I was thinking today about corkscrews. It should be possible to do the corkscrew again after you return to your hand. Your arm is already wrapped up and ready to go.
Maybe catch it on the string instead of your hand for continuous corkscrews.
That would be great. Right now for me it is rather a dead end trick with the string consumed on my arm. I have had enough spin a few times to just barely unwrap all the string and start RCS but the extra string is really too clumsy for me. I think I'll leave the continuous corkscrews to players like Salvador who can figure out how to re-wrap the tip.
Can you tell us the story behind the discovery that a corkscrew can regenerate?
I'm not proud to say the path to regeneration recognition was basically coincidence fueled by jealousy and friendly competition. I suppose it goes back the Miamisburg Whirled Festival of Tops (blatant plug for Mike's event in August
) when Apex made some custom extra long lefty string for Hemingsoft, and some slightly less long custom string for Physboy and me (mine was the shortest
). When you have longer string wrapped on the top, the boomerang provides a faster initial spin so you have more time to position the string which naturally leads to more wraps of the corkscrew. Also rather natural was the tendency to pump ones arm to force the top around. Thus a local informal competition was underway. Of course as our skills improved, the string length was the limiting factor. Because they have really strong boomerangs and with the added long string speed, the top's speed was always high, so we never thought about how much final speed there was when back in the hand. Since I was behind by 2-3 wraps, I finally made a 13 foot string a few week ago. Increasing the number of wraps one at a time I was surprised to notice that the extra wraps at the end were not really harder to clear if the wraps were clean but I didn't really make the connection then, instead just preferring to believe I had some skills
. Since I have what I'll refer to as a ‘wimpy’ boomerang, by the time I placed 12 or so wraps around my arm the top was pretty slow but fast enough to launch into the corkscrew and at the end, balancing after the catch was easy. That easy balancing was the clue to realizing that the pumping action was driving the top and adding spin.
I propose we skip the Corkscrew Challenge this year and Neff sends the trophy directly to John to keep for the next year!!!!
You deserve it!!!
Wow a temping offer, but I'd prefer the contest to continue as scheduled with the traveling prize for the competition winner. I respect the established tradition and the intention of gathering the players together under which the trophy was donated--thanks Jim! The spirit of that competition and the camaraderie displayed among the players should be promoted and not interrupted.
I sent an email to physboy to prompt him to check the board, but I fear that real life is interferring with his top spinning.
