High-walled organics are a lot easier to learn & control regens on. The shape looks cool, too!
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Here’s your first post here…
Sounds fairly definitive.
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“Since using the WM though, I think my tricks have gotten a lot smoother and consistent. I’d recommend using a similar throw for ironing out any kinks.”
This is the meat and potatoes. Too quickly people get locked into the lane of preference vs instrument (and the learned benefits of said instrument). Yes - ‘some’ organics may in fact be more difficult to learn on, but that is definitely ‘not’ all and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Me learning on more challenging plastics back in the day got my technique, feel and ability across the board way way way closer to where it needed to go. If I’d learned on an advanced super stable throw, my style and everything woulda been entirely different.
ALSO FOLKS SHOULD LEARN ON RESPONSIVE - PERIOD - AND SHORTER STRING
I personally wouldn’t recommend that anyone even learn on a metal nor un-responsive (that’s just me). Getting your primary basic 10 (honestly 10 - 40) tricks good on an actual beginner responsive yoyo teaches you and your hands a PRICELESS amount of information that is ‘much’ harder to retrofit learn/feel if you start with a more advanced throw. No diff then it would be a horrific idea for a beginner skiier to get wide skis that are also long, to learn on. They’d have great stability on foot and horrific control nor sense of control when carving based on the difficulty that those types of skis have in turning (since they are for deep soft snow vs a beginner flat packed trail). Learning how to ride a bike on a BMX instead of a bike with tricycles - weird results. In any scenario the results are odd and large. It’s the fact that we have sssooooo many options at our disposal, that we gloss over the value of ‘instrument’ and replace it with ‘want’ tied to preference.
Also yes - Not all organics are presumably ‘good’ just off the merit of being an organic. So if you’ve tried one or some that you don’t like, know that theres a whole lot more to try. The minor differences in design between them all warrant a ‘large’ variety of play feels.
Enjoying those basics on an advanced setup, if thats all you really want out of the craft, then by all means do you. Most all the suggestions I give are for those who wanna maximize their experience in throwing to the fullest. Not everyone wants to take it that far - and thats fine.
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Well, I endured severe nerve damage (inner thumb) and countless bruises to fingers and the back of my hands thanks to responsive plastic yoyos in my early weeks of learning modern yoyo play (just the basics, like the breakaway or the trapeze). Moving as quickly as possible to unresponsive throws was the healthiest and most important thing I ever did to keep me from giving up early on.
I’d rather be a little sloppy and imperfect in my play and have fun (slowly) learning new tricks, than get frustrated by a regimen aimed at producing perfect play at every stage of development. But that’s just me, and I think every beginner needs to temper the advice of the pros with an intimate understanding of their own limitations, goals, and priorities (and psychology).
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MM,
Hearing you talk about throwing in the way that you do opens beginners like me up to a whole new world of subtlety, technique and feel in throwing that I didn’t know existed.
You make throwing sound like reading poetry.
I am sure I could learn more from just hearing you describe how to throw a breakaway than watching an hour’s worth of tutorials.
Thanks for joining the discussion!
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Another good shout for playing responsive is that it is almost always less noisy, keeps the wife happy!
Got a Grail a short time ago with a noisy bearing and I lubed it up a bit too much and as a result made it tug responsive and I think I like how it plays even more now.
Dunno why, but organics (to me at least) do seem to be better at responsive play than the Vs or Ws.
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FourCorner - really appreciate that a lot man. I def take throwing super seriously (although I have fun of course) - glad folks like yourself can get some thing out of it for certain.
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zslane - could always try a Henrys Viper if still interested in trying responsive. That’s what I transitioned to after taking a break on Raiders.
They’re the first thing I grab when I’m learning a new trick. Generally it’d be one of these: YWET, Grail, MC, Peak, Parlay.
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Brace yourself Mark 
The pitchforks will be coming for you!
P.S. I am 100% with you on this, and have discussed it here in the past. I can see each sides point, but still agree 100% with what you said.
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Aaron - Lol yea I have this debate yearly - I more then welcome any fuzz : D
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Personally, as a more relaxed thrower, I like organic yoyos more because not only to the feel better in the hand, they have a very relaxed feel. The yoyo feels like it’ll go along with my pace, rather make me want to speed up or throw in some horizontal tricks. Idk, it’s hard to explain, they just feel more relaxing and fun to use.
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Yoyospirit - organics are def more ‘Linux’ in a sense. At least the good ones.
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This is the inherent problem with giving out general advice. It may not apply to everyone. If I think a newbie might have the same experience I had, then I would tell them to start with a responsive yoyo, but to be extremely careful with it and expect a very (physically) painful early learning period. I would urge them to learn to bind and transition to an unresponsive yoyo, preferably a metal one with long spin times and lots of stability, as soon as humanly possible.
However, if I suspect they might be a budding yoyo prodigy, then maybe they don’t even need to start responsive, and can go straight to a high walled unresponsive organic and enjoy the transcendental experience of that chill O roundness right from the first throw.
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I think it is good to get your hands broke in for anything you do. No pain, no gain reigns true. Everyone has different pain tolerances. I never went through that with responsive though, when I started nearly 2 years ago. The only time I have ever even felt a zinger was on a poor bind with unresponsive metal.
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Whoa this is the THE MARKMONT?!?! Welcome man 
My son still has his blue/green half-swapped MMC signed by you at the last BAC 
Which also reminds me, I need to pick up those Draken DRAKEN strings @smileypants707 recommended to me… and I believe Smiley has a MMC as well
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I’d never suggest any level of person jumping straight to responsive (thats just me). Take into consideration how many world champions won on responsive and jammed on responsive for years before unresponsive even got popular. (Laceration, slack, Suicide, Whip, Eli Hops) Also think about the amount of elements literally every player does that were created on responsive play. There’s a multitude of hardcore reasons that I will come back to as to why responsive for beginning is the wave. (Also yes - true story - after Tyler Severance won worlds, he switched back to organic responsive for a year to get his feeling back to where he wanted it).
Also yes - physical pain and everything in that range, is rreeaalllyyyy dependent on how the player learns I taught kids up through adults how to knockout 10 beginner tricks in 10 to 20 mins guaranteed for 3 months straight on FAST 201s - and those can get just as painful as any other plastic. If a player is learning by themselves - that’s a bit trickier but if we are talking person to person teaching, the teacher needs to be a good teacher.
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Really? I can’t honestly say I understand why you would pick up a less stable and slower spin time yoyo when trying to figure out how to learn a new trick, but whatever suits you I guess. Maybe if it was a “throw and innovate” kind of new trick maybe, but I don’t get it.
All this “you have to learn on responsive” talk makes me think that some people are just getting too serious about what a lot of us consider a casual hobby. Unresponsive wasn’t even a thing when I was growing up learning the handful of beginner tricks newbs learn. Got back into it last year after seeing unresponsive yoyo playing, and I didnt even bother getting a modern responsive (at that point, got one now). Sure, they can smooth out play and influence your style, but so can jumping to unresponsive early on. Imo it really just depends on what you find most fun.
zslane talks about getting hurt when learning on responsives, but you have to realize the guy is a bit older than most getting into the hobby, so he won’t be as resilient as a 10 y/o. Imo if he is having fun he is doing it right.
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It’s because of what I like and am used to. It’s familiar, it’s comfortable. I honestly hate true V shapes. They’re the most uninteresting yoyos, have never played one that has changed my mind.
A lot of people I’ve seen get hurt with responsive are throwing really hard, and having the yoyo come back to them with a lot of speed. Not saying that’s what happened with Zslane, but it’s a common thing I’ve seen.
As far as players jumping into unresponsive. There’s a lot of players that are great, but they’re still missing the flow that the guys who learned on responsive yoyos.
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I’m new to unresponsive throwing. I was playing in the 90’s as a kid during that craze and just got back. Learning reallllly fast though. I’ve already acquired about 10 throws this year too.
I have each shape already but so far my favorites are basically hybrid shapes…I like that “most of the upsides and fewer downsides” concept and feel.
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