Are those all responsive?
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Nope, unresponsive. The only responsive they have on the market right now is the deep state
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What do you think about it? I’m still really new to this. Should I play with a responsive throw for a while and develop some skills before switching to unresponsive or is there any harm in jumping to unresponsive right off the bat?
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Honestly, idk. I jumped straight into unresponsive and just learned tricks that appealed to me.
Others are more disciplined than that. They start responsive, work up the trick ladder and graduate to unresponsive.
I can’t really say what’s right for you, you know?
Oh, and I do enjoy playing responsive and fixie from time to time. But my main style is unresponsive.
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Thanks for your input. Time to start shopping.
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I would jump straight to unresponsive, but that is just my opinion.
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Seems you bought this Yomega gift set to start? Odd that it came with a prospeed instead of the ooch.
I agree with @kksimon wholeheartedly, pretty much the whole game is unresponsive yo-yos these days so resistance to unresponsive is futile… that said, you gotta get a yoyofactory Confusion just for grins to have in your collection, it’s a suuuper fun metal responsive. And it comes with the parts to convert it to unresponsive as well!
Beyond that I love the TopYo Colossus, for the $$ it can’t be beaten especially since it comes in awesome splashes and fades for a mere $30… such a deal.
Ah wait you want made in the USA. My bad. OneDrop is your huckleberry then:
You literally can’t go wrong with ANY onedrop. I don’t think I’ve ever touched a onedrop I would call “mediocre” much less “bad”.
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Thanks for the input! Yeah, I just realized it was a Pro Speed when I went and grabbed it to try a bind. I am somewhat upset about it. I watched a bunch of videos with Ooch and thought I knew what I was getting.
I might have to reach out to Amazon/Yomega about it.
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I have a similar story - played Yoyo as a kid in the 90s with a Yomega Fireball. About 5 months ago started getting interested again.
I started at first with a responsive yoyo, but quickly found myself bored with it and wanted an unresponsive yoyo (after just learning about them). My first one was a Yoyofactory Replay Pro, but I’ve rapidly added to my collection since. There are a lot of great yoyos now as the technology has come a long way (as I’m sure you’re finding).
A lot of people recommend a Recess First Base for beginners as it comes responsive, but with an additional bearing to make the yoyo unresponsive, and are around $20.
You can also find some good metal yoyos now at the $20-$30 price range from companies like MagicYoyo (Colossus linked above by codinghorror).
Good luck on your yoyo journey!
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I, myself got binding sorta quickly but found it more difficult AFTER completing a trick because after the trick you gotta have things lined up nicely for a clean bind. It’s like having to do a trick at the end of a trick. Since I am throwing 75% non responsive now, it’s making me work really hard to keep all my strings lined up in my frontstyle so the bind at the end is easier and I don’t have to twist myself around to accomodate any strange angle my yoyo may be at. Like they say: “May the road rise up to meet you and your binds be clean.”
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After learning how to bind, and some basic mounts, one of the first things that I set out to learn with unresponsive was how to snap start.
Also, there are more ways than snap starting to get a dead yoyo to spin again for a bind. You can even snap start a responsive yo-yo, it’ll usually wind itself right up if you get it just right.
Anyway, it felt really awkward and impossible at first, just like most tricks. But it’s a total lifesaver, and once you get that muscle memory down, you’ll be so glad you did. It is so much more enjoyable to snap start and bind, than it is to hand wind a yo-yo every time it dies.
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I let my 5 year old pick her own Recess First base. I put a short string on it and she was even able to get gravity pull going a couple times. I’ve personally owned a large number of First Bases in both responsive and unresponsive modes and it’s great for both. I’ve mostly been playing unresponsive after about 2 weeks of learning.
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I’ve always been an advocate for starting with responsive play. It’ll make your play smoother and more controlled before you start doing more advanced tricks with unresponsive. The Maverick is fine for responsive play so I would just stick to that for now.
With that said, once you decide that you do want to start doing unresponsive play, pretty much any modern unresponsive yoyo will do the trick. At a beginner level, you won’t see a huge difference from a $15 Replay Pro and a $100 One Drop so I would just start off with a Replay Pro and once you’ve gotten to maybe an intermediate or semi-advanced level, buy something nicer.
As for your daughter I’ll also recommend the Yomega Brain. Once she’s comfortable with that she can graduate to the Maverick and then any other new yoyos you end up getting.
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With all due respect, I understand your perspective of starting with a responsive and then graduating to unresponsive, but for me personally, jumping almost straight into unresponsive made it more fun for me because the yoyo spun for much longer and gave me more time to understand the mechanics of tricks.
I tried to start off responsive, but I found it frustrating because the yoyo wouldn’t spin very long and I just felt rushed all the time.
Now, I do understand the idea of cleaning up your style with a responsive. But for me, after I had started to understand how tricks worked, I would just challenge myself to get cleaned up on an unresponsive. I think it can be all the same. It’s just learning how to make all of the transitions between each broken down step of a trick smooth and fluid.
Currently, the only responsive style that I play, is fixie. That’s really the only style of responsive that I don’t find inherently frustrating.
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I mean many great players say that responsive play and fixed axle play can really help smooth out your style so I think there is some merit behind that.
But to each there own. I was actually the opposite. I was pretty resistant to switching to unresponsive until I absolutely had to and I felt like that benefitted me.
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Check out Throws n’ Brews on YouTube… tons of reviews on lots and lots of yoyos. Look for “yoyos that play above their price” and any of his “beginner yoyo” videos.
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I’m sure plenty of people play only unresponsive from the start but there’s no substitute for the behavior of a responsive yoyo. At the end of the day it’s just a toy or hobby for 99% of people, so by all means whatever floats your boat is all good, but without that reference point (responsive play) it’s hard to understand what “cleaning it up” really means. Plus there are responsive yo-yos out there that do accommodate longer spin times if you want.
TLDR if you have the patience, spend some time learning on a responsive yo-yo. It’s not the only way to do it, but it will help
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Thanks, All.
I picked up a One Drop Top Deck and a Replay Pro. My favorite quote out of all of these posts just happened - “At the end of the day it’s just a toy or hobby for 99% of people, so by all means whatever floats your boat is all good.”
As I said in the beginning, I’m just looking for a way to have fun with my daughter while revisiting a past hobby and probably getting a little nostalgic in the process. If it flourishes into something serious with a huge collection and arsenal of tricks, so be it.
I’ve been at it for about 3 days and I have already purchased 8 throws, so my addictive personality will probably take the reigns before too long.
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I was in your shoes a little over two months ago. I knew from the start that I wanted to get into unresponsive play as soon as possible, but I also didn’t want to rush the process. I felt that having to learn to bind, on top of just landing successful mounts, was going to be a touch too frustrating. So I started with a responsive yoyo (a Sage) to learn and practic the front mount, trapeze, his brother, and brain twister.
By the time I had those down, I felt ready to learn the two most basic backspin binds and move over to unresponsive play. It took me a couple of days to get the front backspin bind down, and a couple of weeks to get the side (undermount) backspin bind working. I have not looked back (at responsive play) since.
Aside from some serious nerve damage I did to my right thumb during the responsive play period, I don’t regret taking the path I did. However, I am glad I am using unresponsive yoyos full time now, and don’t plan to return to responsive play any time soon. It just doesn’t appeal to me.
As for unresponsive yoyos, I think you made two fine choices. However, don’t be surprised if you find yourself always throwing the Top Deck and never picking up the Replay Pro. It’s not that the Replay Pro isn’t a good yoyo–in fact it is really very good–but it won’t have nearly the degree of spin time and overall play performance as the Top Deck. The only thing to be aware of with the Top Deck is that it comes with a flat bearing (rather than a centering bearing), and as a beginner you may find it amplifying the negative consequences of throws that aren’t perfectly straight. Now, maybe you’re a prodigy and all your throws are perfectly straight already, but if they aren’t, you may get frustrated with the Top Deck as it will seem to have real trouble staying straight and “on plane” as you perform even the most basic tricks and combos.
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Since I switched to non responsive I saw that I actually WAS capable of the moves I wanted to do but wasn’t quick enough and didn’t have the spin time with my responsives so it was really frustrating. I feel like I’m cheating or betraying my responsives…but like @smileypants707 said: they’re toys. I will eventually switch all the bearings in my most beloved responsives to larger center trac bearings because I don’t want to leave them behind.
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