How did you get into yoyoing?
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A couple months ago I saw an expired group buy on MassDrop for the Yomega Glide and got really curious about the state of the art of yoyos since I last played with one (40 years ago). That led me to yoyotricks and yoyoexpert, and I was hooked. The video of Evan Nagao’s Nationals win went viral shortly thereafter and that pretty much sealed the deal for me.
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In 96-99 I went through a yoyo movement. One day a friend of mine named julian brought a black and sinister xbrain to school, so I had to get one. So i went out and got a green x brain, a red fireball, and a black mamba. And he and i started the yoyo craze for texarkana at that time.
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In July 2015 I was talking to some guests at the resort I work at about liking to look at the toy aisle and how thinking like a young person keeps you young and the idea of getting a yoyo came to me so never having seen one in a store (because I never looked) I ordered an Imperial from amazon. I then became amazed at how many different types of yoyos there were and started ordering some of them (Butterfly XT, Raider, Loop 360, Nebula, etc.). It took me a week or more to even figure out I needed a slip knot and there was a proper way to HOLD the yoyo since like a lot of people I ignored the simple instructions on the package! My only goal or hope was to learn something repititive like looping. I’ve been hooked ever since with the exception of the months I’d get depressed because I learned to loop well but lost the hand movement. I’m still working on getting back to looping but am slowing progressing with frontstyle trickery and happy with each baby step I make because 3 months ago I never thought I’d be able to do what I am doing now. Seriously. Never.
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One time I was on a plane flying over the Pacific Ocean, and we hit a flock of birds and it screwed up the engines. The plane crashed into the ocean and I was the only survivor of the crash. I floated for several days on a piece of the wreckage, until I landed on the shore of what appeared to be a very small island. I desperately went searching for fresh water, and I found a little pond that had collected rainwater, I was so grateful for that. Seriously, it was a lifesaver.
I started to look around for some shelter, because it was getting dark, and I found a little crevice in some rocks that I felt safe curled up in. The next morning I woke up and started to explore the island to look for food. I found some crabs, and believe it or not, there was a coconut tree! I don’t know if you’ve ever drank fresh coconut water, but oh man.
That afternoon, I started to forage for things that I could use to turn that little spot in the rocks into more of a shelter. I started to get hungry again, so I built a fire and went to find more crabs. I caught a fat one, brought it back and roasted it up and then went to sleep in my shelter.
The next day, I wandered around the island exploring and a bunch of debris from the plane wreck had begun to wash ashore. I started to go through some of the cargo, and lo and behold, I found a yoyo with a whole bunch of strings that were kept in an airtight container. Considering my situation, I was actually very surprised to find a yoyo. But the darn thing was broken, it wouldn’t come back up when I tugged it! But, it was so pretty that I kept it anyway.
About six months later, I had pretty nice life going for myself on that island. I had it all, an epic shelter that I finally completed, an awesome fire pit, beautiful weather, food, several handcrafted tools to make my life a little easier… I felt like a king of my own Island. Then I remembered, I had that yoyo. I pulled it out and gave it a throw, but the darn thing was definitely broken, it spun for days though! Not literally…
Anyway, I finally figured it out after almost an entire year on that island how to get that darn thing to come back up! There was a way that you could loop the string around the axle and then when you dropped it, it wound up without getting knotted! I had so much fun with that thing after I learned how to get it wound back up!
After about two full years on that island, one afternoon, I heard a plane flying in the distance. My heart stopped. I started to throw a bunch of brush on my fire to get it as big and smokey as I could get it. Someone on the plane spotted it, and started to fly towards the island. I thought I was dreaming! My heart was singing as they flew overhead and I jumped and waved my arms in the air.
But it flew away. My heart sank, but surely they saw me!? Another week past and one morning I was out doing a little bit of fishing, when I spotted a boat in the distance. It was coming straight at the island! The plane must have notified somebody that they saw someone on this island!
It got closer and closer, and eventually they sent out a little dingy that came ashore. It had been so long since I had seen another person, it was very strange. I was exhilarated, But there was this disconnect. I had learned how to live on this island, to fend for myself, and all of a sudden, there were more people. And they were all asking me questions and bombarding me with supplys and clean water and food.
So this was it, it was time for me to leave. They were with the United States Coast Guard, and they were totally baffled to hear that I was the soul survivor of that wreck. I grabbed a couple of my belongings, including a couple of my favorite tools that I had made. Oh, and the yoyo, of course…
When I got back, the Press was everywhere, and cameras were flashing and microphones were shoved in my face everyone wanted to know all the details of my stay on the island. I didn’t really want to talk to anyone, and one of the coastguards escorted me into a building there on the base. They sat me down in a room and informed me that they had contacted my wife, and that she was here on the base. Before they brought her in, they brought in my little bag of belongings that I had brought from the island, along with a fresh change of clothes.
I was totally Blown Away. I have missed her so much, and thought about her often. I was so nervous, would she be happy to see me? had she moved on? I had so many thoughts racing through my head.
They brought her into the room, and she had a ring on her hand. Not the same ring that I had given her, but a different one. I knew immediately that she had moved on, and I was both crushed and relieved at the same time. I loved her so much, I’m glad she moved on and found love again, because as far as anyone knew, I had died on that plane crash.
We visited for a long time, and then she left. Now what? What do I do now? I sat there in that room for what felt like half of an eternity, and then I remembered that I had that yo-yo in my pocket. And I smiled.
After a couple of weeks, the government helped me get back on my feet and I had my own place, and found more work in my old profession. It turns out, that the postal system hasn’t changed much. So I fit right back in as if I hadn’t even skipped a beat.
My first night in my house, alone, I decided to get on the internet and look into learning more tricks on my yo-yo. I was blown away with how far the discipline had come since I was a kid! I vaguely remember having this little wooden Imperial style yo-yo when I was a kid, but I never really did anything besides throwing and catching.
I found yoyoexpert, and r/Throwers, and a bunch of helpful tutorials on YouTube. It was Off to the races by that point, just me and my yoyo! I learned all about yoyo maintenance, and even started making my own strings!
And after further research, it turns out that the yoyo that had kept me company for all that time was… A Bapezilla!
I have since then found another wife, and we have 3 kiddos together. My family and friends think that yo-yo is just a toy, but they will never know how much yo-yo actually means to me. 
So, that’s it in a nutshell! That’s how I got into yo-yoing♡
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My brother in law took me to a Chuckie cheese style place and I got lots of tickets from the games. I got so many, I was able to get a Yomega Spectrum. After that, I looked at some tutorials from the Yomega site. Ever since then I’ve loved yoyoing. That was back in 2014 by the way.
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Do we find yoyoing or does yoyoing find us? Maybe it’s just something we need in our lives because of the discipline and perserverance it requires. Yeah, it’s fun but maybe there’s something more than the need for fun being fulfilled.
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ben conde on veritasium. i was like “yea cool i can do that.”
I was way into yoyos when I was ~12, but only ever had some Yomega Fireballs and a Viper. Eventually ran out of tricks to try and mostly forgot about them.
Then back in May I listened to a podcast with @codinghorror (https://the.hobbyhorse.club/5) and decided I really needed to try out unresponsive yoyos. Now I have about 15 yoyos and I don’t think I can stop 
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Did you name the yoyo Duncan? Did you talk to it? Is your name Tom Hanks? Lol
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Name’s Chuck. Chuck Noland, actually. And I may have named my yoyo Duncan… How did you know? 
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That was my next guess, I love that movie.
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The first time was as a kid in the 90s. We had someone come to our school and do like a yoyo demonstration, and was then selling Yomega Fireballs, so pretty much everyone had one. Eventually it faded out, and for almost 20 years I didn’t even really think about yoyos (wish I could find my old ones, but probably got thrown out at some point). Fast forward to 5-6 months ago when I was walking through a hobby store and saw some Duncan Imperials and Butterflies and picked one up. I fell right back into it where I left off it felt like. After that I started looking into modern yoyos and learning about unresponsive, and the rest, as they say, is history.
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When did it all start! my story
I have started yoyoing in the year 2008, I have been watching a show known as blazing teens on pogo channel in 2006 and 2007. Later in 2008 I bought my first yo-yo and saw Andre yo Boulay’s tutorials on youtube and they helped me a lot in doing tricks.i started practising beginner tricks like UFO, Rock the Baby, white Buddha, Trapeze, brain twister and practised some picture tricks like effeil tower and jamica flag but during those days I wished I had dark magic yo-yo back then. I could not perform tricks like the gyroscopic flop and other had tricks which need unresponsive yo-yo. then I watched yoyo contests and at that time Hiroyuki Suzuki was my favourite yoyo player.in 2013 I bought my first unresponsive yoyo i.e yoyo officer aura from yo-yo store rewind.I had a problem of shortage of strings and yoyo pads from the beginning. and i got busy in my education .so I never made a yo-yo video and now I am planning to change from 1A yoyoing into 2A yoyoing in the near future.as 1A seems boring to me now.
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A video game got me into yoyoing.
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If this is true, I am speechless 
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Which video game?
A NED show popped up at my school
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A video game also got me into yo-yoing. I used to play Terraria with a few of my best friends. One day one of them told me that you can get yoyos as a weapon and that there was a company who was making the actual yoyos. I looked into the company, discovered r/throwers and then I was hooked!
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Terraria
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