WT19 R4 combo

Finally pulling out truly hard material this round. I haven't made any fl combo over 10 seconds for quite a while.

The difficulty is far higher than R1-R3
- hardest material shown in those videos is R2's ending linkage and R3 hardest linkage (R3 0:03 - 0:06)
- R4 can be considered as 4 sections as outlined below, 3 of which are of comparable difficulty to those sections

0:01 - 0:04
indexspin ~ index mid mirrored powerpass reverse ~ ring pop ~ arm bounce
- extra 0.5 spin on index

mid ring mirrored powerpass reverse - triangle pass 234 - powerpass 23-34
- a lot harder due to arm bounce entry
- maintaining control and speed for the triangle pass is probably hardest part of this link

0:05 - 0:08
hai tua ~ palm down fingerless pinkyaround reverse (fingers closed) - palm down fingerless middlearound reverse (fingers open) ~ mirrored fingerless middlearound reverse ~ ring spiderspin
- highlight sequence of this combo: proper integration of pd fl around rev into fl combo without any catches in between
- different mechanics in doing the pd fl around rev with fingers closed and fingers open
- mirr fl ma rev ~ ring ss requires hitting pen from other side (see slomo, it is far harder to do this than ordinary fl ma ~ ring ss)

0:08 - 0:10
index mid mirrored powerpass reverse - inverse mirrored powerpass reverse - fingerless indexaround - spiderspin
- the visual effect of the inv mirr pp rev contrasts with previous material
- the easiest sequence of this combo

0:10 - 0:13
fist bust fishing - fist bust x 2
- doing fishing like this requires changing angle of pen's rotation during difficult tricks (see slomo)
- fist bust typically rotates fairly horizontally, whereas the fishing part has pen spinning diagonally
- around 1/4 to 1/5 chance of doing fist bust x 2 successfully in this sequence (compared with just doing x 1)
- made more difficult by being ending

As far as I know, this is first time this material has been used in complete fl combo - only idea that has been used in previous tournaments was the wrist bounce. This is the first combo in this WT where fairly high proportional of my difficulty capacity has been shown (as opposed to R1 fourth root, R2 third root and R3 square root).

Aside from the difficulty, the variety of mechanics in the fl linking is quite large. To use this kind of material effectively throughout a combo, every sequence must feel like a highlight, while also displaying different visual effect.

Unfortunately there are several areas of relative filler (the powerpass 23-34 in first sequence, and the fl ia ss before the ending). Otherwise, the material shown has sufficiently high density for my current ability.

Sorry for hair on frame, hopefully I can pass despite that.
R5 is another step above this combo, so I am praying for victory.

WT17 R4 combo

tl;dr read bolded parts

Previously, I intended to use R3's clip for R4, but things turned out differently. I didn't expect my R3 to score so well (thanks judges! I'm happy my efforts were appreciated). Anyway, I wanted to show some different type of material for this combo, which is critical for late rounds of WT.

Most subtle part - ending has [fl ia - index ss] x 3 (one-finger cont ss variation), and also hardest part of the combo - I'm still not sure how I managed to get this trick so cleanly for this draft, I prayed hard.

This combo is based around fingerslots 24 and uncommon variations of thumbcross (TC). As basic TC IA and MA rev are overused, I tried to find different harder ways to apply TC.

0:01 - 0:04 (slomo 0:27 - 0:32): square pass 'rev' aerial and wrist bounce. Was annoying to control the square pass 'rev' after the wrist bounce.

0:04 - 0:07 (slomo 0:32 - 0:39): pass behind thumb (thumb-index cross, easy, but fits linkage theme). PP rev ~ palmspin rev - mirr PP ~ palmspin rev continues 'rev power' effect. I wanted to transition to midraimobak instead of midbak, but wasn't consistent enough.

0:08 - 0:10 (slomo 0:39 - 0:44): slight slowdown between midbak and PD IMA ugh. I thought of refilming it, but any drafts with that part done better would probably have other parts worse. PD IMA to 24 (ring up) > pass rev 24-13 - annoying linkage. Continuing with 24 use, PD fl PA rev 24 (ring down) - 24 (ring up), with changing position of ring increasing difficulty and rarity a lot. Inv sonic 24 and thumb-index cross T4 wiper (the TC doesn't really do much for difficulty of the trick, but it fits into theme).

0:10 - 0:13 (slomo 0:44 - 0:51): TC linkage part - diagonal plane-ish around rev T4 thumb-index cross and T2 thumb-mid cross > thumb-mid cross pd TA ~ fl sonic rev to 14. Getting the transition between the second diagonal around rev and TC pd ta without fatal error and then to fl sonic rev took a lot more practice than I'd expected, I was training this part for past month or more daily (still not as good as I want). I tried doing this linkage with completely PD TC around rev, but I wasn't skilled enough.

0:13 - 0:16 (slomo 0:51 - 0:58): some pass variation with T4 on ring. T1 cross direction change after it, I wanted to do this part better too .-. Subtle thumb-mid cross after the sonic rev 12-23, doesn't add much difficulty but contributes to linkage theme.

0:17 - 0:23 (slomo 0:58 - 1:10): swuck > square pass ~ usual fl ta index ss - [fl ia index ss] x 3. While the usual fl ta index/mid/ring ss are not hard, changing one finger makes a huge difference, as my personal record for fl ta index ss is 97, whereas I struggle to get past 5 fl ia index ss. Thumb-mid cross aerial/spread-like trick with T4 to continue theme of TC use.

Compared to R3's 'hard trick' focus, this combo is more of based on linkages with difficulty spread throughout. The margin of error for fl ia index ss cont is really small, and doing it with decent technique was very hard for me (especially at end of combo without easy setup spam linkage before it).

I'd be happy if people picked up their mods and tried some of the 24 and TC linkages, and I'd have achieved my goal if spinners are inspired to experiment with different applications of existing ideas in their own combos.