Lol totally subjective I know!
I guess what Im asking is how long did it take each of you to get “good” with 1A
Like, able to casually throw a combo of intermediate/advanced tricks? With out bombing
I know everyone is different. Im only 6 weeks in so Ive got a very long way to go. But really Im just curious how long it took before you felt like a competent thrower. Someone able to show friends a few impressive tricks.
6-8 months and then my spin time and technique rose drastically. Combos became easier too
About the same as any instrument I’ve picked up.
About a year to get the basics/fundamentals down
Two years to get comfortable and start learning some more advanced techniques
Three years to get “good”
I’m on year 4 now. I’ll let you know when I actually get good.
Mastery takes a lifetime.
Mostly it depend of how many hours a day you can dedicate it and also how you spend those hours, if consciuous practice or get distracted by everything around you.
Following a mindful practice I would say in less than a year you can start already to do the combos like white buddha, kamikaze and similar and also create your own easy one, plus many slacks and whips, probably you will miss some flow but that it require time to come out and find your personal one.
I think your throw will become more powerful and precise after one month or two, it will just click one day and your muscle memory will do everything.
It depend also from a “personal talent” so some people will go through basics faster than others but practice can overcome every obstacle.
My advice is to do not stay stuck on basic things, go and try the combos you like, learn the elements one by one and then go to the next one, at the end of the day all the combos are simple elements put together in creative way, do not get scared and try everything you want!
Depends on practice. It took me only a couple weeks to learn the basics because i had more time at work to practice (it was the slow season). Now that tricks that I’m learning are more complex and also work is busier it takes a while to markedly improve.
That being said I want to point out that improvement is gradual and any amount of practice will lead to improvement. It’s a journey to get skilled at any hobby, including yoyoing, and it’s ok to take your time.
For reference it took me until around 7 months in until I could hit Kamikaze, which I use as the basis of impressive tricks. There are flashier and more complex tricks than that one, but it’s one where definitely not all yoyoers can do it, so I use it as the metric of the most basic advanced trick.
“Good” is super relative and I don’t know if I’ll ever feel like I’m good at yoyo. I will say I’m about to hit 1 year pretty soon and I’m finally starting to feel like a competent player. I have a ton of stuff to work on still like standing up straight and not making dumb faces when I play yoyo, but I can definitely do some tricks that impress my non-yoyo friends. They’re easily impressed by like eli hops and simple stuff tho. I look back at my old videos and I have definitely improved. I think just enjoy the journey and you’ll get there for sure. It takes everyone different amounts of time to learn things and feel comfortable with different stuff and it’s not a race.
Here is a cool topic about how to improve at yoyo.
But you already are good
It takes a couple years usually. If you stick it out consistently for 6 or 12 months you’ll get over that beginners curve and start having real fun with it. Most people would call you good at that point. You’ll still have plenty of hiccups though.
Learning yoyo is very similar to leaning an instrument. You’ll hit walls here and there. Just gotta keep pushing yourself and Learn new things.
Lol thanks Ben. I think I’m okay maybe but I personally feel so so so far away from the people that I think are good. I can’t even do basic two hand loops 
. One more note is that there are alot of things to try and you will get better at one thing if you focus on that one thing but I personally like to try lots of different things like all the different yoyo styles. Maybe if I didn’t try 0a-5a and just stuck to 1a I would be better at 1a than I am, but that just wasn’t as interesting to me.
Well 1992ish I started throwing very causally never really set out to do much more that man on breakaway and flying trapeze. Never really started unresponsive until around 2008 right after the 888 boom started. Really got into into throwing became better around 2013. I have been trying to become good for the past 10 years. I would say seriously more so in the last 5 years, and I still have not become good enough to feel comfortable to post myself doing any trick. In my on opinion I am not good enough for that exposure. There are so many better players that make such good content.
I get something from throwing… that I can not explain well enough to others. How progress in throwing can bring so much joy.
Ok you may not be good of you look at it from the lens of “ok can I do what people who have been doing this most of their lives can do” but like for only one more month of experience than me you’re way ahead of the game. Chin up king. Also i feel totally the same that if i didn’t do any 5a i would be way better at 1a too
Trick a day, keeps the doc away.
Here’s a video I made a while back. Every trick is in chronological order, so you can trace my progress over the course of YEARS.
Between each trick segment you see there’s usually around 1-3 months.
If you practice consistently (not necessarily for 8 hours a day) but WELL, you can get pretty darn good in a couple years.
Ughhh i still suck majorly at green triangles, particularly exiting them (I always want to exit from the back and ignore string direction). I can occasionally Brent stole and can consistently ninja vanish but actually doing things with a GT still hurts my brain
I just want to point out how it’s really about how you practice and what you practice. Coming up on my first year, I was able to do like Cold Fusion and maybe some basic slacks like Jade Whip and a number of other tricks in that realm of difficulty because that’s what I focused on and enjoyed. Also, my focus is shot and I just like to relax when I throw, so I’ve spent more time just playing around rather than spending time learning tricks.
Looking at @GTDropKnot and seeing his progress has been pretty amazing. I’ve seen few others of that caliber over the years and he’s up there in terms of talent and dedication. He’s also clearly leaning into higher difficulty tricks and combos and seriously putting in the time to improve. Follow along in the trick-a-week thread to see what I mean. I think he’s surpassed me already and will be ridiculous in the coming years.
It depends if someone is watching or not, be it a camera or a person or even my cats. It took about 6 months to a year to get good with no one looking. If someone IS watching, still not good 
How long have you got???
You will get out of it what you put into it.
I try to throw daily. But life happens.
I expected to be further along than I am. Coming up on 1 year. At this rate, I will be good in about 8-13 years.
Have fun.
I think the real question is are you enjoying the journey to getting better?
There’s always going to be someone better, someone you aspire to be. But are you having fun with your own progress
Oh absolutely enjoying the journey. Throwing gives me something I cant explain. I throw as much as I can as often as I can. Averaging 1 to many hours a day. Really Im just wondering because I have no baseline for how long it takes to hone any skill 