Why throw fixed axle… man… ok…
• necessity: When i started as a kid (the late 80’s) the most reliable yo-yo’s were fixed axles, while transaxles were a novelty and ball bearings were still a ways off. I’ll grant you the yo-yo’s i played were mostly inexpensive Duncans (Midnight Special!), but I thought they were fun, even if I was just doing Breakaways and Around the Worlds… for years.
• nostalgia: I only played transaxles and bearings during the 90’s boom. When i got back into yo-yo’s in my 20’s, the idea of going back to my roots had some appeal. The more I got into fixed axle, and especially wood, the more I felt connected to where yo-yoing came from. Modern yo-yoing is as old as the internet, and that’s about how far most players’ knowledge base goes. In beginning to dig, you realize the depth of our shared history. You get a sense for what it was like to be a pro when the fastest way to share new tricks really was the YoYoTimes newsletter. Those guys had spent a generation learning their craft and materials, both of which might seem instantly irrelevant with the advent of bearings. But you watch Dale O, Dale M, Bill deB, Bob Rule, Larry Sayco, Dennis McBride, or Steve Brown (yeah, I put him in there - he started on fixed and was one of the true purist holdouts when transaxles took over). You watch those guys throw and there’s a quality and precision there that’s just inimitable. And you want to find it.
• esoterics: To get even halfway decent at throwing fixed, you have to learn some secrets. In aikido, we call it “kuden”. It’s the stuff yo-yo’s (or masters thereof) teach you. How to get the most out of a spinner, how to break in an axle, twist a string, tune a gap, keep your Moons straight, how to throw reverse-spin and make it look normal. It’s maybe a little lame, but you start to feel like you’re part of something - like you’ve got some special understanding that only a few possess. And then you remember, it’s yo-yo’s which is sort of silly. But it still makes you smile.
• facility: I teach middle school. Every year, I’ve taught, I’ve had a new crop of kids who get into yo-yo’s. A few make their way to binds and modern tricks, but most just want to have fun with the basics for a few months. It’s nice to be able to hand my yo-yo to them and they can see there’s nothing to it. It goes down, and up too. Spins just a few seconds. They can use it and relate to it, whether they’re “serious yo-yoers” or not.
• challenge: At some point, I hit Kwyijibo on a Proyo, and at some contest I bragged about it to Jack Ringca. He told me about a time he and Spencer went back and forth trying to hit Cold Fusion on a Russell. At first I thought “that’s got to be impossible”. For the next few years though, throwing fixed became a matter of “what can i hit?” especially on my favorite yo-yo, the No Jive. Branding, Pop n Fresh, Cold Fusion, Superflow, Red Clover, Kamikaze, Spirit Bomb, Gyro Flop, Double Suicide… each challenge led to another, but it was a dead end. It relies on bearing yo-yo’s to throw down the gauntlet and then you rise to it on fixed. Some dead ends are worth driving down anyway though, and it DOES change the way you throw a bearing yoyo.
• frontier: I hit my first Trapeze Stall on accident. Then I tried to do it again. Then I tried to do it from Man & His Bro, then Double or Nothing, then GT, 1.5, Split-Bottom, then pretty much every mount I could think of. Then Higby taught me Lunar Landing. Drew and I had some fixed axle sessions, along with guys like Nate, Randy, Colin Leland, Joey Fleshman, Uri, Spencer, Seth P… which revolved around ridiculous stall tricks. Silly or not, it became pretty obvious pretty quick that we were on to some stuff no one else had bothered to look at. Was it good? Was it crap? Eventually Drew and I were texting each other every few days trying to determine where it led. I felt pretty good about Stop N Pops and Zipper Stalls… then he hit a Kickflip. Since then, it’s felt like fixed has a unique direction which many VERY good players are clarifying every other session. We never thought we were “cutting edge” - we mainly thought it was stupid fun; a counterpoint to all the seriousness. It hasn’t lost that, which is a reason to play fixed in itself.
• humility: I have played mainly fixed axle for a long time now. I’m pretty good at it. I feel ok saying that. I’m better at fixed than I am with bearings. I have hit some stuff that I legitimately thought was impossible, and which has caused me to reevaluate my sense for what these yo-yo’s are up for. People have given me money and prizes, flown me to cool places, designed neat yo-yo’s for me, put me on a trading card, put my name in nice internet posts saying I did a good job. I get texts (if not hugs) from many of the players I admire. And yet… AND YET… when I pull up too quick on Kamikaze, BLAM! When I don’t throw far enough out on a suicide, SMACK! When I get lazy on a GT Varial, KNOT! The yo-yo does not care who you are, who you know, what accolades you’ve received, whether or not you’re “pro”. If you’re throwing fixed axle, you need to forget everything but the trick, and even then it might bite you. It reminds you to see through the BS, so that when someone is too nice and says “dude you’re like… a legend” you can smile and be sincere in saying “thank you, but I’m not”. Because anyone who truly throws fixed is an ant surfing a tsunami on a toothpick - another voyager on an unimaginably vast, stormy ocean. If you throw fixed, you will mainly wipe out - you will FAIL at what you try to do MOST of the time. Which is wonderful, because you will come to learn that the State of Yo - that momentary magical synergy you stumble upon which allows you to hit something truly special does NOT come from you - but if you can forget yourself enough and get out of your own way, sometimes you can go to IT.
Anyway, those are my reasons. AND of course, because there’s so much money in it.