Duncan Butterfly/Imperial - Damaging to the hobby?

Please tell me you have actually done this!

I thought I could compel Invaderdust to invite me to the store on inventory reduction day…:scream_cat:

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I started out on a cheap plastic giveaway yoyo, a basic imperial shape that is very similar to your standard Duncan. Then I upgraded to a speed Beatle, not exactly your standard trick slaying machine…

My point is, if someone is interested in yoyoing, they just need motivation, training, and some kind of encouragement, which typically comes from family or friends, to persevere.

Neverless, the cheapness and availability of these yoyos makes it far too easy for people to pick one up, become frustrated, and quit, possibly without ever making it return to their hand.

It’s a disservice.

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You say this, yet it is how you started. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Now that you say that…
I am somewhat contradicting myself, my point is that I had a lot of encouragement from family and friends, but depending on the person, they might end up thinking they just aren’t good at yoyoing, not that the yoyo is at fault. I also moved very quickly to a decent yoyo, which more ignorant people may not think of doing.

What is more fun to watch? A kid throwing a Butterfly or Imperial for the first time and having it return? Or a kid throwing a bearing axle for the first time and watching it just spin?

I wouldn’t say the Butterfly is a damage to the hobby, it’s because of the Butterfly I’m into Yoyos now. I haven’t touched a yoyo since I was a kid (and was never good at it) During the holiday season at Target last year, I saw a pile of Duncan Imperials and Butterflies in a bin they had set up in the back of aisle. I picked one up

My frustrations with both my lack of skill, and limitations/quality of the Butterfly I decided to hit google and was I ever shocked when I saw what kind of Yoyo’s where out there and the tricks and tutorials people where doing. That made me want to learn more and get a better throw.

You raise some good points to talk about, InvaderDust.

First I want to say that you were welcome on the ‘Why fixed axle’ thread and I understand why my response to your post made you feel unwelcome, I worded it very poorly.

All I was trying to say is that from your post, it looked as though you enjoy basically nothing about fixed axle yoyoing, therefore a thread encouraging people to throw fixed axles wasn’t really for you.

I think people here have already stated correctly that it really isn’t the equipment that puts people off yoyo, its the difficulty and persistance required to become proficient at it - even if people do blame the equipment for destroying their enthusiasm.

You are totally correct about the poor quality control of butterflies and Duncan really need to address this problem. Any other company would consider yoyos they made with misaligned halves as skip fodder.

Like others here, I began yoyoing on a yoyo that was not as good as a Butterfly. I had an old Russell Coke yoyo that made string catches very difficult with an axle that cut strings in under 10 minutes of play. I LOVED that yoyo. My dad showed me how to do walk the dog, rock the cradle, elevator and Eiffel tower. A Duncan Butterfly is a serious upgrade from what I began with.

I teach kids to yoyo on responsive Yoyofficer Xpoints. While it is a good beginner option because it is easily upgraded to unresponsive after mastering some basic string tricks, let me tell you, the modern design of those yoyos can make it harder to learn tricks!

Throwing a straight sleeper on a wide V shaped yoyos is much more difficult; the low walls on the yoyo make tricks like stop ‘n’ go difficult and looping is very awkward.

These are very basic tricks all performed much more easily with highet walled yoyos such as the Duncan Butterfly or Imperial or any other fixed axle yoyo.

About the only thing we can bash Duncan for is sending production overseas. That being said, I just picked up two Duncan butterflies at fry’s grocery store on sale $2.09 ea. The only thing I don’t like about them is the fact that there made in China. Corporate America wins again. Thank you share holders. What ever. They are both excellent at what they were designed for though.

I don’t agree at all that cheap Duncan yoyos are damaging to the yoyo pastime.

Waaaay back in the days of the old school Duncan traveling demonstrators; the kids were nuts about any yoyos. And the yoyos back then were mostly cheap low performance quality at best.

That was all they had to choose from and they made the best of what they could get to use.

The primary problem with today’s potential yoyo throwers is simple>>> In this fast moving World we currently live in; kids have so many things to choose to ‘do’.

When I was a kid; I knew a lot of people that didn’t even have a TV. No Xbox, no PlayStation, no cell phones, few distractions. Kids had more patience. They could focus their determination a lot better.

Kids were driven to accomplish tricks… regardless of the cheap yoyo they were throwing.

Many times when somebody gets a Duncan Butterfly( or something); there are just so many other things to do. Doing things that have much easier learning curves.

Kids want instant gratification pastimes. To many; yoyo play doesn’t offer instant gratification. When you throw cheap stuff; you gotta work for results. >>> No magic… No extra lives… No cheat codes… no cell phones involved…

Many folks are just plain Lazy. Consider just how inexpensive decent yoyos are now. There are playable quality yoyos available for 5 or 10 bucks on the internet. And general imterest in yoyo playing can fade just as fast with ok quality yoyos as it fades when using a Duncan butterfly.

Being turned off to yoyos has more to do with a persons’ mindset than with dropping out because your yoyo sucks.

If nothing else; Duncan Butterfly(type) yoyos thin out the herd. The people that get easily discouraged; were/are people that most likely would have moved on anyways.

Scroll down to the bottom of the main forum page. Check out the list of upcoming Birthdays.

Click on some of the names. Some of the names listed have not posted on the Forum for 6 years. Their names are still listed. But they are loooong gone…

And I seriously doubt that it mattered what throws they had when they faded out.

Throwing ‘anything’ can be discouraging or encouraging just depending how/why a person approaches it.

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No video games? How did you ever survive back then???

Joking aside, playing with yoyos is a way more fun way to kill time that’s also far more rewarding in the long run. It’s really helped my hand/eye coordination and I’ve learned something that requires skill, technique, and patience to use.

I quite agree with you about a Duncan being made in China, but, I much rather would buy an inexpensive yoyo made in china than to pay a hundred dollars or more for one made in China.

Kills me that my POM Draupnir is made in China. $100 bucks shipped right here at YYE. And I have thrown it every day since I got it. I have some others I can’t say that about. What can we do? It’s a new world.

Hi friends! So… I just want to say, out of all my years of throwing and collecting, I’ve never owned a Duncan, anything.

That being said, I went out yesterday and bought an imperial, just because that is, kind of, the epitome of starting off in the hobby.

My first yo-yo was a yomega fireball, and back in the day (easily not the case any more) I was the bee’s knees, I could do everything.

That transaxle made things a lot easier than they should have been. My first unresponsive was the Silk, from alchemy. I still feel like I missed a lot from not ever having a fixed axle, which I’m realizing now. Which is why I really appreciate this piece of hot garbage, that I have, which is a Duncan imperial that I bought from Walmart for three bucks. I’ll say I’ve never been so excited to land two trapeze in a row, since I picked up this imperial

To be the man, you gotta beat the man-Ric Flair

It’s the people, not the yoyo. Patience and practice are needed. Without those, most endeavors (Big Bang Bandalores Endeavor?) aren’t likely to show success. Sorry for the bad lighting but here is a quick combo on the Duncan butterfly :slight_smile:

(I tried just adding the video but I must have did it wrong… I posted on Instagram just so I could link it here instead :wink: )

https://instagram.com/p/BW7xhk8lz1m/

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Nice, man! :smiley:

Maybe I’ll post one of mine a little later on.

Thanks! I screwed up so many times, then I found the right tension, technique, and it worked well :slight_smile:

I would enjoy seeing some glenaciusly good Duncan butterfly tricks!

Here’s one.

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Wow very nice

:+1: Nice! I like the leg element you did!