Once upon a time, decades in the past, I began my yoyo journey. It started with my grandmother and I building my first yoyo. Then my first fixed axle purchase. Years later my first transaxle yoyo and years after that my first bearing yoyo. Tom Smothers and a few yoyo books were all I had for inspiration. No yoyoing friends, no forums, there wasn’t even internet or home computers. However, I still yoyoed.
How could I or anyone else possibly learn how to yoyo using books and an occasional appearance of someone yoyoing on television? It wasn’t like you could stream the show as many times as you wanted. I was lucky if I could catch a rerun of a yoyo episode. What made it even less likely was that if it wasn’t dark, I wasn’t indoors, no television.
The answer is simple experimentation. I experimented with everything yoyo related. I experimented with tricks, with drawing stages of tricks, making yoyos, making strings. Axles were oiled, waxed, moistened and even colored with a crayon. Nothing was off limits. I drilled holes in yoyos, sanded yoyos, sanded axles and then came transaxles and bearings. The yoyos I destroyed in this process were many but the learning that occurred was even greater.
What is even more surprising is that I didn’t destroy as many yoyos as I had expected to. In fact, many of my experiments worked to varying degrees. Axles, bearings and strings were all victims to my madness as well and…yeah…many times my experiments were successful.
Looking back, I’m really glad I learned this way. It provided me an understanding of yoyoing that was relevant and personal. I put everything into bearings, motor oil, sewing machine oil, soap, water, graphite, dirt, Vaseline, olive and coconut oil, toxic things I won’t mention.
I guess the purpose of this thread is to encourage experimentation in the world of yoyoing and not just follow the recommended path in all things yoyo.
My experience, my opinions, that are my reality may not be yours, nor yours mine. What if nobody had decided to make a transaxle yoyo? What if nobody made a bearing yoyo? What if nobody had made a better wooden yoyo? What if that wild man Steve Brown had never put a counterweight on the end of his string?
Experimentation makes yoyoing relevant in a new way, in a personal way. Be brave, be bold, experiment! Success or failure it doesn’t matter, but the learning will.
That’s it! I’m done being serious, back to the skitrz you all know. 