Seasick?

Ok so I know it took me a while to get Boingy Boing down, and seems like Seasick is going to be another one of those pain in the butt tricks. From what I have seen, it almost looks like a slithering snake-type motion you’re doing but I can’t seem to find that rhythm, as well as the yoyo coming out. I know I should keep the strings all aligned and my hands straight much like Boingy. Any secrets/tricks you guys are willing to share?

practice is really the only trick.
This is a trick that some top competitors never master.

cough Tyler Severance cough

lol jk, but I think he learned it only a few years ago finally.

Yeah, he made the fatal mistake of admitting in a YYF promo video that he can’t do it, and demonstrated himself sucking at it.

I’m sure he learned it not THAT long afterwards, but he stigmatized himself for years! Seasick featured prominently in a promo around the time of the Space Cowboy release. :wink:

Pointers:

  • yes, string alignment. And conscious effort at that alignment. When you know why you popped out, make the adjustments and force your brain to stick to them instead of letting your muscle memory take over again. :slight_smile:

  • During the popping “up” motion, think of it more as popping backwards. You don’t get the right tension and resistance on the string if you just try to pop it “up”.

  • Momentum. At some point you’re just going to have to say “heck with it” and forget about the step-by-step process and just go for it. You can’t do the trick without momentum. And in tutorials when they break it down into step-by-step, they end up losing the plot, IMO. Alexis JV has the best tutorial for it, but even he sort of doesn’t get across the importance of amplitude and momentum in getting the trick to “work”.

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One thing I noticed when I was learning seasick was that focusing on trying to get the yoyo movement right was somehow tricking my hands into doing the wrong thing. It helped to try it for a while without thinking at all about the yoyo and just getting into the mount/position, and then focusing only on trying to get my hands to do the right motion.

Watch a video of someone doing it and pay close attention to exactly what they are doing with their hands, as far as the timing and the exact motions up and down. Then try to imitate that. Even if you lose control of the yoyo, it could help you get a feel for how the trick works. Once you get used to how the movements should feel, it might help when you go back to focusing on getting the yoyo to do the right thing.

I found that doing seasick correctly became much more of a “feel” thing. Yes, you can follow the directions, but eventually, the feel of the yo-yo on the string and rhythm becomes something that you need to get from the feedback of the yo-yo itself to do this trick right.

Just like boingy-boing; it helps if you have rhythm.

Thanks guys! Yea, Boingy took me MONTHS to learn…basically getting the proper feel for it. My brain knew the basic jist of the trick but actually knowing what it feels like is another story, finding that rhythm.

I may start it slower just to get the feel of what’s going on, and noticed that when it’s done, it’s done more at an angle rather than straight up and down. I’ll spend the week trying this out and since I can boing pretty well (by normal means, from trapeze/side style, green triangle, and even a wrist mount), I’m in hopes it won’t take me long to get the proper feel for this trick.

Boing-e-boing was one of the first tricks I learned and I for some reason got the knack for it quickly.

Seasick took me months. Years even, though not consistently “at it”.

So yeah…

For some reason, seasick, boingy-boing, and magic drop were really easy for me as a beginner.

I think you make a good point about the slithering snake. It’s hard to learn to slither. Some top snakes never master it. For me it helped to lie in the grass and try slither from one end of the lawn to the other. I would do this until I felt I had a grasp of what a slithering snake really is. After two weeks, I picked up a yoyo and dropped the nastiest sea-sick I’ve personally ever seen. It made my cat puke. Best of luck.

Ok so I’m cleaning out my bearings and remembered my Superwide needed a little cleaning…then it dawned on me, this yoyo actually me the perfect trainer to get the motion down as it’s ridiculously wide and will actually stay in the strings even if I’m slightly off…Is it cheating? Maybe…but if it helps me get the slithering snake motion down, I’m all for it!

Update: Let’s try this with a normal throw as I think I may be onto something here…

It’s a little rough right now but I think I could be getting there!

You’re onto something! The following is meant to ADD to what you’re onto, not take anything away from it. :wink:

a) In the “backwards” motion, it’s like a boingy in that once it hits that string segment, it should “keep going”… if your hands stay the same distance apart, it’s not going to work.

b) the elevation of your two hands need to alternate. That’s what creates the slithering seasick motion. When you pop backwards/up, your NTH (the back one) is lower. As it comes back down, it goes higher. Significantly higher!

Now, combining a) and b) – by alternating the elevation of your hands, it ORGANICALLY creates more or less slack as you do it. It’s the alternating motion itself that lets the yoyo “keep going” and then push it back and forth between the top and bottom.

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I actually would not think of it as a slithering snake motion.  Your throwhand should be making a much more defined “L” motion.

The other thing is the triangle shape as mentioned by Gabe towards the bottom of this page:
http://archive.sector-y.com/tricks/string_tricks/sea_sick/

Those notes are awesome. Study those more than any video. :smiley:

yeah, don’t focus on the yoyo hitting the upward string as much in the beginning. Once your good at getting the rhythm and getting the yoyo high, then start launching it back to you. It took me two weeks to get.

Also, different people do different types of seasick. I do a rhythmic motion, with not as much launch back. If you look at a yoyonation tutorial, you’ll notice the guy in the beginning REALLY launches it back, and keeps the yoyo high above his shoulders. Maybe you’ll have a mix of both, like andre bouley, who has a very good combination of both styles. it’s sort of like horizontal in the sense that some people want it as horizontal as possible, or not as much with more tech tricks. Just find your combination of moves for seasick like you did with these tricks. AND PRACTICE

The launching back doesn’t preclude rhythm. I’d be curious to see how a seasick works without “launch back”…?

I need to get back to practicing this trick, have been revisiting older tricks on the check list and trying to polish my weaker tricks.

No launch back would sound like trying to do a boingy boing without any kind of feeding any momentum to the yoyo.