Man, things can sure change in a decade...

[Gambit]

Welcome back! It’s always good to have someone picking up a yoyo again. ;D

@hellslave

When did all these new (to me) aspects of yoyos come about, and what’s in store for the future? heck, I’ve just come across a couple videos of folks using fishing swivels on their strings, for example. How reliable is this modification?

The swivel tension thing seems like a great idea, but I’m not sure it’ll catch on in general play. Modding yoyos isnt as big as it used to be and 1A has already come so far without swivels that I can’t see them being adopted in normal play. Also a lot of people compete nowadays and they are as yet not allowed in contests that I’m aware of.

As far as when all modern yoyo advances came about, I’ll be expecting Kyo, Yoyodoc or Steve Brown to come in with a sensational date-by-date account of when it all happened. In the meantime here’s a little history on unresponsive play to start:

When I pull this yo-yo up it’s not coming up. It’s not grabbing the string. That’s unresponsive play. If you look back 6 years ago, if you could look back at yo-you videos. We’re in 2007 now, so I’m talking about back in 2001. Yo-yos came back. No matter what almost.

There’s a quote from André on one of the ‘learn’ pages of YYE, and below is a great post from Yossarian, a forum member:

@Yossarian

I remember Steve Brown saying once that Hironori Mii showed him bind returns back in the late 90s, so they’ve been around at least that long. I don’t think they were that common and were used more for getting tighter winds with low spin than for truly unresponsive play, though. I think the shift generally happened throughout the early- to mid-2000s, starting with players modding their yoyos to be less responsive and gradually moving toward manufacturers catering to unresponsive play. I’m not sure who was the first, but Difeyo had some early unresponsive designs, and YoYoJam had their adjustable gap system that allowed for unresponsive play. Modders would have preceded them, though.

I think 2004 was the first year players were not required to use a responsive yoyo for 1A compulsories (the prelims at Worlds used to be a compulsory trick list instead of freestyles, and for previous years the trick descriptions required the yoyo to be returned without a bind). Players were using unresponsive yoyos in freestyles before that, though there were still a lot players using responsive yoyos in freestyles in the early-2000s.

…and one from Nathan, who is a professional player:

@Nathan

For the OP’s questions:
Basic string tricks have been around for a long time. The development of modern string tricks started in the late '90s with the rise of ball bearing yo-yos. The first time US Nationals awarded a National Title for one yo-yo play was 1997. Unresponsive play started in the early '00s. It started with natural response system wear on Renegades (and other yo-yos) making the yo-yo unresponsive which then made it easier to do some tricks so people started intentionally making their yo-yos unresponsive.

I hope these answer the question as far as modern unresponsive play goes.

In recent years the design of yoyos has changed from the more undersized, mid/high walled organic throws of the mid- 2000’s like the YYF 888:

http://www.latiendadelyoyo.com/49-494-thickbox/yyf-888-splash.jpg

To the larger, more rim-weighted, low walled steep V shapes prominent in most of today’s modern throws:

With the addition of a lot more horizontal play, the lower walls of the yoyo make life a lot easier. Also the performance is a tad better for today’s crazily long tech freestyles.

Even more recently there has been an up-surge in the popularity of horizontal finger spins, pushing a lot of recent designs to incorporate a design that assists in this move, like the Yoyofactory Horizon, Eternal Throw Elysian, Duncan Strix and many more.

Recently again, there has also been a seeming increase in the amount of bi-metal yoyos being produced. It seems to me that this is going to be the next big thing as far as yoyo design evolution goes. I know it’s been around for years, but it seems to be really taking off in recent times.

@hellslave

I stopped yoyoing when I was 16 or 17, and now I’m 29. My word, how things have changed! Feels good to be back. Now if only I could get this binding thing down…

Don’t worry, I tried and gave up yoyoing when I was about 15/16 as well, and only picked it up last year at 23. Still, with enough practice it shouldn’t take you too long to catch up with the rest of today’s yoyoers, so keep at it. Welcome once again to the community.