Greetings! I am a but a small time designer and am on the hunt for information… about you! Yes, you! No worries, it’s nothing too personal, just your tales of woe and general opinion on a few topics/ideas.
The Back Story:
I’m currently working on designing a yoyo accessory that will give users simple, instantaneous feedback on the quality of their throw. It will be meant to ensure a stable foundation and possibly continue to offer guidance as a player advances.
All feedback and responses are much appreciated! Oh and please feel free to say more than one thing for the questions that ask for such. Or just any random thoughts you have. Those are really awesome too.
What is one of the things you struggled with most when first starting to throw?
What is one thing you continue to struggle with?
Which basic tricks and/or skills do you consider most important to be proficient in?
Are there any bad habits that you are aware of having developed over time? What are they?
What would you find useful to know about your throws/tricks? Either in the moment or after the fact.
Would you find it beneficial to be notified when you’re off plane? Or is that something you can easily eyeball?
Snap/pull/push start is easily one of the most important and best things to practice and get out of the way…I put it off for a long time but am so grateful i don’t have to wind string in any capacity these days
Safety throws are important when you’re first starting, once you get more comfortable with the feel of yoyo play you’ll be able to tell when your binds are on point and/or sketchy
Treat binds the same way as learning new tricks, I can’t stress this enough…I know a lot of players that have a large trick bag but always end with the same undermount bind - binds & regens are one of my favorite ways to play, going back and forth between
Try different strings, get a ton of sample packs, never buy a huge bulk until you know you’ve found the one
I would like to know my RPMs the yo-yo is spinning at, or at least the max RPMs on a throw.
I throw good sleepers but I feel like I’ve plateaued because I can’t tell when a sleeper is a little faster than the last one therefore I don’t know what I am doing right or wrong.
I also think it would be a more scientific way to judge the power of one particular throw over another.
I actually knew (next to) nothing about yoyos until I started this project. The husband of one of my friends is an enthusiast and she showed me a video of him yoyoing and there was just so much passion and, well, joy. I’d been looking for a topic to jump on for a new project and low and behold there it was!
What is one of the things you struggled with most when first starting to throw?
FIRST starting to throw? A straight throw
What is one thing you continue to struggle with?
Snap Start, weak fingers or something just isn’t clicking
Which basic tricks and/or skills do you consider most important to be proficient in?
MOUNTS!/Bind/Whip/Eli Hop/BoingEBoing
Are there any bad habits that you are aware of having developed over time? What are they?
Need to think about this one
What would you find useful to know about your throws/tricks? Either in the moment or after the fact.
When first leaning eli hops, when I miss a catch, I really really wanted to know which side of the string did I miss on. But i learned that you can tell by checking how the string looped around the NTH
Would you find it beneficial to be notified when you’re off plane? Or is that something you can easily eyeball?
Maybe when I am looping (which I don’t)? or doing many many consecutive hops? Most of the times you feel how off plane you are when it lands, and also a very quick glance at the landing tells you all you need. Its hard to remember back when in the beginning whether I had a hard time telling it was off plane. Don’t forget there are 2 planes, so just telling me i am off plane doesn’t do much unless i know which plane it is.
I think most of us practice without aids, so we develop practice habits to take care of it. Its hard to know whether it does open new doors to practice until you try it.
Edit: I think data and stats will always helps, even just accelerometers data would be cool. Take BoingEBoing for example… the best advice now is more practice when people struggle, but with data, you can actually see when the player is boinging, and perhaps they can figure out, Oh i need to boing earlier or later by looking at the data. Also I think it would be cool to just compare data of pro routines, like this player plays fast and have crazy acceleration, and this one is slow and have smooooth curves, just fun stuff to analyse.
I am not good at yoyoing at all, can’t even do horizontals, so I probably isn’t a good source of info. Coming from my other hobby building quadcopters… sometimes just having data opens new doors people didn’t even think about, duno if you have any experience with building quads, but any cheap flight controller boards already have tons of measuring devices in it for trackign data… although i wonder given how quickly a yoyo is spinning, whether any meaningful data can actually collected.
As for current problem, not sure this adds to the topic, but currently I am still working on fixing off plane boinEBoin, when the yoyo is off on the horizontal plane, since the strings are vertical, I can’t figure out how to keep the boing going and correct the horizontal plane. Currently I am trying to tilt the boing more vertical, and land the yoyo on the side on each boing to correct it, not sure it works, hopefully it does and all i need to do is throw more practice at it.
Edit: Not sure how to do it, but I’m sure most of us would love a tool that tracks string tension. It is soo second nature to just do a throw and form a slack to see string tension between throws that I don’t even think about it.
Edit: Oh and one to end (or more likely start) the vib drama, an actual measurement for vib, instead of the subjective 1-10 scale or the no string vibe string vibe pulse vibe scale. Perhaps a device that can tell you more details about the vib instead of just magnitude that may lead to better tuning methods?
This idea intrigues me greatly. I’m curious how the execution of the accessory will be. A new yoyo, video recognition, remote with various sensors, clip on device?
What is one of the things you struggled with most when first starting to throw?
Straight and strong throw is the building block. From the front, and a breakaway.
What is one thing you continue to struggle with?
Understanding why whips/slacks don’t catch when I feel I’ve thrown it correctly.
Which basic tricks and/or skills do you consider most important to be proficient in?
Understanding when you’ll have a clean throw (sometimes binds get bunched up). It’s embarrassing to be showing off and it comes back mid throw and almost hits you.
Are there any bad habits that you are aware of having developed over time? What are they?
Not learning anything new. It’s a rut, not the yoyos fault. but if there was an easy way to be told what tricks known will help with new tricks that’d be cool. Going through youtube would also work.
What would you find useful to know about your throws/tricks? Either in the moment or after the fact.
In the moment - if it’s a new trick, did I land a certain portion correctly. After the fact - what did I do wrong in a particular trick that made me not able to do it right.
Would you find it beneficial to be notified when you’re off plane? Or is that something you can easily eyeball?
Minor adjustments are usually made when mid combo. Sometimes you’ll bump the wall, or throw a little off, but a simple tug towards or away from yourself usually does this trick. But yeah, a quick “You’re off axis” would be helpful for learning.
-Throwing it straight without any tilt
-Throwing breakaways without vibe
-Sleeper, Breakaway, Bind
-Using overly long string (I mean WAY too long like it’s more than my body height)
-None that I can think of
-It’s something I can see immediately especially in 3A
At YYF they actually have a machine that can measure this. Video is linked to the time just before he uses the machine, because I remembered that @AndreBoulay is in this video for a few seconds lol
What is one of the things you struggled with most when first starting to throw? Binds. Having a strong throw. Keeping the yoyo on plane. Not hitting the floor.
What is one thing you continue to struggle with? It sometimes takes me awhile to learn new tricks. I think the more tricks I learn I’ll begin to learn them faster. Hopefully.
Which basic tricks and/or skills do you consider most important to be proficient in? Snap starting or some other way to quickly wind the yoyo. It makes learning everything else so much less frustrating. Quick ways to adjust string tension/torsion. Binds and knowing when to utilize the safety throw.
Are there any bad habits that you are aware of having developed over time? What are they? I’ve been throwing for less than a year so I’m not sure I’ve had time to develop bad habits yet. Hopefully not. I would really love to know if I have though.
What would you find useful to know about your throws/tricks? Either in the moment or after the fact. The best way to do each element. Maybe the time of the throw/trick or if had good flow. How much spin is left.
Would you find it beneficial to be notified when you’re off plane? Or is that something you can easily eyeball? At this point I can notice it right away and I’ve been getting better at adjusting on the fly.
Just a quick one, when you do anything whether it be a hind, windup, or tricks…do not move your body with the yo-yo. As in, don’t lean forward and reach out, throw the yo-yo so it does the moving…you stand still.
