Diabolo Tricks
One Sided Diabolo
right handed instructions

--Dube's-- Bamboo Whistling One Wheeled Diabolo	Diabolo Galaxy Monobolo.com Monobolos	Chinese Yoyo World Many Types	Diabolonet.de - (Monobolo) Many colors	--Renegade's--Taiwanese Whistling Top Diabolo

One Sided Diabolo Instructions and Tricks
You Tube Video Link

source: Hwei Yin sightreader@attbi.com

The Start

There are two problems when starting a one sided diabolo:

1. If you manually set the diabolo on the string, you won't be able to
get your hand back to the stick in time. It is so unbalanced that it
will fall over and off the string, even if you try to give it a spin in
advance.

2. While you're trying to get it going, the entire diabolo will rotate
like an tank turret gone bezerk, causing either the strings to get
wrapped around each other or forcing you to spin yourself around
in embarrassing circles to keep up with it. We will call this type
of rotation "precession".

With this in mind,

How to Start The One Sided Diabolo

1. Set the diabolo on the string with one hand, holding both sticks
with the other hand, tail end facing you.

2. Manually precess the diabolo back counter-clockwise. Note we are
not wrapping the string around the spool nor are we spinning the diabolo:
we are letting the diabolo hang from the string and rotating it as if it
were a satellite dish scanning the horizon. Two full rotations is usually
enough (720 degrees).

3. Now give the diabolo tail a brisk counter-clockwise spin so you'll have
time to get your hand to the stick and start pulling.

4. As you accelerate the diabolo, you'll see that its precession will
unwind the twists you made earlier. By the time it's unwound, you
should have enough speed to control it.

NOTES

Step 2, rotating the diabolo, can be accomplished more simply.
Instead of rotating the entire diabolo like a tank turret, hold on
to the tail, pull down the tail, lift the head at an angle, then circle
the head clockwise around the vertically hanging string a couple of
times. It's sorta hard to explain...

Don't let the diabolo bounce around with violent jerks. Normal
diabolos have two heads which center the string on the diabolo,
but without one of the heads the diabolo can jump off or tangle
quickly.

The easiest acceleration is when the diabolo rotates to 180
degrees (i.e the head facing you). You can then haul up and
down with the power hand and control the slack left and right
with the other hand, keeping it from hopping around.

The diabolo precesses fastest when the spinning speed is slow.
If you get it spinning fast, it will precess much more slowly
if at all. The rate of this precession is determined by the
ratio of how fast the diabolo spins to how hard you're pulling
up on it in the vertical direction.

Doing some counter-clockwise suns will unwind the string
when clockwise rotations get it wrapped around.

Throwing The One Sided Diabolo

Here are some basic things to keep in mind when devising throwing
tricks with one sided diabolos:

1. Due to the precession of the diabolo clockwise, the brisk upwards
motion needed to throw will accelerate this precession, depending on
how fast the diabolo was spinning and how hard you throw. Take this
into account when positioning yourself for the catch.

2. If you catch the diabolo with the tail facing you, catch normally. If
you catch the diabolo with the HEAD facing you, make sure to catch
with the arms crossed (preferably left under right so you get 180
degrees ahead of the precession).

3. When you catch, stopping the diabolo's fall will amount to quite a
bit of upwards thrust, resulting in even more clockwise precession.
Take this into account in your positioning for recovery of control.

Spinning the Diabolo like a Top

Get the diabolo into a stick grind with the right hand, stick pointing
to the left. Place the left hand relatively flat and palm up underneath
the tail of the diabolo. With the right hand, tilt the stick CLOCKwise,
until the end side of the stick starts to grind against the head of the
diabolo. The diabolo will tilt over like a top depending on how
aggressively you let the stick rub the head. Let the end of the diabolo
drop onto your left palm and try to keep the diabolo from running off
your palm. It's easier if your palm is mostly flat rather than cupped.

NOTE: Obviously you have to drop your left stick to do this, making
it difficult to find a way to return to normal diabolo use. You may be
able to rig a flat attachment to your left stick or your left hand on
which the diabolo can spin on, allowing you to restring the diabolo
and recover using horizontal (lasso type) suns until it tilts back to
normal. I do not know if there are more elegant ways to do this, nor
have I experimented much with horizontal suns.

Trapezes and Stick Grinds with the Secondary Groove

Unlike pan lids and such, some one sided diabolos have a second
groove much closer to the tail than the primary groove. As you know,
one sided diabolos naturally precess clockwise as upwards thrust is
applied. This precession is greatly increased if you grind on this
secondary groove (so much so that it's probably impossible to
accelerate the diabolo with the string on this groove).

Stick grinding on this groove will allow you to precess the diabolo
much faster before it runs out of speed. Thus, catching on this groove
can be followed by 180 and even 360 degree rotations of the stick
before it is rethrown. The possibilities for body contortions in these
types of twisting catches is obvious.

A wide variety of new trapezes can be invented using this groove.
Any trapeze developed that has a counter-clockwise twist can be
unraveled in a controlled way by grind pressure on this groove with
a free stick or finger.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

e-mail Jim

HOME - ONE TRICK LISTING - TWO TRICK LISTING - FLASH Movie Controls

|)><(|