So once upon a time along time ago in a galaxy far, far away I 
witnessed a little exchange between a couple young men. The first 
said that he understood the Yonomicon and he was all into it and so 
on. The second one said that the first was full of it and that he didn't 
understand it at all. Seeing as how the first kid mispronounced the 
title, I was more willing to believe the second. Apparently it had 
become some kind of mark of distinction to understand QYT; like 
back in the '20s it was really cool in big social circles to understand 
Einstein's theory of relativity.

Usually I'm one to support little mental contests and such, but I 
don't think that this book should be in those ranks.  So I'm going to 
try again to explain what's going on (so if you're feeling high and 
mighty that you understand QYT and your friends don't, lie to them 
and tell not to read this essay):

A trick is a series of hits, string pulls, places you put your finger,  
flips, somersaults, passes and so on. "You do this mount then you do 
this with your right hand and then that with your left and then flip 
the whole thing over and then pull your finger out and do that with 
a loop and you catch it." We've all heard explanations like that 
before. This is the foundation of Quantum Yo Theory (QYT).

Now QYT was never created to be like sheet music. Even I can't look 
at a transcribed trick and just do it. It's more like a chemical 
formula. It's a way to write a trick down so you can remember it for 
later or tell it to people who aren't around you to be shown in 
person. When you get a trick in TFY notation you have to take a 
second and decompress it and work it out.

A trick is a chain of smaller moves. "You do this mount" is the first 
link in the chain. "Then you move your left hand over here" is the 
second link. "then you do this with your right hand" is another link. 
You get the idea. The whole thing is the trick and each link is a 
move.

When you do a trick you start at one point, then you do a move and 
it leaves you at another point. We go point to point to point. Again, 
links in a chain. Now you do a move and that will take you from one 
specific point to a new one. Lets use a metaphor, think of a trick as 
a path across the desert. You start at 42'N,13'W and then go 12 
miles NW and you end up at 43'N, 14'W and then you head south 
for a 8 miles to 42'N,14'W and then you go West for 31 miles and 
that puts you at 42'N,16'W. and so on.

In the universe of string and plastic we don't have coordinates so we 
had to come up with a different way to tell where we were. That is 
TFY notes. Now if you remember what the book says, "Holds are 
where something is." Holds are the points on our map. We chart 
these points as triangles for a variety of reasons (see the intro of the 
Holds chapter); one of these reasons is that each of these triangles 
is unique. They are stepping stones that we can mark down. They 
are our coordinates in the desert of tricks.

Moves are how we go from one point to the next. Now in the desert 
there are four points on the compass: north, south, east and west. In 
the land of string and triangles we have three directions we can go: 
throw, free, and yo. These directions give us our three basic moves 
throw morph, free morph, and tumble. A morph is where that hand 
(freehand or throw hand) goes between the other two points (the yo 
and the other hand). In the real world with gravity this means that 
that hand goes above the yo but below the other hand. 

The third direction is yo. That's where the yo would go 
through/between the other two points, which are your hands. Don't 
forget we live in a world with this pesky thing called gravity. So to 
get the yo between the other two points what we do is lower one 
hand and have it go under the yo. We call this a tumble.

But I'm starting to sound like the book... The point is that there is a 
list of moves you can make. In the real world you can take a step to 
the north, south, east or west. In the world of string you can do a 
free morph, throw morph, or tumble. And there are variations of 
both: in the real world you have directions like northwest or south 
by southeast and in the world of yo we have moves like split tumbles 
and multimoves.

So let's go back to our directions through the desert example: I start 
at 42'N, 17'W and I move to the north and that leaves me at 
43'N,17'W. Then I go to the west and that leaves me at 43'N,18'W. 
Then I go to the south and that leaves me at 42'N,18'W. You see it's 
the move and then the location, move and location, move and 
location. When you write out a trick that's all it is: a list of moves 
and locations. Move-location, move- location, move-location, and so 
on.

Real simply: the book is a huge catalog of all these directions and 
points. The Yonomicon is an atlas of coordinates (holds), a rundown 
of directions on the compass (moves), and a list of some trails to 
get you started (tricks). I tried to make it as complete as possible. 
But there's a dangerous balance there; on one hand it's good 
because you should never need to go anywhere else. But on the 
other hand it's bad because it becomes overwhelming. It's a hard 
line to walk. I chose completeness.

To get a real life trick out of a TFY notation on paper think of it as 
what it is, a list of moves and locations. In fact when I'm working on 
a trick I write it vertically just like a grocery list. That has it's own 
set of problems in typing, books and computers (not the least of 
which is space), so when we write it down in books or on computers 
we do it with commas. But anyway... So you have a grocery list of 
moves and written next to them is the hold each results in. Then you 
simply go down the list.

Now if you haven't picked up on it, you don't really need both. I can 
have a rundown of moves without the holds and that will work. The 
holds are there for two reasons: first they give you a way to check to 
make sure you're doing the right thing. If someone gave you street 
directions that read, "Go two blocks, turn right, go three blocks, 
turn left, go one mile turn left..." you could get there. But to say, "go 
two blocks and turn right on Main, then go three blocks and make a 
left onto Adams, and go one mile down to Fairfax..." is a lot easier 
and more comfortable.

The second reason is that when you get used to the math you can 
use it to figure out and reconstruct tricks. Have you ever had a time 
when you've seen someone do a trick and you weren't quite sure 
what happened? But you know that person went from here to there. 
Well, if you know the starting point and the ending point, you can 
look them up in the book and figure out which move takes you from 
one to the other. It's like in Jurassic Park when they had dinosaur 
DNA that they were able to go back and fill in the blanks with a 
master list. In the movie that list was a whole piece of frog DNA and 
in the Yonomicon it's Chapter 5 and the subway map.
 
Hopefully this little essay makes the reference book a little bit more 
like a comic book. The problem is that no matter if it helped you or 
not, you'll be left with more questions. If it didn't help, it'll leave 
you with the same questions you had at the beginning. If it did help 
it'll leave you with the question, "Why didn't you say that in the first 
place?"

In my defense I'll say, "I did." It is all in the book. But the problem is 
that in the book I had to cram everything into only so many pages 
and I didn't know what would work for people and what wouldn't . 
You don't learn what everyone thinks or reads until everyone has 
gotten a chance to read and think about it... and tell you what they 
think. The truth is that it's not hard stuff. Again move, triangle, 
move, triangle, etc. The problem is that when you write the book 
you have to write IT ALL and that gets a little overwhelming. Imagine 
trying to learn to speak English by reading the dictionary...

Well, I really hope that helped. If it didn't or if you simply have more 
questions m@il them to huh@yonomicon.com or come out and ask 
me if I'm in your town. Truth is if you come out I'll have to answer 
you right away. If you m@il in your question who knows how long 
until I will be able to get to it. But please send them in, it'll help me 
when I write another one of these essays next time.