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.

WT17 R3 combo

tl;dr - skip to the two slomo vids and bolded parts in the 'highlights' section

There needs to be distinction between 'tricks which look hard but can be done in a few days/weeks' and 'tricks that don't look that different, but need many months/years'. e.g. dual pass T4 to x12 - 30 minutes on 1 day - i.e. not hard; fl ma ring ss to x10 - 1 hr a day for a year. The power highlights used in R3 are a lot more difficult than fl ma ring ss, as I kept practising power daily for 2016 and early 2017.

Naturally, I'd get quite annoyed if people dismissed the tricks I spent so long practising as 'just commonplace power stuff'. Before you say 'oh he recycled a bit', please read below (especially bolded parts). I don't have 120 fps vids yet, but I'll try to get them in the coming week.

DL link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4V5qSRN2Zi-Y25sRlJPczF6TDQ/view

Highlights:

0:06 - 0:08 (0:40 - 0:44): Mirr pp rev - pinky ss ~ mirr pp rev ring - ss. The highlight idea is mirr pp rev - pinky ss (which is far harder than the ring ss version and has not been used in any combos before); with the ring ss variant added to contribute to visual effect and raise difficulty.

0:20 - 0:25 (1:09 - 1:19): Fl ma ring ss aerial 1.0 (not fl ta rel, the aerial is fl ma - hit by curled ring finger, with difficulty incomparably higher than if fl ta rel was used instead). Pinky DIP spread (fist spread?) - fist spread x 2 - curled pinky/knuckle 'handbust' (fist bust?).

No simple setup before finisher. Fl ma ring ss aerial 1.0 represents past 2 1/2 years of power trick training condensed into a few seconds, it's first time I've used it in normal combo.

Controlling fl ta rel to enter pinky DIP spread was hard, because the previous fl ma ring ss has to be restricted to limited range of rotation angle.The force/angle of previous fist bounce and exact pen position have to be far more precise for the curled pinky 'handbust' to be done.

Fist spread - curled pinky 'handbust' failed a lot even when I thought I had it down. For other high level power, I could easily distinguish between decent control and mistakes. Curled pinky 'handbust' is probably the first trick whose margin of error between success and fail is so fine that sometimes I can't perceive it. Linking it in the way I did was incredibly traumatic, although doing a separate x1 of it probably isn't *too* difficult. When I was upgrading previous breakdown from normal handbust to the curled pinky variation, I thought they would not be that different - I found out how wrong I was while filming OTL


Fl difficulty discussion:

Estimation of my practice time after mastering basic fl:

• Low level - index pun new, fl ta ss - under 1 year to get to solid usable level
• Mid level - fl ta ring ss, fl ta index ss, fl ia ss (my R2 finisher) - extra 1 1/2 years
• High level - fl ma ring ss, fl ma ring ss aerial 1.0 (not fl ta rel, uses different method to pun new rel), mirr pp rev ring ss, mirr pp rev pinky ss (my R3) - additional 2-3 years in addition to previous mastery of mid-level

From meeting and talking with experienced spinners who tried these tricks - menowa, supawit, katts, ppm, sekai, zo.xoa, airgear, P - all agree that there is a huge gap between high level power and mid/low level group, which is reflected in the number of spinners who can do them.


Rest of material:

0:01 - 0:06 (0:29 - 0:40): Rev fl using mirr pp, kagami's +0.5 rotation fl ia rev, back hand spin, +0.5 rotation fl ma rev and dual pass rev T1 variation. Usually, kagami (and his copiers) give the  +0.5 rotation rev spin tricks a 'linkage effect'; so I tried giving them 'power trick effect' instead.

0:11 - 0:14 (0:48 - 0:54): Could've done the PU thumb raimo bak (PU fl ta rev ~ east sonic rev?) variation at better angle, effect isn't exactly what I wanted. West sonic rev > thumb-pushed ss rev to 23 > inv sonic rev 24 ~ PD fl pa.

0:14 - 0:17 (0:54 - 1:01): PD fl pa > pinky fxxk, COP has to be in different position between these tricks, which increases hand movement. Pinky fxxk caught at end of pen for wiper 23-24 ~ perpendicular plane fl ra to 14. I wanted to combine common fxxk and pd around in a harder and unusual way using 24 and 14, unfortunately effect of perpendicular fl ra isn't really what I wanted.

0:17 - 0:20 (1:01 - 1:08): T1 cross rex trick, T2 cross devil's shadow > pd around rev T4 - some less common uses of thumbcross. PD around rev should leave hand less.

Thoughts when creating this combo:

I made this breakdown to display hard trick skill through use of (at the time) the hardest variations I could manage. Structure could be improved, but having a lot of difficult highlight effect sequences tends to do that. As usual, there's many parts which I wish I could do better.

In WT17, a lot of people are trying to spin like their opponent when they'd fare better if they'd spun like themselves. There's also a lot of easy or ineffective fingercrosses, overuse of fxxk and levers, and other 'obvious tricks' to get attention from audience and judges; despite these things being neither difficult nor unusual. Flexibility does not equate to skill.


Current WT meta seems to be 'get attention with obvious tricks, but too lazy to practice genuinely hard stuff or think of more creative applications'. Grinding for years to use absurdly hard esoteric sequences which last 5 seconds (but look very similar to common tricks and are rarely appreciated) seems to be against this cheap attention-grabbing mindset.

I want to break the boundaries of what people imagine human skill to be for PS - because of this, my R3 is far more like myself than my R2 is (or my R1, to a lesser extent). Making something that represents your dedication and love of spinning is a lot more satisfying than copying someone else.

If this combo stays in your memories for some time or left an impression on you, I'll be happy ^^