In this video, I am going to teach you Walk
the Dog, which is one of the easiest but also
one of the most famous yoyo tricks that you
can do, and I am also going to teach you a
couple of variations that you might not have
seen before.
So the basic form of Walk the Dog looks like
this:
As you can see, conceptually, Walk the Dog
is a pretty simple trick.
All that you are going to do is throw a powerful
sleeper and because the yoyo is spinning when
it touches the ground, it starts to move.
So you are going to use that motion to perform
the trick.
Now, when you start to work on this trick,
it might not work as well as you would like,
so I am going to give you a couple of tips
to help make the trick work even better.
The first thing is, when you start doing Walk
the Dog, the first time that you do it, if
you just set the yoyo right down onto the
ground, it is not going to move forward very
much.
The reason it is not moving forward is you
really need to give it a little bit of momentum
so that it can really take off.
So what you want to do is when you throw the
yoyo, you are going to want to swing it behind
you a little bit, and then swing it forward
as you touch it to the ground.
Watch what a difference that makes.
Because the yoyo already has some speed on
it, it is able to get ahead of you and then
you can walk behind it.
Now, the second thing that you want to keep
in mind is, you do not want to get your yoyo
hand too close to the yoyo, or else the yoyo
will come back.
The reason for that makes sense, the yoyo
is spinning really quickly and so if you get
your hand too close to the yoyo, that will
put some slack in the string, but so the yoyo
is spinning fast, it wants to eat that slack
up.
So it will naturally come back.
So you want to make sure that as you do the
trick, you do not get your hand too close,
because that will happen.
You want it to walk out in front of you and
lead you and that way you can keep the same
distance from your hand and the yoyo at all
times.
That will keep that from happening.
Now, when you want to bring the yoyo back
to your hand, there is two ways to do it.
The first way is you could just pull the yoyo
up to bring it back.
Or you can do what I just showed you, you
could intentionally move your hand toward
the yoyo, and you can see that that works
just as well.
Now, once you have mastered the basics of
Walk the Dog, like I said, there is a couple
of variations you can try.
The first one, some people call “Walk the
Cat,” I guess you could also call it the
“Naughty Dog.”
What you are going to do is take the yoyo
and instead of holding it the proper way,
you are actually going to turn it around so
that you are holding it backwards.
Now if your throw is straight, you should
still be able to get a decent sleeper, but
now the yoyo will be spinning in the opposite
direction.
If the yoyo is spinning in the opposite direction,
you can actually swing it the other way, and
then you have just walked the cat, because
they do not listen when you walk them.
The second thing that you can do with Walk
the Dog is what is called the Creeper.
This is where you are going to walk the dog
all the way out in front of you and then pull
it back after you have knelt down to the ground.
The yoyo will come back to you, sliding along
the ground.
So that looks like this.
Again, that is a pretty straightforward variation.
As long as you let the yoyo get far away from
you when you kneel down, just give it a little
pull, it will come right back.
Once you have mastered the creeper, you can
move on to the next variation.
We call this, “Walk the Dog Around the Park.”
This one is a little bit more tricky, let
me show you what it looks like.
So for this one, it starts off just like a
normal Walk the Dog, where you are going to
walk the yoyo in front of you.
But then you are going to have to pull on
the string really slightly to change the direction
of the yoyo.
Again, if you pull on it too much, the yoyo
will come back.
So you are really just nudging the yoyo back
in the opposite direction.
If you kind of gradually accelerate the yoyo
in the opposite direction, you will be able
to get it to move actually in completely the
reverse direction.
Then once it is all the way behind you, then
you can use the spin of the yoyo and again
pull it in pretty much the same way.
That will get the dog to walk the way that
it was in the beginning.
That way, you can complete the trick.
Now, the last variation, we call “Walk the
Dog with a Twist.”
This one, we combine Walk the Dog Around the
Park, as well as the Creeper.
But, as you will see, the trick does end with
a twist, that looks like this.
As you could see with that trick, when the
yoyo gets to the end of the string and it
comes back, the string starts to spiral around
the side of the yoyo.
The reason that that happens is, when you
walk the dog around the park, the yoyo naturally
changes its orientation.
If you can get it to change its orientation
so that it is perfectly perpendicular to you,
when you go down to do the creeper, then the
string will naturally start to sidewinder
around the yoyo the way that you have seen.
You do not actually have to walk the dog all
the way around the park, you could just do
a normal walk the dog and if you do it long
enough, the yoyo will naturally turn and again,
same thing, once it is perpendicular to you,
just kneel down, put your hand to the ground.
Sometimes you have to give the yoyo a little
bit of a pull, but you will see it start to
sidewinder until it comes all the way back
to your hand.
So, that is the trick Walk the Dog, that one
is pretty straightforward but some of these
variations can be a little bit tricky but
they are also a lot more fun.
So that is Walk the Dog and a couple of variations.