About me:
My names Josh and I’ve been into throwing off and on for my entire life. Grew up on the west coast, and over here the yoyo guys that were coming to schools were called the Ned show. I was able to see them twice, and the second time they came I got a DVD, 2 yo-yos, and a pack of string. One of the yo-yos had a bearing (a super yo triple spin, I think) and after that I didn’t use any other yoyo. The yoyo phase lasted for maybe 3-4 months, until the bearing seized. I remember it happening at recess, where the yoyo bounced at the end of the string and came up so hard that it hurt my hand, but every time after that the bearing wouldn’t spin.
Fast forward 15ish years to the pandemic, I was dating my now wife and she had a fast 201 from when she was a kid. I started playing with that, did some loops, flip flops, ufo, and I thought “what the heck, I could probably get another yoyo for pretty cheap”. Using the brand on the fast 201, she ended up buying a yyf velocity and I used it for a short bit, and then I bought yyf’s beginner to pro kit. I loved praying with the arrow, as it was what I was most familiar with and easily the best/most forgiving yoyo I had played with up to that point. Learned trapeze, trapeze and brother, brain twister, bind, and plastic whip, and a few others, but stagnated and was just comfortable yo-yoing for 15-20 minutes every few days doing all the tricks I could from that point. After teaching and starting a club, I’ve learned a majority of my unresponsive tricks from the skill addicts app, then yotricks, then yye, and really haven’t been able to connect any other throwers until this year. Current trick I’m learning is spirit bomb, I can get it 1 out of every 20 tries.
Favorite yo-yos:
magicyo y03 heartz
Yyf shutter wide angle
(I like these because it seems like when I’m learning a trick, I can switch to these yo-yos and for whatever reason I seem to hit tricks after switching to them)
Luftverk hybrid fulvia
Yoyofriends mini hummingbird
(Gifts from my wife)
About my school’s club:
My first year of teaching, I took my small collection of yo-yos at the time to school and breaking them out as a fidget for myself, a bunch of students wanted to see the dna, so I learned how to do a responsive dna pretty quickly, and the kids got hyped. A bunch of kids in the school started staying in during their lunch and recess to yoyo with me, and slowly an unofficial yoyo club formed. I ended up collecting yo-yos initially because of lost and found ones that didn’t get claimed so they ended up in my classroom loaner set, and also I bought some magicyos from amazon for me to learn about them so that I could have some easy instant recommendations for kids.
Fast forward another 2 years, and I was able to get a kit of yo-yos together thanks to the school and yye, and the club is doing pretty well. We meet once a week, and meet for a good chunk of the school year. The first year of the club was honestly really fun, but also super chaotic because 5 different kids would ask me different tricks to learn, and then another kid would have some sort of axle knot or something I would have to show them how to fix. Now, I try to structure it as much as possible, I give them a 1-2 new tricks a week, make sure everyone can do a proper slip knot, and I have contests for fundamentals, of who can do the longest responsive sleeper, or do the most loops, or flips. Next on my list is probably going to introduce them the fast challenge as well.
This year the school hired a janitor who was into yoyo as well, and having another adult at the club has been really helpful for the kids who are dead set on only doing unresponsive stuff, and me from having to switch yo-yos all the time. Last year I was using a replay pro from my 3 pack that I could crank a little tighter to making it responsive, and loosen it to make it unresponsive, (shout out to my students who would crank the yo-yos super duper tight) but it was honestly a hot mess and needed to be retired. Now I try to just use the responsive yo-yos from my yoyo club kit to improve my technique.
