This is pretty much how I feel. I’m still interested in what is coming out but if I could get no more yoyos ever again I would still remain pretty happy with what I have got *which for the record is less than 20 yoyos)
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You’re just gonna let him steal your meme?
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Absolutely. In fact, I have had success performing trapeze stalls and kickflips on completely unresponsive organic yoyos.
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Lol, I’m not trying to steal @smileypants707 meme, I figured he would see it 
it’s great!
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That’s simply not the case, but my bad for not sharpening/focusing the argument in the first place.
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My fault for not being more clear, but that ^^^ part wasn’t the point. The whole thing with pushing performance was a devil’s advocate style argument.
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Ok so it’s hard to do a nested quote in mobile, huh? But this quote is a key thing…
Most definitely - yoyo designs have been tweaked for better performance but that’s not all there is to yoyo design, right? There is a trade off between sensitivity and performance.
I would not call pure performance yoyos as being “good” and more sensitive yoyos as being “bad”. What is good or bad depends on your aims. Would I advocate for using organics in 3A, for example? No, of course not! Would I tell beginners to only play responsive organics until they become proficient - no I wouldn’t do that either (though some seem to have good reasons to suggest that route).
If one wants long spins and stability, then low walled bimetals are great, but if one wants feedback-sensitive yoyo play, then organics are where it’s at. I see no absolute and objective good or bad here.
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I see what you’re saying. You think defining something as objectively good only in the scope of competitive 1A performance attributes is too narrow. I can agree with that, but I think the reason why that is the case is that is the most popular form of yoyoing, so that’s what people think of when evaluating a yo-yo, especially since that’s what most yo-yos are made for now. But enhanced stability, spin time or a larger catch zone doesn’t matter as much if you mostly do a regen/stall style of play.
With that being said, there are still improvements being made to yo-yos outside of the typical 1A performance sphere. Modern responsive is really popular and I’m sure we’ll see more innovation in that area.
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lol my Aunt was over the other day at my dad’s and he suggested I get out one of my yos for her. I wasn’t in the mood so I didn’t…but she was all like “Oh cool! Those things are neat! I like the one where you walk it.”
lol I’ve heard stories of people bumping into this sort of thing…was awkward.
I’ll bring my yo out for her the next time I see her. I don’t like the idea of her thinking I’m a 36 year old man just wasting my time away with a plastic toy lol.
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Which I mean…that’s exactly who I am and what I’m doing! haha
But I want her to see that it’s far more than just walking the dog these days and actually takes some skills.
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Show her a cool combo using a fancy-looking metal yoyo and see if that evokes a more impressed reaction.
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Bro you hit me right in the feels with this one
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Better yet tell her how much they cost.
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That can be a double-edged sword though. If I were to show the average person my copper TiBanshee (which I don’t have yet, but go with me on this) and tell them how much it cost, they’d probably look at me like I’m an idiot and say, “You paid that much for that?”
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haha yeah, this was my dad’s exact reaction. I probably shouldn’t have told him the grand total of what I’ve put into this hobby over the summer! haha
He was all excited about me jumping back in…until I did so! >.<’
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I take real issue with this, for a very personal reason. A few years ago I had a valve in my heart fail due to a birth defect, and my lungs filled full of blood. It was initially misdiagnosed as pneumonia, and I wound up in a coma for several days with blood O2 as low as 30%. I was fortunate and they figured out what was wrong with me before I was gone, stopped the bleeding and they repaired the valve. I didn’t wake up after until all this was done, talk about confused. When I woke up I couldn’t even breathe on my own for a week. I spent a month in the hospital, most of that time in intensive care. Even after the hospital, my recovery was very long, I had to use supplemental oxygen for several weeks. I had trouble doing a variety of day to day things. Nobody knew what to expect since its pretty hard on almost everything in your body when blood O2 drops that low for long, a lot of neurons died. Lots of physical therapy slowly improved things.
The most annoying long term outcomes of this has been that my short term memory has been terrible, it used to be very good. And my balance and coordination were all out of sorts. Bad enough I couldn’t trust myself on a ladder, even the slightest tumble could send me sprawling. I didn’t dare drive a nail with a hammer, because I’d almost certainly miss very badly. After a couple years I had made some improvement, but nowhere close to where I used to be. I had mostly resigned myself and just kept telling myself I’m lucky to be alive. But I was struggling with serious depression, I felt like an old man while still in my 40’s.
Enter yoyos. As I’ve mentioned before I was inspired to to really get back into yoyos when I saw Evan’s championship performance on an off chance. I got my old yoyos out and tried hitting tricks I used to be able to do reliably, I could hardly catch the darn thing on a normal gravity pull, forget landing a trapeze. But it lit a fire in me, I ordered my first new yoyos since the early 2000’s, including an Edge Beyond which was my first bimetal. The EB gave me enough spin time and catch zone I could start managing things. For the last year I have practiced every day, and I can do most of yoyo tricks first 50, and some more advanced tricks. It takes me a lot of time and repetition, but as time goes by I’m finding that time is slowly dropping.
The most amazing part of this is my general coordination and balance have improved massively. This weekend I did a number of things outside the house on a ladder, and never once felt even the slightest bit unstable. If I stumble on a something I don’t fall on my face or flail wildly around trying not to fall. I can turn my head quickly to look at something and not get dizzy.
The only thing I can figure is that the entire business of doing yoyo tricks really works on your whole awareness of what your body is doing in space, the large motor skills required to get a fast smooth throw, the space perception to keep track of a small object moving fast in 3D space, managing the plane, the coordination between both hands and eyes required to land anything beyond the most basic tricks, the split second timing. I’ve had to really focus on every aspect of this. But I think it all really worked to force my brain and senses to rewire themselves to work together again. Even my memory has been improving. I’m sure the fact that I love doing it really helps too. I’m very happy with where I’m at now, but I can tell I’m still improving.
No sir, for me a yoyo is not a toy. This is all strictly anecdotal, limited to a case study of 1, YMMV, etc, but yoyos helped me recover my mental and physical well being to a far greater extent than what anybody expected. Having more of them must help, right?
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By the way, I cannot express how much I love and appreciate the YYE community. There have been times I’ve wanted to give up, but all the time I see something I find inspiring, interesting conversation and debate, cool yoyos, and videos that push me to keep improving or help me understand a trick in a different way.
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Yoyoing and the community helped get me through years of chemo and I also have short term memory and balance issues as a result. Most of the time I just don’t have the energy or willingness to explain to people why I’m socially awkward or have some of the issues in life that I do, so I just let people think I’m weird or lazy or dumb. I don’t care as long as my friends and family understand.
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@d34dj3d man wow. Thank you for sharing this! I find it so inspirational that you’ve used yoing as a way to help you through this. What an amazing story!
I’ve battled social anxieties most my life. It’s gotten MUCH better over the past 8’ish(?) years though.
The frustrating thing about getting tired of trying to explain why I struggle the way I do to others…is I can’t even figure it out enough to explain it to my own self.
I’ve used the words “lazy” and “dumb” far too much in life as it’s just such an easy answer to give to people (and myself).
My mom was ALWAYS understanding of me and my struggles and was someone I could go to when I needed someone in my corner.
My dad isn’t. Love the man to death…but he just doesn’t get it.
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Anyone have any idea why we call string tension “tension” and not “torsion”? It kinda bothers me that tension is used when there exists a word that perfectly describes the concept at hand.
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