I've been practising "open orbits". That's basically where you make the 
diabolo travel in a circle, by rolling it along the length of the 
string, throwing it from one end, and catching it on the other (and then 
rolling it along the string back to the first end again).

The only actually difficult part of all this is the catching. Assuming 
that you actually catch the damned thing, it's obviously pretty easy to 
roll it along the string and then throw it (although throwing it in the 
right general direction is mildly tricky).

A practised for an hour or two at the weekend. Generally I either miss 
the first or second catch completely, or I manage about 6 catches and 
then drop it. I kept a tally, and my personal best was 7 catches. On one 
fluke occasion I reached 9, and eventually even 10.

On Monday I had a go in my lunch break, and managed to reach 11, 12 and 
eventually even 14. And on one particularly fluky run, I hit 16.

I didn't practise at all yesterday, but I had a go just now. After 
several 4s and 5s, I somehow managed to pull off 51 consecutive catches, 
utterly /annihilating/ my previous personal best of 16. That's over 3x 
better performance!

Astonished, I of course immediately tried again, and scored 33 
consecutive catches. Nowhere near as impressive as 51, but still more 
than double my previous best.

Since then, I haven't managed to get near 50 again, but I have managed 
several teens and a few twenties. For whatever reason, I seem to have 
suddenly made a quantum leap in my skills. O_O

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