I have a Great example of ‘my definition of a ‘Collector. Using something else as ‘the collectible >
Generalyo (Ernie Kaiser).
Ernie Collects guitars. He has been collecting guitars for many years.
He just doesn’t buy ‘any guitar’. He knows exactly what he is looking for. And as he can afford them and they ‘pop up’ now and again, he BUYS them.
He is a very good guitar player. He plays and displays his guitars. He knows pretty much everything about them before he buys them.
He knows the guitars ‘values’ to buy…. Keep…or resell.
He knows every exact guitar he has in his posse and he remembers every guitar he ever had. How much it cost him. How much he might have sold it for. Or what he maybe traded it for, to get another more sought after guitar.
Ernie is both a ‘Collector and a Player’.
That is a more realistic definition of a player and/or collector.
Guitarists are an interesting bunch, even more so than yoyo players. I say this as someone who has worked in the guitar industry for over 20 years now. Most guitarists fit that exact description you described.
Now I’m wondering if Ernie and I have had any sales/trades over the years
I’ve been yoyoing for over 6 years now, and the enjoyment I get from the process of improving myself through practice is why I’m a part of this community. That would mean I’m a player.
BUT, I also enjoy acquiring new yoyos, especially the undercut ones.
It is a bit odd that so much of the community here falls into the category of “collectors” or “players”. Especially on the forums, there seem to be a lot of the collectors, which for some reason correlates with a lack of throwing often. Which is fine and all, but I like everyone in the community so much, I want to share the enjoyment that one can get from acquiring skill.
I’d like to see more of the middle aged guys with $5,000 collections slaying some horizontal combos.
This is literally me. I have a display shelf of 50 yoyos and another 20 or so in a drawer, and I might actually play with them 5-10 minutes per week on average. Sometimes I’ll go a couple weeks without touching a yoyo. I played a lot more when I started, and I still enjoy it, but for the last few months I’ve spent most of my time either making strings, spending time with my wife and my dogs, or playing video games. I go through phases with my hobbies, I’m sure I’ll get back around to actually playing with yoyos eventually but for now I actually enjoy making strings way more than actually yoyoing.
i’d like to play for collections. like drag racing for pink slips, except we freestyle for throws. or we could freestyle for each other’s vehicles too.
I play at least an hour a day and I’m always working on new tricks. I also have over 1000 yoyos, I don’t know or care exactly how many. I usually avoid mentioning this number because I don’t want that to be the lens by which people view me. I play all of them with few (<10) exceptions. I’ve been doing this since the 90’s, and I don’t enjoy selling/trading so stuff kinda piles up.
There’s no rhyme or reason to what I buy, if it appeals to me and it fits the budget I’ll buy it. The funny thing is I’ve occasionally considered selling a bunch of them off. I start going through them, playing them trying to pick ones I could part with and a couple hours pass and there’s still no sell pile and I give up on the idea for another 6 months.
Call me whatever you like, but I consider myself a player and keep pushing myself to learn more. I immensely enjoy the process of getting to know a yoyo, and for that reason I keep buying them.
Idk, im probably a collector compared with how seriously I take the trick game to some, but I only buy yoyos for how I think I might enjoy playing them. My collection only grows because I basically just buy and not sell, and this is how I prefer it. I remember the anticipation I had when buying every yoyo I have, and continue to enjoy them whenever I choose to play my less played yoyos. The variety in yoyos is what keeps me coming back for more; can I land a trick I just learned on this one? Lately ive been on a Spirit Bomb crusade and enjoying the various feels of how my yoyo lands the ‘drops’.
I think it is the time constraints brought upon by living with full employment and responsibilities. When I hear about someone who practices an hour + a day on yoyo, I think to myself that they are either a kid or barely employed. When I got back into yoyoing a few years ago, my original thought was that I would have enough fun with it if I was good enough to show off a couple tricks, like barrel rolls and maybe a kwyjiibo to show off. For the most part, these tricks tick those boxes and are fun to perform, so I was mostly right, but I still want to learn more advanced tricks. Now I can do kwyjiibo with my eyes closed and am on to bigger tricks, but horizontal is out of reach for a long while for me. I personally don’t need the adrenaline rush of throwing a yoyo sideways to perform tricks against gravity to be something I need out of yoyo, and am perfectly content with smoothly executing regular tricks. Ive heard people mention mastering Skin the Gerbil is one of the pre-cursors to horizontal. I think I skipped over that trick for one reason or another. Any advice on getting a guy in his 30’s to landing some horizontal?
I buy a lot of yo-yos, alot in the eyes of people around me. I buy expensive and cheap. I play a lot of yo-yos but get stuck in a grove sometimes with tricks. I try not to drop them to preserve resale but never sell em. Constantly want more yo-yo.
I don’t know if I can label myself. I just muddle along, finding things that add to my happiness.
All I know is I been throwing since December 19 and I’ve had nothing but great times and interactions with yoyo and other yoyoers. It’s been an amazing journey.
