I need help getting started.
Dark Magic II.
Why? I said so.
But seriously:
It comes with 2 bearings. A slim bearing so you can start with responsive play(tug to bring back) and a full sized SPEC bearing when you’re ready to upgrade. Bearing comes out easy, no need for a bearing puller.
Spins long, spins great, spins stable. Of course, you have to throw properly.
Big. Feels good in the hand.
Kinda on the heavy side bit it’s a good fit for it’s weight, so not really a problem. You can remove the caps if you want to to remove a tiny bit of weight and make inner ring grinds easier if you want to grind.
Can do anything you want it to do as far as 1A, 3A and 5A. Can take you from beginner to competition if you want it to as it was designed with that in mind. Metal rims make grinds easy.
definitely DM II. I would suggest the Black Spade edition (exclusive to YoYoExpert). It is $5 more than the regular one, but it looks cooler IMO and it is limited edition so they will eventually be pretty rare.
Neither.
The Dark Magic may be too heavy for you. If you’re JUST starting then I would suggest the Whip. It’s fast, light weight, excellent for grinding, unresponsive, and feels great in the hand. If you already have a good unresponsive throw and want to go into intermediate, then yes, maybe you should go with the Dark Magic Keep in mind that they’re a lot more great choices besides the Dark Magic. Again, I’m only saying this because the Dark Magic is heavy and you may want a full sized throw, not a semi-oversized. maybe something lighter than the Dark Magic should be good. Something from the Zen series would be good if you wanted an all metal yo-yo. If you wanted plastic, then maybe a Protostar, or a Grind Machine would be perfect.
Putting an unresponsive yoyo in the hands of someone starting out is generally not a good idea. The WHIP makes a poor first choice because it is unresponsive. If you want to steer him in that direction, the ONE would be the better choice. Grinding will come later, and by then that person will have upgraded to something else anyways. With the 2-bearing package, the pre-installed thin bearing is swapped for the larger bearing to go unresponsive and then keep on going with a bind.
well i started yoyo-ing on vacation in july (they have the air circus store on the boardwalk). i started with a yomega brain. then a few days later they hand me a PGM and they taught me to bind. I went straight from auto return to unresponsive.
Who’s to say his first trick can’t be to bind? :
also the Whip has a wider gap for landing his first trapeze and it spins longer than the ONE
I can’t agree with starting with a bind. Build fundamentals and stop rushing through everything. Learn some responsive play first.
But hey, what do I know, right? I’m just an audio engineer. I’ve been teaching people for years, and I am one of those people who believe if you lay down the proper fundamentals, then you have the core of building blocks. Granted, yoyo is different. You don’t need to learn about gain structure and signal flow. It’s also not my path in yoyo we’re talking about.
So, I disagree with rushing into binding. The ONE is an ideal starter, but the OP wasn’t putting that in their list of stuff they were looking at. The ONE is affordable, durable and with the ability to switch bearings, becomes twice the yoyo.
I have both the ONE and the WHIP. I’m teaching my kids the yoyo. With responsive play, they can amuse themselves easily for now and are progressing at their own pace and having fun. There’s no need to rush them into unresponsive play. However, they are marching in that direction and if they can meet certain goals, they have picked out their next yoyos, which are unresponsive. But, the have to earn it by getting through the beginner tricks. The WHIP is not going to be their next yoyo. One has picked a Starlite, the other may have picked a Protostar. They have to EARN it.
Binding isn’t all that hard to learn. I’ve taught many kids how to bind a yoyo in under an hour. My 7 year old has taught grownups how to bind.
Part of the problem with learning responsive tricks is that not everyone thinks they’re very fun. And if they’re not fun, they don’t want to do them. But when someone first learns to bind, it’s like something magic just happened. It really seems to get them excited to learn more. It’s not like that for everyone. I remember one kid was so happy when I taught him to throw a sleeper, do a flag, and then tug it up. But just from my experience, he was more the exception.
That being said, it really helps if you have someone to teach you. If you’re learning to throw and bind all by yourself, it can take longer because you’re not getting any useful feedback about what you’re doing wrong. And if that’s the case, then having the option to switch to responsive might be nice, just to keep you from getting too frustrated when learning to bind. There’s a 5 year old that lives near me that just got a Raptor from his grandparents. It’s totally unresponsive and he’s having a bunch of trouble getting it to come up. I think it’s getting a little frustrating for him having a brand new yoyo that he can’t get to return.
Edit: Oh yeah, if you’re starting out, go get a ONE (with the extra bearing)
One thing I learned when I got into this thing in May was how drastically yoyos had changed. I had no clue about responsive vs. unresponsive play. I mean, 1978, fast forward to 2011. There ya go. A lot of people who aren’t IN it don’t get it, and they figure, as I incorrectly did at first, a yoyo is a yoyo. I knew about looping and string tricks and the need for different yoyos, but that was it. His grandparents saw “Duncan”, a brand they knew, and a $40 price tag and figured “this should last a good long time as it’s a good brand and it’s made of metal so it should be extra good then”, not realizing they had no idea what they were really getting for their grandson.
I was super thrilled when I could tug back that darn Imperial I got in May. That was far beyond my failure in 1978. My DM2 was responsive for 2 months as I powered through the beginner tricks. That first throw with a successful tug back… pure joy!
Get the dm2, Get the dm2, No don’t get the dm2, Get the whip, No don’t get the whip!
Confused? Confusion is the normal result from threads like this because everyone wants to help you and everyone has had a different experience yoyoing. That makes us all correct and at the same time, possibly we provide information that will end up not working for you.
It’s good that you have looked at yoyos and found a few you are intersted in. I’ll address 2 of the 3 yoyos you selected as I’ve not had any experience with the duncan.
DM2: Larger heavier yoyo with an extra bearing. The narrower bearing plays responsive. This means it plays more like a traditional yoyo. You throw it down it sleeps, you tug on the, string it returns. The wider bearing makes tug returns almost impossible. I say almost because there are certain things you can do to any bearing to make the yo tug responsive. In order to get the yo to return to your hand you need to learn a trick called a bind. Good yoyo with a good track record.
velocity: Narrower than the dm2 and lighter as well. The narrowness of the yoyo allows you to do looping tricks if you desire although I’ve found it to be a cumbersome looper. There is a dial on each side of the yoyo. When you turn the dials the gap narrows or widens. The result, making the yoyo tug responsive, semi-responsive, or non responsive. Whereas the dm2 uses two bearings to adjust the gap size this yoyo uses the dials.
Between these two yoyo’s? I’d say it depends on your experience. The velocity works well for beginners and I know because I’ve used it often to teach people. It’s less expensive and you can learn a lot quickly on it. The dials and shuttles can take some getting used to. You will always be able to learn more on this or any yoyo but will find the dm2 or other metal rimmed yoyojam to feel like a huge upgrade.
If you have some basic tricks down and already yoyo I’d suggest the dm2 or any nice yyj yoyo.
Sheesh…see what I’m saying about confusion? Even I couldn’t resist mentioning that there might be some other yoyojams you might like.
In the end it’s your choice. Trust yourself and enjoy!
Glad you found yoyoing!!
The dark magic II is your best choice IMO. I have been yoyoing for about two years and I still play with mine frequently and it is a great carry-around throw. The velocity feels a bit cheap to me but it is also cheaper. The metal drifter I have is good but very responsive. I can still do tricks but sometimes a simple one and a half mount will cause it to snap back.
Actually he’s been yoyo-ing for a while on a Velocity. He just wanted an all metal yoyo, specifically a Raptor, because other kids in the neighborhood have one so his grandparents got him one.
Yea, It’s simple. I’m not saying the ONE is bad, I’m just saying that the Whip seems a lot better to me and plays way smoother than the ONE does.
The Yoyofactory Starter set looks like it might be worth checking out.