Disclaimer: If you’re content with your skill level and like how you currently interact with yoyos, this post is not for you. This post is explicitly directed towards people who want to improve, but feel stuck and unsure how to progress. If you don’t fall into that camp, you can ignore this entire post. Although even if you’re content with where you are at yoyo, the methods in this post don’t just apply to yoyo, almost any skill you want to learn in life will benefit from these simple things that are relatively easy to overlook.
I’m still relatively new to the hobby. I’ve only been playing for a bit over two years at this point, yet a recurring theme I see from a lot of people who have been playing for longer than me is “I’ve hit a wall, I don’t know how to improve.” Meanwhile I feel like I’m improving at yoyo every single day and I’m only going to keep getting better given more time.
There’s an assumption that anybody who improves quickly must be talented, gifted, a fast learner, or has zero other responsibilities and an unlimited amount of time to play during the day. That’s simply not true and discredits the people who’ve put in time, and people with better methods or mindsets for improving.
I play yoyo for maybe an hour a day, oftentimes less, but rarely over an hour unless I’m really in the zone and trying to learn/create/land a trick. I don’t spend an excessive amount of time playing yoyo. I have so many other hobbies, interests, commitments, and other things in my life that I balance out my yoyo time with.
Lots of people will make excuses of “I don’t have enough time in the day to do X” or “After a long day of work/family/etc. I’m drained and don’t have the energy to do X.” Many many years ago one of my friends called me out on this while I was going through a deep phase of depression. I said that I wanted to do things, but simply lacked the time/energy to do so. Their response was that it annoyed them when people said they “wanted” to do things but didn’t follow through. When people would make excuses for not being able to do things that they were capable of. If you really want to do something you will make time and save energy for it. That it’s one thing to like the idea of doing something, and another to truly want to do it.
And I think that’s really the core of it. If you really want to improve, and don’t merely like the idea of improving, you need to start making time for yoyo. If there’s time where you’re just sitting down watching TV or passively engaging in an activity you don’t care much about, try replacing that with some yoyo time. It really doesn’t have to be much time at all. If you truly want to improve at yoyo, you can find even just 15-30 minutes in your day to play. You need to find a balance in your life where you can open up the time for things you really want to do. It’s not that you have no time, it’s that you aren’t making time.
Although just playing every day isn’t quite enough. This leads to the second tenant of improvement which is intent. It’s not enough to just pick up a yoyo each day and say “I’m playing.” You need to be able to answer the question of “Why am I playing?”
That question might sound deep, but really the answer can be as simple as “I want to do this trick a little bit smoother.” That’s it. There just needs to be an intent to why you’re playing, in a way that leads to progression. You don’t always need to be learning to improve. You just need to have some kind of goal or intent with your play, in a way where you can identify why that short yoyo session was beneficial to you.
Don’t play while simply thinking “yoyo will be fun and relaxing”. Even if you’re primarily playing for fun and to relax, if you add in the intent of “doing these repeated motions while focusing on doing them well will lead to me having a greater sense of comfort and control while playing in the future” you will start to see improvement.
In summary, to improve:
Balance time investments in your daily life, so you can make time for yoyo. If you aren’t willing to make time to do something, as a generalized statement, it can be assumed that you really don’t want to do it that much. Make time for yoyo and be consistent with it.
Spend your time with intent. You don’t always have to be learning to improve, you merely need to know why you’re playing, and how this can be beneficial to you in the long run.
And as one final note: never adopt a defeatist mindset. If you took a decade+ hiatus from playing yoyo, don’t worry about what you could’ve accomplished if you never quit. Don’t care about your lack of ability to do something now. Instead play with the mindset of, “I can’t do this yet, but in time if I stay consistent with this I will be able to do this eventually.”
Sometimes you can really want to do something, but society and social media can make this seemingly simple advice seem real muddy. In a culture of quick dopamine hits from low effort consumption of entertainment and social media, it can genuinely be hard to apply this methodology in practice. Everything I’ve said in this post might sounds very matter-of-fact, and easy to apply. But almost anybody who has attempted to learn a difficult new skill (and let’s be honest, yoyo is a very difficult skill) quickly realizes the mental fortitude needed to really put these methods into practice. If you’re not good at something immediately, the current culture almost encourages you to quit and get your dopamine from somewhere else. But the feeling of personal satisfaction that comes from learning new skills is unrivaled. When you master new skills and can start simply doing more things with the tools and knowledge you build up from improving, there’s no greater feeling. Whether you apply the methods in this post to yoyo, drawing, music, athletics, just anything else in your life, hopefully keeping some of this in mind will help you persevere with improving and help you meet your goals.
