I don’t know, I hear fish fingers and custard are all the rage.
Even if you are very active in the forums and go to contests and hang out with other players, throwing a yoyo is still basically a solitary activity. If you enjoy what you are doing, does it matter if the majority of the main stream plays the same way? Persue what interests you, you’ll last longer.
I think I’m still a white belt. Perhaps with an extra strip or two on the belt end, but the more I learn the more I realize how much I need to clean up my playing.
Regarding fixed axle, I bought a simple Duncan Butterfly when the fixed axle contest started last year just so I could try it out. After a couple of hours of frustration I wanted to throw that thing out the window, go outside and retrieve it, and then smash it with a sledge hammer.
I’m sure part of it was the yoyo, but the level of frustration was so high that I can’t imagine ever playing fixed axle again. Regular yoyoing is tough enough, there are enough challenges already. But at lease I can do SOME tricks with a standard non-responsive yoyo. With a fixed axle yoyo it didn’t just feel like starting over, it felt like starting over while wearing mittens and a blindfold. I’m sure it’s fun for some people, but it quite clearly showed that for me there was no reason in the world to continue. For me there was absolutely no sense of fun or potential accomplishment with fixed axle.
My liking of fixed axle comes from regens, they are my favorite trick and the only reason i still play with unresposive yoyos is for regen binds and sometime spin time.
Well that’s one nice thing about fixed axle… it tends to show pretty “clearly” whether it’s for you or not. 
Greg, before you write fixed axle off completely, I suggest you pull it out every once and a while, and just yoyo with it. Just do even “Gravity Pull”. There’s something meditative about it when you relax, and let go of comparisons to what you can do with a bearing yoyo.
When bearings came around, I slowly went “meh” with fixed axle, and pretty much considered it obsolete, and mostly a source of frustration. I still threw them from time to time, but only for a few minutes. Then recently I stumbled upon modern FA play, and got really excited! In the process, and maybe in large part because I’m older now, I became appreciative of the connectedness with the yoyo. The simple tricks give me great satisfaction. The ability to control the responsiveness, the fact that so many of the tricks are great repeaters. Nowadays, I may be playing FA the most, and not just the modern stuff.
Some other nice things about FA:
IMO it’s so much nicer to play with one hand vs unresponsive. It’s great for yoyoing while you walk.
There’s a different flow to it. This ties in with what Sergio is saying about regens. At first it seems limiting, especially if you’re coming from unresponsive. Once you can regen, however, you can keep things going, including when you miss a trick. I don’t necessarily just mean long combos with regens, either. Just the fact that if it stalls out on you, you can flick it out into a loop or breakaway to get it back to your hand, rather than having to stop and restart the yoyo.
You can have fun with many more yoyos! Pick up a Butterfly at Target and go to town!
You’ll get a lot of smiles when you do the old tricks people can wrap their minds around.
I don’t know if I’ll ever pull off Spirit Bomb with one, but for me personally that’s not what’s important. I’m just glad to have rediscovered it, and I’m thankful for all the new found variety and fun.
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Sometimes GregB, I just like to throw a trapeze, or a Double or Nothing on a fixed axle. If you’re like me there are days you just don’t want to play, but you also don’t want to slide backward at all.
So I have found simply doing “simple” things like a trapeze or double or nothing, will really smooth out your playing in general (I even like practicing with a Duncan Professional some times). Throwing a trapeze and letting the yoyo sit on the string trying to keep the yoyo centered and spinning for as long as you can, then having it return to your hand. Same with double or nothing. It helps with accuracy and smoothness so much, which will transfer to your playing with a bearing.
Fun test is to go through the Sports Ladder and work on each trick on a fixed axle, or go through the YYE Tutorials. Super Frustrating at times, but SO satisfying when you get consistent with them. And again, transfers over to playing with a bearing yoyo.
So don’t completely give up on using a fixed axle, can be looked at as weight training, difficult at first, but becomes a little easier as time goes by. And your butterfly (while some are better than others) should be able to be good enough to continue with 
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+1 for everything Aaron said. Personally, sometimes I just like throwing trapeze or double or nothing. Eli hops are also fun with fixed.
However, if you don’t enjoy throwing fixed, don’t let us bully you. Yoyos are toys, they should be fun, something you look forward to, not something you dread picking up 
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What?! That sounds crazy!
I struck out on google, do you have link for this?
The first thing… the very first thing a bearing yoyoer do when trying fixed axle is, trying supposedly ‘unresponsive tricks’ or combos on the fixie, then discovered that it doesn’t work.
The thing is, that’s not the point. The yoyo is not supposed to do that, at least not on the first try. The yoyo is different, the mindset is different too.
This is part of the reason why I always say one should learn yoyoing on a responsive yoyo first. Because there is so many small and seemingly unimportant things like string tightness control, tilt, etc that you don’t learn (or learn slowly) on an unresponsive because the yoyos are ‘too’ assisting. A sloppy double or nothing is technically the same as a smooth double or nothing, but is ‘essentially’ different.
I’m never against yoyoing for fun, but if you can bear getting frustrated earlier to achieve a bigger sense of accomplishment, why not?
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First things first. A yoyo is a toy. That being said, be it a fixed or a bearing axle the most important thing is to have fun with it. Many of us started with a fixed axle and grew from there. Most of you younger members have only known bearings. There is a lot to learn from Grandpa, but, Grandpa, you listen to the young folk as they have knowledge you do not have.
Fixed axle will be around forevermore and players will dream up new and more complicated tricks for it. We learn as we play and remember: have fun.
Yea Fixed Axle!
Why does it always end in a one or the other typed of discussion?
It doesn’t matter if you play (or started) with fixed or bearings, just have fun.
People get into yoyoing for a lot of different reasons and want to get different things out of it.
Can’t we just all get along and agree that 4a is just silly and pick on them instead?
*That was a joke. The last thing I need is Phillip hunting me down!
Amazing how serious we can get in spite of that! I guess that comes from being passionate about it.
We’re all different. Some of us might use fixed as tool to get better at the fundamentals of yoyo play. Some of us might use it as a challenge to see how far into current 1A play we can get. Some of us might treat it as mostly a separate discipline/style, and play it almost completely different from how we play unresponsive. Some of us might just use it to chill old-school. It will probably be some some combination, and if you play fixed axle and unresponsive, they will inevitably influence each other:
Then again, some just won’t like it at all. My advice to GregB was just to give it a try every once in a while. Like some foods, it can be an acquired taste.
Edit: I guess while I was typing my long dissertation, Morgoroth posted basically the same thing in a more succinct way!
I think one of the easiest ways to get in to fixed axle is to play with thin responsive bearing yoyos.
I will work on filming the chopsticks stall (it is a throwhand stall) and post the video. I’m nowhere near consistent with it, so, getting you a clean video may take some time.
Also, it isn’t that impressive really, I’ve tried to kick-flip suicide out of it, not happening yet.
french
Edit: here is the link to the video. Only about 5 minutes of filming before hitting it. The video is 48 seconds long, and, of course the stall doesn’t happen until the end.
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Good job French. I have worked at it but still can not come lose to landing it.
That would typically be called Lunar Landing (even though the original Lunar is off Shoot the Moon - hence the name). Pretty much any time we get to that stall mount, it’s a Lunar. Maybe my favorite mount! Over time you will get way more consistent with it if you keep at it. It really helps to imagine holding your hand like you have an enormous cup in it.
Sorry for naming confusion, I should have realized since it is the same as the Lunar Landing that even though I didn’t get there from shoot the moon, it is the same.
Thanks for the encouragement and advice. I’m just having fun trying things!
Np! “Chopstick Stall” works too. Honestly one of the main challenges of the past few years has been to come up with systems of naming the newer fixed concepts. Drew and I tend to just default to skateboard tricks since that often describes the yoyo’s movement pretty effectively. Call it whatever works!
Is it also called “One Hand Trapeze”? I’m not consistent with it yet, but I love landing it from a sidewinder! Seems like it lands there by magic.