Let's Make a Definitive Ten Commandments of Yo-yoing!

[Totalartist]

Submission:

If thou dost have many throws, ye shall give to the yo-yo impoverished.

[N8dogg]

Not to derail this, but I was looking for the “rules” of yoyoing that Ed (or at least I believe it was Ed) posted maybe a year or so ago? Does this ring a bell to anyone else? Somehow I can’t find that thread but I’m clearly searching poorly.

[Behemoth]

@N8dogg

Not to derail this, but I was looking for the “rules” of yoyoing that Ed (or at least I believe it was Ed) posted maybe a year or so ago? Does this ring a bell to anyone else? Somehow I can’t find that thread but I’m clearly searching poorly.

About a third of the way down.

[Totalartist]

I’m not so sure you will get down to the best ten, by counting “thank you” votes. :-\

You may filter out the most humorous ten though. That is all a matter of perception, of course…but that is my perception. I’m very curious how the ten commandments will look at the end.

[Casey888]

@LinksLegionaire

Submission: First shalt thou attach the Holy String, then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Return-Top of Caribou Lodge into a Green Triangle, who being untangle-ible in My sight, shall land it.

You win. I give up.

[yoyodoc]

@Behemoth

I was inspired by this thread here to see if we could come up with a definitive Ten Commandments of Yo-yoing. Yes, I know there have been other topics regarding the rules or commandments of yo-yoing, but to my knowledge we’ve never attempted to narrow it down to just ten. Here’s how I propose it works:

1. Everybody can submit as many commandments as they like, but please only submit one commandment per post. Also, please precede any submission with the word “Submission” so it’s easy to scroll through the thread and find submissions.

2. Everybody can also vote for as many commandments as they like. You vote for a commandment by “thanking” the post in which that commandment appears.

3. Please try to present your submissions in faux-biblical language (I think it’s more fun that way). Also try to keep your submissions to one or two sentences - I think shorter and punchier will win the day here.

4. There are no penalties for taking somebody else’s idea and expanding on it/making it better, but remember Rule No. 3 above.

5. Submissions and voting will be open for two weeks, that is to say until November 3, 11:59 EST. Once we’ve reached that date I will tabulate the votes. The ten submissions with the most “thank yous” will the Ten Commandments of Yo-yoing, as determined by you. The submission that received the most votes will Commandment No. 1, the submission that received the next most votes will be Commandment No. 2, and so forth. In the event of a tie, the submission that was posted first wins. I reserve the right to modify the language in winning entries to make them uniformly faux-biblical. I also reserve the right to correct grammatical errors in winning entries. The definitive list will have attributions to the winning authors.

I think that should be enough rules to get us started. If necessary we’ll come up with other rules as we go along. I’ll bump this thread from time to time to remind people it’s here. I’ll also post my entry as the first submission to get us started (but certainly don’t feel like you have to vote for mine). If we don’t get enough submissions then I guess this was a failure, but hopefully we can have some fun with it.

Remember to vote early and vote often!

Yoing is about: freedom, no limits, no lines in the sand, no lack of imagination, no borders, no restrictions, no Walls.

Yoing is about: creativity, inventiveness, imagination, ingenuity, expression, style, excitement, enlightenment.

Yoing is about being able to throw inside the box and 10 feet away, being in Awe about somebody Playing outside the box.

The limits of Yoing are not measured with a measuring tape. Yoing is measured by ones’ ability to see into the distance, while you are having fun along your journey to those points you once thought were not reachable.

Yoing is not defined by ‘Commandments’. Commandments are written or dictated by Rulers or Makers. In Yoyoing, there are no Rulers and there are no Makers. There are no timeclocks. There are no strict guidelines. There are no logical reasons to create 10 Commandments, when they are worthless and pointless.

10 Commandments and Yoyoing are not a Good match.

There should be only 1 Commandment>

Submission… Thou shalt Never, Ever, like in Neverneverever, potentially Restrict your Creative freedom or pursuit of yoyo related fun, by recognizing any list of Commandments.

10 Commandments are for Catholics. Unless you are a Holy Roller, Homie Don’t Play That.

… Anyway as a few guys already mentioned, Ed’s’ 66 pointers already covered most angles of conscious understanding.

Amen

[Totalartist]

^ That was classic I thought it fun to play along, as it seemed to turn into mostly humor anyway (I’m always game for humor). I just was not sure if the OP was looking for humor. Great post Yoyodoc. It turns out the best commandment is:

Submission:
Thou shalt have no commandments, and follow no list thine art possess. :-\

[xMidsoekide]

Submission: You shall not stop throwing! Through misses and knots, through stringburn and fatigue, you shall continue your holy quest to become a true Yoyomaster.

[Behemoth]

@TotalArtist

^ That was classic I thought it fun to play along, as it seemed to turn into mostly humor anyway (I’m always game for humor). I just was not sure if the OP was looking for humor. Great post Yoyodoc. It turns out the best commandment is:

Submission:
Thou shalt have no commandments, and follow no list thine art possess. :-\

I was totally looking for humor - hence my request for faux-biblical language. Also, this isn’t supposed to be one individual passing down rules from on high - it’s supposed to be a light-hearted list of ten rules to live by, as voted on by the community. (Ed’s 66 rules are great, but you know, there are 66 of them.) If anybody thinks it’s not worth it to participate, by all means, don’t participate.

[kuyaChristian]

“Thou shalt not ask annoying questions such as “yoyo?” and “song?” on every photo or video in existence.”

---

All seriousness though, especially if the photo is NOT even a yoyo-related post. I see this on Instagram too much.

[Snafu]

Submission thou shalt taketh Ed Haponik esquire’s 66 rules and readth them thou thy self as 1 commandment quoteth as followeth!

We are expanding here to the Leviticus if you will of yoyoing

yo-yo #70: "throw today. throw forever."

Ed Haponik style

i carved this yo-yo last week. it’s just an ordinary no jive that i cut up with a benchmade model 42s. i’m just getting to know it. i like it. a lot. that’s all i got for this yo-yo… however, here’s something else. some of them, i’m still working on, and will be until i die.

66 rules for yo-yo players.

1. learn to loop. with two hands.

2. when you play yo-yo in public, look up. be aware of your surroundings. say hi to the people who look at you in wonder. say hi to those who look at you with disdain.

3. be generous with your time, and with your toys. if you have the means, at every event you attend, give something away to someone (who does not ask).

4. understand the differences between yo-yoing for yourself in your room, yo-yoing for judges at a contest, and yo-yoing for a small child at the park.

5. try to find and play yo-yo’s that come from every decade of the past century. appreciate their differences (and similarities).

6. when performing for an audience, always look better than they do.

7. be proud you’re a yo-yo player. have pity for those who think you shouldn’t be.

8. never act like yo-yoing is a big inconvenience. no one’s making you do it.

9. be prepared to walk the dog on command. always.

10. never blame the judges. maintain the attitude that, if you had REALLY won, it wouldn’t have been up to them at all.

11. hit a true laceration on a stock renegade. fly-away dismount.

12. don’t talk about how ‘so-and-so’ is a lousy player (or human being) if you’re unwilling to bring it to them personally.

13. don’t confront someone about being a lousy player (or human being) unless you’re right. and be sure you understand the consequences.

14. when you’re getting paid to yo-yo, be on time and do your job with a smile.

15. don’t yo-yo with the goal of being admired. don’t worry over whether you’re ‘somebody in the yo-yo community’. be ‘somebody in real life’ and then be the same person in the yo-yo community.

16. recognize that you don’t really know very many tricks at all. this should make you feel inspired rather than pathetic.

17. find a mentor. or twelve. no need to be explicit about it, but they should know who they are and what they mean to you.

18. stay up all night playing yo-yo.

19. compete. ladder, freestyles, best trick, or whatever. register, pay, and support the contest.

20. carry a paperclip in your wallet.

21. don’t accept sponsorship from a company you don’t absolutely love.

22. carve a palm tree on a yo-yo using a pocketknife.

23. understand how your yo-yo’s work. be able to maintain them.

24. never begrudge your dings. not in yo-yo. not in life.

25. respect the venue.

26. meet the masters (national or otherwise). shake their hands and thank them for making yo-yoing something more. make that YOUR goal.

27. take care of your hands, wrists, body, and mind. when those things fail, so will your yo-yoing.

28. don’t go out of your way to vilify this or that company. support the ones that you feel benefit the community and yo-yoing in general. that’s enough.

29. travel to a contest alone.

30. travel to a contest in an overfull car.

31. respect your elders.

32. don’t fiddle obsessively with your bearings. they’ll do their job if you let them.

33. it’s one thing to be awed, but don’t be intimidated by yo-yo players, regardless of their skill.

34. learn to snap-start.

35. find a yo-yo that you can’t play well at all. play it exclusively for a month.

36. go to worlds.

37. be able to do enough of each style to wow the uninitiated.

38. do something else. take up an instrument. knit. do card tricks. shoot skeet. something.

39. make yourself useful at contests. help set up. help clean up.

40. don’t be careless with other peoples’ yo-yo’s. don’t be overprotective of yours.

41. own an old wood yo-yo.

42. if you bring a bunch of yo-yo’s somewhere, it will be understood that you want people to see them and be impressed. don’t be surprised when they aren’t.

43. pass out on a yo-yoer’s floor in delighted exhaustion.

44. learn all you can about every major player from every era of yo-yoing’s history. this art is FULL of fascinating characters.

45. be neither proud nor ashamed of your collection.

46. don’t seek to be someone else’s favorite player. seek to be your own favorite player. and in that regard, NEVER succeed.

47. don’t leave home without it.

48. learn to twist your own string.

49. play responsive, but don’t act like it’s a big deal.

50. practice more. post less.

51. develop yourself such that someday, if you should find yourself in a room surrounded by your heroes, you will be pleasantly surprised to find that you belong.

52. invent a trick. heck, invent so many tricks that finding a way to record them becomes a necessity.

53. don’t hide behind the mantle of an ‘online persona’. that has zero to do with being a yo-yoer.

54. run a contest or event. make it a benefit to the companies that are willing to sponsor it. make it a benefit to the players who come and spend their day.

55. don’t use the word ‘sexy’ to describe a yo-yo. or ‘sexay’. or ‘secksay’. or ‘pure sex’. or ‘smexy’. to do so makes you sound as if you have no real context for the word ‘sexy’.

56. make a video. before you publish or hype it, make certain that it’s something that you would want to watch all the way through, even if the yo-yoer were some random guy you’ve never met.

57. yo-yo transcends gender, and yet the vast majority of yo-yoers are male. respect and appreciate the few girls and women brave enough to wade through all the smelly aggro testosterone to do their thing.

58. find a globe. locate ‘the other side of the world’. befriend a yo-yo player from there (or as close as you can manage).

59. at one point, you were just starting out. whether it was last week or 50 years ago, remember that time. treat those who are learning the basics with care. answer their questions, help them with string tension, and don’t act like they need to get in line to kiss your boot.

60. acquire a yo-yo from shinobu, eric wolff, or john higby.

61. always have a spare string on you.

62. have more than one gear. go fast when it’s time to go fast. go slow when it’s time to go slow. understand when it’s appropriate to play simply and when it’s best to be strange and complicated.

63. don’t set too much store by contest results. at their MOST valid, they give an idea of who played the best for three minutes, on one given day. respect everyone who can get up there with poise and intent.

64. disregard these rules. make your own rules. and make allowances for those who won’t play or live by them.

65. treat every throw as if it’s your last. (throw today.)

66. treat every throw as if it’s your first. (throw forever.) the two are not actually contradictory.

Truly worthy of reading and practicing!

[Totalartist]

@Behemoth

I was totally looking for humor - hence my request for faux-biblical language. Also, this isn’t supposed to be one individual passing down rules from on high - it’s supposed to be a light-hearted list of ten rules to live by, as voted on by the community. (Ed’s 66 rules are great, but you know, there are 66 of them.) If anybody thinks it’s not worth it to participate, by all means, don’t participate.

The request for faux-biblical language was humor, and I get that, but that was not a point of confusion on my part. My question about whether you were looking for humor, was relative to the substance of the commandments you are receiving. I wondered if you were looking for humor in the substance, not the language. On the last line we agree, but I obviously participated. I was quoted there, but the rest of what you wrote does not respond directly to anything that I wrote. Thanks for clearing that up. It is all humor, both language and substance. Very clear now.

[Zort_Commander (Micah Wingell)]

@LinksLegionaire

Submission: First shalt thou attach the Holy String, then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Return-Top of Caribou Lodge into a Green Triangle, who being untangle-ible in My sight, shall land it.

Nice Monty Python joke!

[Skred300]

Submission:

@Skred300

Thou shalt not hit face with metal spinning toy.

Submission #2:
Thou shalt not walk the ‘dog’. EVER.

[OSCer2]

SUBMISSION

Thou shall not drop thy green triangle.

[dizzo]

I find this thread offensive

[TamOcello]

@Skred300

Submission:
Submission #2:
Thou shalt not walk the ‘dog’. EVER.

Be prepared to walk the dog, on command, always. Arm grinds are close enough.

[RGTproyoyo]

Though shalt not gaze upon thy neighbors throws

[Yonut]

Submission: Thou shalt have no other gods before yoyoing.

[Casey888]

Thou shalt not use week old string, for broken knuckles are unpleasant for thee.