fail proof bind on the phenom?

I want to compete in a sport ladder and I was practicing when I noticed something. I can do almost all the tricks but it will be counted as a miss if the yoyo does not return to my hand. The phenom has a wide gap which makes it hard for me to bind it every time, and when I bind it it is very loose.

Does someone know of a fail proof bind for a yoyo with a wide gap?

thanks,
agyoyo

Do you pinch your string when you bind?

Learn how to bind.

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Play with a responsive yoyo. Nothing on the string ladder requires unresponsive play, and it teaches good technique and smoothness.

Replace your silicone. Also try the Dave’s bind and fake bind.

Plastic whip comes to mind as easier with a non-responsive yoyo. Anyway, in the short term to make it easier, use new grippy pads or flowable silicone. Also a thicker string is a little easier to bind.

why?

Because a responsive yoyo easily responds when you tug on it. An unresponsive does not generally respond when you tug on it. You can pay me later. :wink:

Have any evidence for this mantra I hear repeated?

Play responsive only if you want to challenge yourself. IMO it does not necessarily improve your smoothness. If anything, it forces you to practice jerky awkwarkd movements to prevent response at times. It may help in a few scenarios for a few tricks but not for most modern unresponsive play. Overall it is weak theory without much to back it up beyond anecdotal evidence. Repetition and methods practiced are what produce smooth play, and a more stable and forgiving experience allows that.

I record my practice sessions to see how I can improve, get used to the camera, etc. I have made up a few tricks on fixed axle that I got pretty smooth before I tried on unresponsive. Doing that same trick on unresponsive, it looked funny and unnatural. It still looks better on fixed axle, IMO. Responsive and Unresponsive are two separate skills that require difference approaches.

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I think the ‘why’ was aimed at the plastic whip part rather than the unresponsive yoyo part.

Yuki

Indeed. I’m trying to help stuartw to think critically about why response might make a difference without outright giving him the answer. Common core does not teach critical thinking so I’m trying to supplement. :wink:

Thanks guys. All of you have really helped me!

When I was just starting out on the trick ladder, I considered using a responsive yoyo and switching out to an unresponsive yoyo when I got past the tricks that easily worked with the responsive yoyo. I remember plastic whip responding too easily and coming back at the wrong moment. After enough practice, I elected to just do the whole thing unresponsive. It was too risky to try the whole thing with a responsive yoyo, especially as a beginner.

I lol’d.
Its also the truth, but the way you said it just made me laugh.

As NathanC said and stuartw followed-up on, it’s not the gap that’s the problem. Do the pinch that stuartw asked about. And if you’re still in the beginning stages of binding, you can even turn sideways to do a frontstyle bind from your sidestyle tricks.

Pinch plus basic front bind is a recipe for reliable binds.

This

I’d rather say it’s the opposite, this is one of the reason why I always recommend starting out with responsive play. I’ve seen countless of times when people moves too jerky leaving unwanted slacks here and there because they don’t keep the string tight in some movements especially the string part near the yoyo. Some complex tricks actually tend to roll the string into the yoyo and bind accidentally, the skill from responsive play helps to avoid that. It may not be a problem for you, but it is for some others.
Responsive always means less overall spin time, it helps by not making people complain that a perfectly clean stock bearing doesn’t give enough spin time… that it’s the bearing or the yoyo’s fault. Instead with unresponsive bearings the increase of spin time and easiness helps them later when they get better and start doing long combos.
Most yoyos that are stock responsive are mostly unstable plastics and instead of relying on “the yoyo is still straight! do tricks until it wants to tilt then bind!”, you will face a car with no stability control, so to speak. It teaches you how to control the tilt instead of avoiding it altogether.

However in a nutshell, learning from responsive means learning the hard way. I started out responsive, I see how it helps me, and I’ll always recommend anyone to do it. It may work for you… or not.

Sorry for derailing this thread.

People recommend starting responsive because it’s intuitively good advice. But intuition is sometimes wrong. I agree that there’s no strong evidence that it actually helps. People will also conflate things that are not truly related… for example, someone starts off responsive, gets the usual knuckle raps and war wounds, and then picks up unresponsive. In a short while, they’re playing fairly smooth. There’s no actual evidence that the responsive start is what helped them to play smooth! It’s a false causality. “I started responsive, I play smooth, therefore starting responsive helps smooth play.”

Without actual evidence, it’s just intuition and folk wisdom. Which is something I tend to just avoid.

There are plenty of smooth players who started responsive. There are tonnes of smooth players who have probably rarely if ever played responsive. I don’t think there’s a relationship. The only common factor is that both have practiced and improved.

This started happening to my Phenomizm as the response pads wore out-check yours out, and if they are fine, try double wrapping your binds.