Long term side effects of yoyoing

I wanna know if it’s good to Yoyo in the long run

positive and negative effects that is

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I do not think you will have any problems with it. It helps to get outside/do a bit of exercise, and it is fantastic for the body/mind coordination. It can have good effects in other activities too

I could see the potential for something like tendonitis, maybe carpal tunnel/wrist pain kinda stuff, which is not uncommon with many other activities including manual labor.

There might be some benefits to your mental and brain health from learning tricks, at the very least there’s a possibility it could help you stay little sharper for a little longer as we age. This is all just my guess, I don’t actually know anything though.

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Impatient rehab!!! Lol

You be the judge…

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Happiness

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Though the doctor did say it was likely from the impact of the yoyo hitting his hand with his wooden axle yoyo. So as long as you’re not taking too many hard hits to the hands they should be okay? Things like tendinitis or arthritis could probably be a potential issue because of all the repetitive motion.

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If you dont yoyo in excess you should be fine I guess

Having played over 5000 days straight, I actually feel qualified to respond to this.

  1. Yo-yoing has made me happier, but also really, really frustrated. Both of those are good feelings to have. Like it’s not just sunshine and daisies Shooting the Moon in the park. It’s mostly misses and fighting with myself to hit ideas I have. But doing things you don’t think are possible informs your sense of what you’re capable of, which is a powerful thing to experience (and also an addictive one).

  2. The community is an interesting beast. Playing yo-yo is fun, but the context of the community can eat you alive. Because you see great players - you BEFRIEND great players (who are truly just humans like you, and those friendships represent perhaps the BEST side effects of throwing), but you can’t help wondering whether you’re great enough - whether your ideas are relevant, whether you play at your potential (and whether that even matters at all). And the longer you play and the more you’re amazed by your creative friends, the more you (I) want to create - and to FEEL like a creative person, which is not the same thing.

So I think those two things - the highs and lows associated with playing and developing AND the constant, inescapable comparisons between what you do and what you SHOULD be able to do or what other players you admire do, either in a competitive or creative context… that stuff takes a toll and it’s not for everyone. It’s weird because it’s a toy, and we feel like we should treat it like this light-hearted thing, but yo-yoing forces you to see & come to terms with yourself.

Like at this point I recognize that I love to yo-yo… but I am also COMPELLED to yo-yo. And I’m not sure how to feel about that. I think doing anything so much that it’s an extension of you and you don’t really know who you are apart from it… that comes with some wonderful and terrible side effects which hit everyone a little differently.

But yeah carpal tunnel… tendonitis… repetitive stress… lol stringburn.

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How difficult it is for most of us to simply ‘be’. In the present. I hope that wherever we go when we leave this current plane of existence does not utilize the dimension (or concept) of time in a linear fashion.

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Deep

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Totally agree, and I wrestle with that daily.
It’s interesting to wonder how players’ psychology has changed. 50 years ago, no one was recording yo-yo tricks, and they could only exist in the present. They evaporated and were gone and players only got to experience them in the moment. And now they’re on YouTube and #trickcircle and contest freestyles and reddit, and you have this constant unyielding canon to dissect/experience again and again and contribute and/or compare yourself to. You can’t experience a moment and evaluate it at the same time, and the evaluation part - what’s good, what’s new, what’s different - is such a major part of our community’s (and our society’s) culture.

So it’s weird, because yo-yoing is still a thing that happens in the moment. But our WHOLE life is designed around avoiding this moment so as to evaluate, reflect on, or prepare for other ones.

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What do you mean by creating vs feeling like a creative person? If you’re creating then you are a creative person, so how you feel IS how a creative person feels. However, maybe I understand your point, in light of this…

I think about this a lot, personally and in general. When creating, it can be very difficult to know what is good or what is not good, with respect to an observer’s perspective. Things that feel good during the process of making them are not necessarily the creations that will stand up to scrutiny and evaluation. Meanwhile, things that are excruciating to make might be the things that people respond to. Or vice versa - the throwaway could be everyones’ favorite while the labored-over creation might be poorly received.

At this stage I’m of the mind that detaching from the outcome (as much as is possible) is healthy for everyone. From a creator’s perspective this means to create stuff to put out there to be appreciated, but do not worry about how it will be received. Easier said than done, of course, but I do feel strongly about protecting the creative process.

So I think that to create things and to feel like a creative person means that the creative person has to find a way to protect the creative process, by separating it from how the creative output is received and evaluated.

…just some thoughts from the perspective of one who has always made stuff in art, music, and science. Yoyoing helps me to think about the creative process. Thanks for an excuse to think about it this morning, Ed :slight_smile: no doubt you are a creative yoyoer that pushes the limits of what is possible and has made a huge impact. From what you’ve said, it is easy to understand others’ impact on you, but not so easy to see the impact you’ve made on others.

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Yeah just a question of motivations. The difference between wanting to innovate - to feel tricks under your fingers which don’t exist yet… and wanting to enjoy the afterglow of seeing yourself (or, more darkly, being seen) as innovative.

I feel pretty authentic when I am driven by creative potential - by empty space. And I feel pretty fake when driven by a positive response (internal or external). Of course I’m at my most real when “just” playing.

But yeah, all this to say thinking (and OVERthinking) about this stuff is as real a side-effect as some wrist and elbow inflammation. :slight_smile: THANKS for your thoughts.

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Gotcha, it is difficult problem to escape - how the observation changes the thing being observed. A blessing and a curse. It’s great to share and get feedback, but things will inevitably change in response to feedback. Thinking here of @unklesteve lamenting a little about how everyone sharing tricks in videos online seemed to change how yoyoers were doing tricks.

And in turn, injury down time can lead to overthinking too :wink:

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