When I throw for a while (more than 30mins) the end of my finger gets all red and there are painful marks on the place where I make my slip knot. I’ve tried gloves.
Try moving the string on your finger more often and taking short breaks. You might try a lighter yoyo as well. Also you may try some tape under the slipknot. Make certain to get tape that isn’t slick, you want the yo to stay on your finger.
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meh, i actually don’t tie my finger with a knot.
you guys may think it would cause the yo flying but to me it happens one time in a thousand.
like you, when i started yoyoing 1.5 years ago, i hurt my middle finger often. so i tend to loose the knot but it would become tight soon. i finally give up the knot and try to yoyoing with middle finger enter the big loop directly.
1.5 years past, i find nothing difficult to learn without the knot. some people tell me that would reduce the power i throw? maybe but i just think that’s enough.
Breaks during a session are always a good idea. No matter what you put on your finger to reduce the marks from the string, the slip knot is always going to cinch around your finger cutting off the circulation a bit. So the only way to avoid this is to remove the string for a couple minutes and move your finger to get the circulation flowing to the tip of your fiber which lets in fresh blood and oxygen.
Yeah I think you are always gonna have some circulation loss when you tie anything around a limb…
Personally I can’t stand having a slack knot…my knot HAS to be tight or I just can’t throw properly…don’t really get any problems from it tho and it doesn’t particularly hurt either…
Not much I can really suggest other than just experiment with different string types (poly/cotton/mix) and string positions…
I agree. My Knot needs to be tight, especially since I play at work around little kids. Cant really muster a confident, powerful throw if I’m afraid it may end badly.
This happened to me a while ago when I first started out.
Just keep practicing and get a finger callous. After you get a callous, it won’t hurt anymore and the blood might circulate better. However, you should take short breaks like everyone else said. Also, yo-yo tape helped me a lot. It’s in the shop section somewhere.
Also, it depends on how long you’ve been yoyoing. It’s incredibly common for your finger to get swollen or numb in the first couple months. After extensive play, however, a callous begins to grow on your finger from the constant abrasion. Once the callous is grown, (the skin gets harder and rougher), the problem pretty much goes away.
This happened to me the first couple weeks of throwing. Eventually you’ll just build up a callas and you won’t feel a thing. But if you want, you can try some yoyo tape from the store, I heard it works well.
I’d also suggest, to help you with your pain in the area where the slipknot is, that you move the slipknot slightly along your finger so that it isn’t always rubbing against the same place.
as others have said, just take a break, or move the slip knot. You’ll eventually build up a callous on your finger and it won’t really hurt anymore. While you build up the callous though, tape is a good idea.
When I first started, I used duct tape on my finger, and it worked fine.
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As my brother used to say when drumming: “I’ve got blisters on me fingers!!!”
In all seriousness, my finger was getting pretty sore when I got into it a couple years ago and when throwing all day. I often moved the slipknot into other spots right next to where I had it and when all else failed, took a pause. After a few days of soreness, I noticed I wasn’t getting as sore…a callus was building up toughening up my finger for more yoyoing.
I’ve been throwing a lot more frequently since BAC (Thanks BAC, you got me remotivated in throwing) I noticed my finger getting sore during the week. It probably didn’t help throwing a (may as well say) 74 gram Chaser. As of over last weekend, I’m noticing the skin toughening up and becoming less sore…I’m able to throw longer!
I can’t do gloves. I tried, I prefer actually feeling what I’m doing. I’ll pass on tape as well.
Something worth noting: using tape or a glove might stall the growth of the callous. I think it might just be best to deal with irritation for now, knowing that a natural fix is developing, rather than always depending on extra materials.
I use a glove myself. It’s not to protect my hands or speed me up at all, it’s actually to make my strings last longer. They last almost twice as long with a glove on.
Well, I am about 12 years old so I think that a callous will take a while.
Well, I started while I was 13, and it took me only about 1-2 months to build one. I think you might just want to ignore the pain for a while, and eventually, you’ll forget about the pain there, having gotten used to it.
The callous will build up as long as you play. It really doesn’t matter how old you are since its your body’s way of protecting itself. If you do anything that is causing friction and pressure on your hands callouses will grow over time in response to that same pressure and friction.