Over the past few years I have seen mainly 2 different types of yoyos. The ones made for nostalgia, (organics, slim designs etc.), and those made for performance (bimetals, competition monometals).
I think this is great, but I am noticing that my nostalgic period seems to be mostly missing from yoyo design. I started getting in to yoyo around 2009. This was a time where yoyos were really making the shift from organic to non-organic shapes. Because of this, I never really developed nostalgia for organic shapes. I also didn’t really start buying many yoyos until around 2012. This period of time was strongly influenced by one of the most beloved yoyos of all time, the CLYW Chief. Because of this, nearly every company started to put out yoyos with a large amount of mid-weight. I would say this is my major nostalgic period. I love the feeling that you get from yoyos with a large amount of mid-weight and believe that more nuance in yoyo feel can be achieved when mid-weight is utilized.
With the advent of bimetals, the yoyo world made a significant shift in weight from 65-68 grams to 62-64 grams. These light weight yoyos could only be made by removing all the weight from the middle of the yoyo, placing the majority of the weight on the rim with some in the center to ensure durability and balance. Because everyone wanted light yoyos with long spin-times, mid-weight yoyos were removed from the scene and haven’t made a mainstream comeback. I am happy that some companies are rereleasing designs from that era, and some companies are re-examining older designs to make some modern adjustments, but I am still waiting for a full-scale comeback.
So now I have a few questions:
Is anyone else in the same boat as me?
Are there any current yoyos that you feel like call back to that era of yoyo design?
This one is for designers: Can we expect mid-weight to return to yoyo design any time soon?
I think there’s a lot of yo-yo’s that are similar in concept to the Chief or at least close to the design attributes of midweight.
A new one that dropped is Dressels Emotion, I just got a chance to try it at DXL and I’d say it’s kinda on a borderline of midweight / performance, really well balanced, I would highly recommend this one - it even has the ski jumps.
Cascade, Summit, Free Solo, Sugar Glider, Prescription, and Top Deck are all in this category too as they all took heavy inspiration from the Cascade (released in 2012).
Honestly, that era of yoyo design is still strongly influencing a lot of designers today. I feel like there’s a lot of options if you look around.
Polyform A4 is also an option. It has midweight hidden under the POM ring design that gives it a really unique play feel.
edit, i’d also recommend looking to pick up older YYF models, like the SuperNova or Genesis, you can even look at the BettyNova.
One drop still embraces the mid-weight but most everything else does not. I have been purchasing from onedrop recently. I picked up the Free Solo, the T1 2020, and the top deck. All of them have a decent amount of mid-weight but only the top deck really balances the mid-weight and the rim-weight the way I would like, so I am not sure if other mid-weight One drops are really my thing. I would not consider the emotion to have true mid-weight as it is a wide yoyo with the weight placed barely off the edge. To me that isn’t mid-weight, that is rim-weight that didn’t go all the way to the edge. I was able to try the Emotion at Gulf-Coast regionals and I am intrigued by it. It didn’t wow me at first, but I could see myself ordering one in the future.
The polyform is an interesting concept but due to its uniqueness, I am not sure if it would satisfy my nostalgia wants. That being said, I am incredibly intrigued by it. I have looked into the BettyNova, and probably should get one at this point.
I’m gonna plug a couple of my yoyos since I started yoyoing at a similar time as you + most of my designs have at least some influence from that 09-2012 era (altho admittedly I love organics a lot haha)
Emotion is our newest monometal yoyo and has a huge mid weight bump.
We also developed a bimetal yoyo based off the original sasquatch/supernova style of shape, and the ring itself “drops” to give it some mid weight feel. It’s called the fusion:
Non-biased opinion would be to check out OD yoyos, most of their designs have a lot of mid weight to them. I’d say sugar glider or terrarian would be a good start for you.
