hello, i was wondering if i could get some advice to help me master this combo.

it's very short but uses a few of my favourite tricks:
sonic rise > shadow still > shadow 12-23 > twisted sonic > thumbspin 1.5

i can do each part fairly well it's just the mechanics of connecting them that i need advice on. basically, to do the thumbspin after the Tsonic i need to catch the shadow with the cog on the inside of my palm. this happens occasionally but i think that if i do the shadow perfectly the weight is on the other side.
so my question is how do you force the weight of the pen to the other end? is it a case of timing and moving the hand along the pen at the right point? if that's the case i can kinda do it but it looks messy. so if this is the way to do it i have some work to make it tidy if not then please help me out.

thanks very much. i've spent a few months spinning now and have been learning each seperate trick. it'd be great to start putting them together.

hmm...well, it mainly comes from practice and mastery of the trick. i can control where my shadows land, although i'm not really sure how to explain exactly.
i looked at my hand, and to catch it at the end in a bust style i move my ring finger down, but to catch it with the cog on the inside, i move my ring finger to the side, sort of like a long and prosper vulcan hand symbol.
i think you mainly need to keep it moving without catching it until it moves down, i remember when i first started doing shadows i would always catch it with the cog inside. spreading the finger is just one way to delay the catch.
hope that helps :)

I think you were referring to a palm-down sonic rise, isn't it? Here is a show video. I didn't do it that well, because I don't master ThumbSpin trick, but still there is it.
My advice: Keep practicing, learn other tricks, and you will improve.
Good luck.

That's an awesome combo. THe problem for me is connecting the Shadow 12-12 still and the shadow 12-23. Other than that the tsonic and the ts 1.5 is perfect. try adding a leigun or an isonic to end your combo :lol: or that's what i'd do.

thanks for the advice guys.
i was hoping there might be some small trick to it that i've been missing but, as with most things in pen spinning, it looks like it's just a practice thing so back to the grindstone >.<

@xshadowfire thanks for that. i'll try changing what i do with the ring finger. so far i've barely thought about what i'm doing with that finger so it's bound to help.

@jmember that's about it. i'll be happy to get it that smooth.

@webo the reason i put a still followed by 12-23 is cos i got pretty good at continous stills so it was an easy add. i've yet to master the leigun. i'll look into it ^_^

thanks again.

Well, doing continuous shadows isn't that hard, just go and practice. And, when you practice more, you notice where you are wrong.

continous shadows are the bit i'm good with ^_^
my struggle is catching at the right point of the pen for the Tsonic and TS. getting there though... slowly

the reposition from shadow 12-23 is the only sort of hard part, just use a slightly different push.. i cant really explain but i think it's easier for falling shadows anyways

i think its not easy to do a shadow 12-23 follwed by a Twisted sonic > TS 1.5..
reason being you have to reposition a bit..

maybe u should jus modify your combo so you do Twisted sonic bust > TS 1.5

no repositioning needed..

The Twisted Sonic > Thumbspin shouldn't give you too much trouble if you practice performing the tricks at any position.

If you have trouble doing the Twisted Sonic > Thumbspin with the COP on the inside of the hand, you should practice to overcome the problem:

Practice ending the Twisted Sonic holding the pen near the tip of the pen with the COP on the inside of the hand. When you go for the Thumbspin, stretch your Thumb across the pen as far as you can, or atleast until you get your Thumb on the other side of the COP. Push the pen using only your Index finger.

Once you get this down, you won't have to worry about where you catch the pen during the Shadow 12-23.

Another thing is consciously altering how you perform the Shadow 12-23 and how you catch to try and position the pen how you want it. There are two simple ways to position the pen the way you want it for the catch:
1. move your hand just before the catch to position it where you want it to catch the pen how you want.
2. Learn to more precisely control how you perform the Shadow and let the pen spin on different parts of the fingers so that the pen is positioned correctly durin the catch.


Edit: or course, another way is to perform the Twisted Sonic like I said above, but instead of trying to do a normal Thumbspin 1.5, do a Fingerless Thumbspin 1.5. That way, you won't have to worry about holding the pen and pushing it correctly.

@sketching: Fingerless ThumbSpin 1.5? Woah, never heard about a FingerLess one. Any sample vids?

I'm sure Eriror has a video with it in somewhere. He had mentioned them on the Eurapen boards.

Perform a Fingerless Thumbaround with a horizontal spin. Try to move your hand underneath the pen to let it spin on top of the Thumb a bit before catching it like a Thumbaround.

isn't nhk doing continuous fl 1.5 ts in the upsb pds collab?

No offense whatsoever Jmember, you did the combos right with Sonic rise palm up. but its not smooth.


Well i suk too so dont worry. Here's my palm down Sonic rise "shyua's combo" with slow motion so you know how it's going. Click here for the vid.

Basically, when you do the shadow 12-23, try to move your ring finger up, and catch when the pen drops a little. then the pen should be held in middle or little below middle. If you cant do that, i recommend doing Twisted sonic bust instead of normal Twisted sonic. Its much easier to do TS 1.5 with it.


EDIT: I almost forgot, good luck

erk, you guys are killing me doing this combo so smoothly ^_^

i've been doing the sonic rise palm up, basically cos i wanted to practice that transfer from palm up to palm down tricks.
it looks, in that video, like you do what sketching mentions with the thumbspin. it looks like you catch the shadow in about the same place i'm doing but you're better at the Tsonic into TS than i am. you move your thumb right back.
i'm gonna keep working on it.

thanks for all these suggestions, they're great and definitly helping me to improve. i want to get this combo sorted but once i do i'll definitly look at using a Tsonic bust..

EDIT: dammit >.< the more i pratice the worse my shadow 12-23 is getting lol.

Maybe are you practicing too much? you should relax ur fingers every 15~20 minutes.

Because i suck more as i practice more

I said I didn't do it well, and I didn't say that I do it smooth. Read. And he wasn't requesting for videos, so it doesn't matter if it is smooth or whatever, hah, hah.

Oh well, it would help him anyway

Off topic: Nice. Sorry for been arguing with you, just an impulse (whatever is called).