Haru’s dream thread had a lot of discussion about this going on, but its kind of oof topic, so… This. Anyway, what do you think?
It might, it might not. Everyone is unique in their experiences.
I find diabolo helps me with 4A play and 2A improves my reflexes or at least makes me work a little faster. Spin tops does nothing for me in regards to yoyo, and in fact, I’m not progressing with tops at all, but I try.
I doubt learning to3 ball cascade juggle will help with my yoyo skills but I want to learn it anyways. I don’t see how footbags are going to help me either as I usually end up hurting my knees. Kendama has also not helped me in regards to yoyo either.
I’m just not interested in poi at the moment. Juggling beanbags might lead me to want to juggle balls, clubs and rings. I’m not interested in cigar box juggling right now either, but it does look cool in my opinion. I do want to learn to do some magic/illusion stuff, mostly so I can entertain people when my wife drags me to parties I don’t want to go to so I don’t look quite like I’m not having fun hanging around with stuffed-shirt d-bags. Not much I want to learn, as it all has to be compact and portable. Some coin tricks, some card tricks, some sleight of hand stuff. If I could learn a handful of tricks that would be more than sufficient, especially ones that use “found” objects and honestly don’t need any specialized gear or set-up.
If you’re interested in other skill toys, just go for it. The only question should be “Do I enjoy this?” or “Am I having fun with this?” If the answer is “yes”, then the rest doesn’t really matter.
Hm. So, you think that only some skill toys will help with yoyoing. I think that just about all skill toys will help, since they all improve coordination. Also, learning a new concept, such as isolations, can be beneficial to your style of yoyoing.
I don’t think it makes you better but it gives you a different way of thinking like with Kendama I don’t even look up tricks I just attempt to make up my own since that’s what I do with yoyoing
Personally, I think it goes beyond skill toys. Lots of things help with hand-eye coordination. For example, I like hockey. (STEREOTYPE ALERT)
I can say that cubing does not help yoyoing. It may help memorizing tricks/combos, and possibly give you more finger dexterity, but it won’t help much with anything else.
Not a skill toy, but what do you guys think about instruments? The guitar for example. There are quite a few of us who play guitar here. I’m not sure if it helped or not.
Guitar would help if I weren’t so bad at it 
Not necessarily improve, but will influence your play style.
It’s impossible to know.
Each person learns yoyoing in a different way and progresses at different speeds.
One day I’ll hit everything, the other I’ll miss most of the stuff I try.
One day I’ll like a yoyo more, the other I’ll find it heavy and clumsy.
In all cases, doing anything else other than staying still (doing nothing) will most likely be beneficial to your yoyoing.
Aww yeah! I play fingerstyle guitar, which means I use my right hand fingers as picks and I play multiple notes overlapping at the same time. With me doing yoyoing and fingerstyle guitar, my fingers and hands are certainly coordinated! I think both skills help the other.
It’s been said a couple times in his thread, but it might held it might not. I personally feel it helps my creativity and opens my mind. If i’m frustrated when throwing and just not hitting stuff I like to take a break and play with a different skill toy for a bit. It keeps me in a similar mindset yet opens up my mind and think about something else in a similar category.
Another perspective though is to look at the current Kendama/yoyo crossover. If you look at some of the Kendama guys that are coming over to throwing, you can clearly see a Kendama influence to their style. So I would say it has a overall positive influence to play with multiple skill toys.
Here is a video of someone who’s Kendama greatly influenced his throwing. Especially his last chopstick orbital thing.
And here is a counter example, where someones throwing influenced a Kendama trick.
Funny you say that. My guitar instructor, Steve Lynch, excels at double handed playing and teaches his students the same. Look him up on Youtube
I play fingerpicking as well! Do you do classical?
It can in a few ways. It may help some in giving you influence for tricks, especially helping you learn stuff like flow better. A lot of what will come out of it is really increasing your hand-eye coordination, and also, just taking a break from yoyoing for a while and trying something else is really beneficial. It kind of almost gives you a fresh mind to start back up yoyoing again.
This doesn’t really count, but video games help hand eye coordination, which can help a lot.
I absolutely believe that [in my experiences] other skill toys can improve your yoyoing. In fact, they make skill toys designed to improve your yoyo skill.
Skill toys build muscle memory and develop eye hand coordination, I’m pretty sure that’s true of pretty much every single skill toy out there. Maybe playing with a spin top won’t make you be like, “oh wow! I just figured out a ton of new elements, theories and tricks for yoyoing!” but playing with a spin top might give you new ideas of movements and motions to incorporate into your combo. Not saying that’s a for sure thing, but it seems to help me. (although I don’t play spin top I dabble with other skill toys).
On a side note, somebody at Cal Staes in 5a Finals started his routine off with bouncing his conterweight and string in and out of the yoyo cup. I thought it was clever and funny, kind of merging Kendama and yoyo. Also Zac Rubino did offstring with his Kendama string and “Zro” 4a throw. I believe he called it “4aken” or something like that. Anyway, just thought it was funny.
You should learn that trick where you take a guys watch right off his wrist without him noticing…
Also Scamschool has tons of cool scams you could do at a party… The way you describe these people it sounds like they’d enjoy it cause they probably think they could outsmart you…then when they don’t laugh in their face…
Learning a different skilltoy/prop manipulation will help you think through “carving space” in ways you may not consider if you stick to just one toy/prop.
Maby cus yoyo needs preision so if if do something wrong a yoyo could drop on your head