How did you get interested in yo-yoing? How did you start?
Here’s my story:
It was 2010, and my brother found a yo-yo book by Klutz written back in the 1980’s. It contained basic tricks, such as Walk the Dog. We used cheap dollar store yo-yos that we soon realized wouldn’t cut it. We eventually upgraded to Yomega Fireballs, and before I knew it, we were starting into string tricks. It took a while, but unresponsive was in our reach. That’s when it happened. My brother surpassed me by a lot, and I soon git jealous. I yo-yoed less and less until I eventually stopped.
About 6 months later, we were on vacation and we stopped at a yo-yo store on a busy main street. I had $100 to spend, and I thought I should spend it on a yo-yo, just because I haven’t had one in a while. I bought one, and eventually I was back on my feet. My affection towards the hobby inclined to what it is today.
I went to MOA, and went to this one store that sold kites and diabolos and yoyos and stuff. We got two diabolos, and as we were going to check out, I saw the one salesperson playing with a yoyo. My dad and brother and I both thought it was really cool, and we left the store with a Whip, Lizard and Viper Neo. My dad and brother didn’t really get into it, but I really enjoyed it. After watching me do it so much, my other little brother (he’s 8) got into it, and I teach him all kinds of stuff.
Back in elementary school (in the 90’s) yoyo’s were the fad. I had an X Brain and a Bumblebee back then. At about 5th grade the fad was over and I never thought about it again.
About 2 months ago I had a bizarre dream. I met up with this stranger on top of a skyscraper and for some reason he was playing with a yoyo. In my dream I asked if I could give it a whirl and he said sure. He showed me some random tricks and then I woke up. I immediately went to my computer, did a little research, and ordered a Yomega Maverick.
Once I picked up my new yoyo all of my child hood memories came flooding back. I still remembered how to walk the dog, rock the cradle, around the world, and so on. I then did some more research, learned about string tricks and unresponsive play, and here I am today.
My brother used to play years ago and always talked about it so I’ve always wanted to learn but there wasn’t anywhere to buy any. So years later my family and I went to a mall where there was a toy shop, my dad bought my sister and me mavericks. My sister stopped soon and didn’t get very far, I enjoyed it a lot and wanted to learn more. I asked my dad if I could buy a DM2 and he finally said yeah. So I used that to learn a ton of tricks and onto unresponsive.
Well it started for me back in the mid and late 90’s.(yeah it doesn’t seem like that long ago but it’s more then ten years ago. hard to believe) Me and my brother got into when we would go to campgrounds with our family all over the east coast and i would always watch my brother yoyo in the little competitions they did at these campgrounds. it was the thing to do back then. But my brother and I were throwing good old Yomega Saber Wings and he also had a Yomega Saber V Wing, and that had a metalish barring in it. it was expensive back in the day but would be a cheep one now a days. But we stopped around the early 2000’s and this past summer we picked it up again not long after i got back from college and bought a Yomega Dash. it now started with a YoyoFactory whip then to the dv888 and now that i know so much more about yoyo’s i’m learning. but till this day my favorite throw is still the Yomega Saber Wing. i love that yoyo and i use it now for looping.
I guess what i’m trying to say is that yoyoing brought me and my brother back together to do something we loved as kids. Just the tricks are much harder now. And thats the truth.
I love my brother and all that he has done for me even know we had our rough times i know he’s there for me and I am here for him.
Let’s see well on a day when I was bored I picked up my duncan proyo and was yo-yoing and before I knew it I was on the Internet looking up tricks then a week later I got a yomega maverick from a hobby shop and got into string trick and the rest it history
My brother gave me a fireball in January so I started to look up some tricks to practice and found this whole underground yo-yo scene. Been hooked since! 8)
I also began in the 90s with the Yomega boom and then left it for a bit. I got back into it when I was in high school back in 2001 with a buzzon bootleg, yyj matrixx, and later a hitman. I wasn’t very good, but I had a great time. I’ve been much more active for the last three years than ever before, but I’ve been yoyoing for a long time.
I got laid off from work for about a year and one of my good friends girlfriends had this little wooden yoyo that she picked up from some random dollar store and it made me start thinking about how i used to like yoyoing as a kid. I then started to watch a few yoyo videos online and eventually bought a cheap little $20 semi-responsive yoyo. I soon realized I’d never be able to do the same tricks i saw online with it and upgraded to a DM. That was pretty much it for me and i’ve been throwing for a couple years now and have since upgraded to a OneDrop Dietz and extending my arsenal of tricks.
too weird I had an ex give me the same book and the yoyo it came with. That would have lasted a whil but there’s this fella “Tommy Gun” from over at extremespin who had a youtube vid “Bigyo 2 appreciation video” that just rocked my world. Joind that forum the next day and ordered a yoyo off them… good times. Back in 07 or so maybe 06 when they still had a store…
Before I was 10 I had a Duncan Butterfly and I used to walk it across the floor to wind it back up and then just try to get it to come back to my hand.
Fast forward about 6 years, I see a dollar store yoyo and just decide to pick it up for nostalgia reasons. I started to look up tricks online and found YoyoExpert and I soon realized that this no-name yoyo wouldn’t get me far.
While I was at my local Walmart I got a Duncan Mosquito and was amazed at how good it was compared to the dollar store yoyo.
I got to Atomic Bomb with the mosquito and then asked my mom if I could use my money to buy a Dark Magic v1 and she said I would only yoyo for about a month and forget about it but if I really had to then go ahead and waste 40 dollars.
I started in December of “09” with the dollar store yoyo and am still going strong allmost three years later. I didn’t really try to get better until September of 2011 so I could go to Tennessee states in November and it has been a little over a year for that.
I first started in grade school with a Duncan Imperial (1980’s) when I was in HS there was a few of us that were throwing Duncan’s still them one of my classmates came in with a TK 3 in 1 (1990) We were freshman in HS at the time from that time till late 1992 we were huge into TK yoyo’s and I was lucky enough to drive to Boston with my parents to go to Kites of Boston in Fanuel Hall to get my very first ball bearing yoyo the SB 2. After that I kinda lost touch until the late 90’s when I noticed at a party that same friend from the TK days was now onto to Spintastics Tigershark… Longer sleeping and better tricks… I then bought a BUNCH of Yomegas, Spintastics and Playmax. Again about a year later I lost intrest… Then cam 2003 and I was randomly at A2Z toy store and ran across their yoyo case and saw all the YYJ’s they had I was instantly drawn to the Mini motrix and about a month later got a mini motu (durring this time I had no idea about how big A2Z was in the yoyo world) Again I lost touch and played my collection very sparingly over the years. Fastforward to the late summer of 2010. I was randomly youtubing start wars stuff and I came up with a video of Andre performing at NER to star wars music and the tricks he was doing were CRAZY… I then started to research the “modern yoyo” and after a lot of thinking and seeing what I might like went back to A2Z and bought a YYJ Trinity which I returned a week later for a YYF Hectic. I liked to Hectic but I was also looking at yoyos that A2Z did not have so I then looked at the online stores and noticed that YYE ws close to my home so I contacted them and was able to make a visit to the offices and see what was up. I walked away with a CLYW Campfire seeing how much I liked undersized yoyos. A week later I went back and bought a Wooly Marmot, Y Factor and Dingo and well I have been hooked ever since. I have bought and sold so many metals in the last few years but I have kept that Y Factor as my first “official” One Drop and one of my fav yoyos… Thats about it!!
I had a few cheapies as a kid and I liked yo-yos but never understood the limited instructions on the package about how to make it “sleep.”. Also, it was marketed as a boy toy, so I didn’t want to be playing with it too much. Over the years, I bought one here and there because I liked the color or design of it, and a local bank gave one away as a promo with the name of the bank on it.
I moved last year and as I was packing, I was going through a knick knack drawer and found two yo-yos, the bank promo and a hot pink Duncan imperial shaped. I was making decisions of what to throw away and what to keep, so I threw the yo-yos a bit and decided to trash them. As I threw them away, I decided that I would probably like them a lot if I spent more money on a really good one and learned some tricks.
Around Christmas time I was on the internet looking for a good yo-yo and youtubing about how the tricks are done. That’s it in a nutshell.
I throw some Duncan Butterfly’s back in the 80’s could do some tricks but never was too into it. July 2011 on vacation at Cedar Point my son won some tickets at the arcade. He pick up a yoyo. I thought it was kinda cool so I stopped at walmart and got a Butterfly and a pulse. Youtubed how to do tricks and who should pop up… Andre of course and boom I’m now part of the yoyo community!!!
Used to throw cheap Duncan’s as a little kid all the time. Come browsing on YouTune in '09 I came across the '08 worlds replays… Little digging, getting interested and André’s videos led to my first throw: a Dif-e-Yo Wide Sport.