Yo-Yoing has a weirdly important place in my life.
I first discovered it around 2010 when I was 11 or 12 years old. My first yo-yo was some random piece of junk from Walmart. We didn’t have a lot of money growing up, so buying a nice yo-yo wasn’t really something I could just ask for.
Instead, I slowly worked my way up. I’d save whatever money I could, trade what I had, sell something, trade again, and gradually turn that Walmart yo-yo into an actual collection. Looking back, I think that made every new throw feel about 10x more exciting because I had usually spent weeks or months trying to get it.
By 2011, I was completely obsessed. Over the next few years I went to a handful of contests in Massachusetts and even competed a few times. I also started making yo-yo videos on YouTube and, somehow, got pretty popular in the community for a while. As a kid who basically lived and breathed yo-yos, having people actually watch my videos and recognize me from them was pretty surreal.
Through all of it, the CLYW Wooly Marmot and Peak became my favorite throws, and honestly, they’re still my two favorite yo-yos of all time.
I was never some incredible competition player, but that honestly wasn’t what I loved most about yo-yoing anyway.
For me, it was always about how a yo-yo felt.
I’ve always prioritized play feel, rhythm, and flow over outright performance. Early Jensen Kimmitt was probably the biggest influence on the way I looked at yo-yoing. He was always my favorite player. There was something about that loose, effortless, almost improvisational style that clicked with me way more than trying to cram as many technical elements as possible into a minute.
Even now, I almost treat yo-yoing like a stress-relief exercise. I’ll put some music on, pick up a throw, and just flow with it. No routine, no goal, no worrying about whether the trick is difficult enough. Just seeing where one movement naturally leads into the next.
And back then, I probably needed that more than I realized.
Yo-yoing was basically my one and only major outlet throughout my early teens. When I think about that period of my life, yo-yos are permanently tied to it. Browsing YYE, watching videos over and over, obsessing over colorways, trading for something I had been chasing, filming videos, learning a new trick… that was my world for a while.
I eventually stepped away from the hobby around 2014, and a lot of life happened after that. I grew up, joined the military, became a veteran, graduated with my bachelor’s degree, and eventually moved into what is now my second career. Yo-yoing became one of those things I remembered really fondly but assumed was probably just a part of my childhood.
Then, somehow, in mid-2025 I stumbled back into it.
Now I’m an adult with a busy life, so I definitely don’t throw for hours every day like I did when I was 13. Sometimes I won’t touch a yo-yo for days or weeks. But every once in a while I’ll pick one up, start throwing, and within about 30 seconds it feels strangely familiar.
That’s probably why I still gravitate toward the same kinds of yo-yos I loved back then. I don’t really care whether something is the absolute best-performing competition machine in 2026. Give me something with character. Something that feels good moving through tricks. Something that makes me want to slow down and enjoy throwing it.
Apparently 12-year-old me had already figured out what I liked.
16 years after picking up that terrible Walmart yo-yo, I can still pick one up and get the same basic enjoyment out of it that I did as a kid.
It’s funny how big of an impact a hobby like this can have on someone’s life.