you can pop the yoyo out in between them and then drop the strings and land them in the trapeze. The next way is you can actually just drop the string from the index finger of your yoyo hand and create what looks like a Chopsticks hold, pop the yoyo up in between your two fingers and then drop it off with your thumb and end up in a trapeze like so. Either way, you can do either dismount, just as long as you add the pop to add some flare to it and not just simply drop the strings and that will make the dismount of Breath look a lot better.

So there are plenty of different factors to Breath where it is going to be really difficult to figure out, like the first and second slack, that is really hard to get a hold of where the yoyo is moving as the slack is moving as well and you are going to have to get used to that concept. The idea of throwing a mini suicide while trying to throw a slack into it. It is going to be hard to figure out and even that last slack is going to take a lot of effort in order to master. So there is all these different places in Breath where it is a good concept for you to learn if you want to become an advanced yoyo player but it is also extremely frustrating. This trick was invented really early in the yoyo days and it has been plaguing plenty of the greatest players in the world, including myself. Just really work at this trick, it is a really tough one to master so do not expect to always be hitting it all the time. You are just going to be able to hit it a few times once in a while but in any case, if you can at least hit it with the fluidity that I showed you before then you are well on your way to becoming a great yoyo player and that is the trick Breath.