Ball Bearings are cheating!

Hi All, I am new to the forum. I haven’t really yo’ed in about 20 years, but found my Duncan Wheels the other day and have been playing with it. I ordered a Velocity and received it today, and it is awesome.

After watching me a do a trick or two, my wife says that a ball bearing yoyyo is cheating. I said Bah! Then I did like 8 Around the Worlds in a row and thought, yeah she may be right. With a traditional yoyo I could maybe do 2 in a row before it died out.

Anywho, I’m enjoying my new yo and hope to take my tricks to the next level, which shouldnt be too hard since I’m just doing beginner tricks.

I hope to learn alot here and hopefully can contribute as well.

Ball bearings don’t let you “cheat.” If anything, they just ushered in a new era and style of yoyo play. (unresponsive)

Fixed.

Unresponsive is the bastard child of bearings ushered in by the discovery of binds and the appeal of not smacking yourself while practicing.

Kyle

i thin you can see it both ways. are automobiles ‘cheating’? maybe to those who grew up with horse-drawn carriages. i used to see transaxles as cheating when i first played them, and found myself throwing down sleepers and tricks to which i felt ‘unentitled’. but i’ve changed my understanding.

everyone seems to operate from the vantage that unresponsive ball-bearings are inherently superior. to me though, there are a lot of things one can get out of a wood axle yo-yo that you can’t from a bearing - namely the ‘feel’. there is nothing like the hum of wood sliding against cotton. nothing. and when i play my wood yo-yo’s, tricks and ideas are apparent to me that would NEVER manifest themselves with an unresponsive metal. i love fixed axle yo-yo’s. i love ball bearing yo-yo’s. both will continue to have their uses.

if you want to feel the sinew and breath of a beast galloping beneath you, bearing you across whatever terrain… then an automobile would not feel like ‘cheating’, so much as ‘ineffective’.

Welcome to the new generation of yoyoing! You have a lot to learn! Better get started! Have fun.

I love Playing wood yoyos and Ball Bearings, its TO EASY to do stuff unresponsive, I see newbies do And Whuts and stuff on a 888 but they can’t do it on a Stock FHZ. The way I see it is, Try Hard Tricks on an Unresponsive, then responsive, Then if you are Beastly Like Ed then try it on a Fixed Axle. Then if land an And Whut on a Fixed Axel you are A Beast. whats funnerier then do a Ladder Escape on A Stock FHZ then doing a trapeze Regen NOTHING. But that is my opinion ;D

                                        ,Brayten, ;)

It depends on how you look at it. If you grew up with the classic imperial then to you it is cheating I bet. But not many people know about this new era and that Ball Bearing yo-yos are a new generation and practically modern technology. Ball Bearings just merely enhance the spin time drastically and let you do new tricks that were unthinkable in the past. They are what makes this skill worthwhile, impressive and a new age sport. Think about what ball bearings can do today in yo-yoing: (Stacks, Synergy, Unresponsiveness, world spin time record).

It’s not cheating, it is still a yoyo. Cars in the 1940s had cruddy engines and would race. Now cars in the present have like awesome engines and race. Just because cars have improved over time dosn’t mean cars now are cheating. So why would ballbearing yoyos be cheating? :slight_smile:

-James Reed

The problem with this argument is that cheating implies that you have an unfair advantage.

You don’t… everybody can get their own bearing yo-yo.

If you were doing a fixed axle trick contest, it would be cheating to use bearing… that’s about the only time this argument could possibly apply.

Kyle

Thats a pretty good point. I guess the fact that because i hadn’t really done anything to improve my skill, I just purchased a better piece of equipment my wife said it was cheating.

I’m just glad to see another older thrower!!!

I hear that bearings are cheating too. The way I see it, fixed axles could be considered cheating too, they come back up easier. usually the same people who call ball bearings cheating are the same people who, when they try a ball bearing yoyo, say “i can’t get it to come back up” as if that was the sole purpose of yoyoing.

also: is it cheating to use carbon fiber tennis rackets instead of wooden or titanium golf clubs instead of steel? is it cheating to use $250 basketball shoes instead of kmart brand? is it cheating to use cleats in soccer? is it cheating to use baseball gloves instead of bare hands?
some things are advantageous without cheating.
xcept the roids, those are cheating.

Definitions of cheating on the Web:

1.adulterous: not faithful to a spouse or lover; “adulterous husbands and wives”; “a two-timing boyfriend”
2.cheat: a deception for profit to yourself

Assuming it isn’t number one, it says that cheating is a deception of some sort. You aren’t decieving anyone, aside from perhaps yourself.

You cannot cheat if there is not contest. I’m thinking the majority of people here don’t really enroll in competitions, including me as one.

You can drive a Model-T Ford against a Corvette and say the Corvette is cheating, but in reality, you still lost the race. (Don’t percieve that wrongly, I’m not saying fixed axles can’t hold their ground)