Sun
A small fast circle of the diabolo around one stick, wrapped and released each time round. Where the whip-and-release feel of diabolo starts.
A sun is a tight circle of the diabolo around one stick: the string wraps as the diabolo goes round and unwraps as it comes back, and the diabolo never leaves the string. Done in a row they look like the diabolo is orbiting your hand.
This is the trick that teaches the wrap-and-release timing that grinds, whips and most stick tricks later depend on.
The circle
- Get the diabolo fast and running true. Suns are cheap on spin but unforgiving of a lean.
- Hold the left stick still and low. It is an anchor, not a participant.
- With the right stick, swing the diabolo up and around the left stick in a small vertical circle, close in.
- As it comes back down, let the string unwrap and catch the diabolo on the flat string again.
Small is the instruction people ignore. A wide sun is slow, and a slow sun falls apart at the top exactly the way a slow around-the-world does.
The rhythm
The circle should feel like one continuous motion, not up-then-around-then- down. Suns done in a row have a bounce to them, and once you find it the second and third are easier than the first.
What goes wrong
The string tangles instead of unwrapping. The circle went round the stick rather than around the string. Keep the wrap on the string itself.
The diabolo falls out at the top. Too slow, or the circle is too wide. Both, usually.
It works once and then knots. You went round the second time in the same direction without letting the first unwrap. Each sun must complete.
The anchor hand keeps drifting. The left stick is doing work it should not be. Rest that arm against your side until the habit sticks.
Going both ways
Once suns work on one side, learn them on the other. It costs an evening, it doubles what you can do, and every two-diabolo trick later will want both hands to be competent rather than one hand and a passenger.
When it is working
Five suns in a row, close in, with the diabolo still fast at the end and no tangle in the string. The timing you have just built is the same timing a suicide needs, which is the next place to take it.
