Noobish journey

General Yo-Yo
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Amazing how this quirky little wonder of physics can entrance, entertain, instruct, frustrate. I love the many facets of this hobby: skill development, collecting, aesthetic appreciation, self-harm.

Being a relative noob to advanced play, I’ll likely bore most of you who’ve already been through the same as my typical neophyte sputterings. If you <click…bye> I don’t blame ya. For the rest of you, clear a space I’m just warming up!

My 2 new throws have upped my ambition & determination to improve past Kwyjibo, Kamikaze & Boingy Boing. Throw time has ballooned to hours a day (I have lots of time, I’m retired & never impregnated anyone). The iYoyo Iceberg I’m not feeling yet - odd bearing & seems light for my ham-handed play - but the Wilderness 7075 wow…just wow. I’ve already seen marked improvement in just a few days, wish I’d started out on this thing.

I even landed spirit bomb for the first time yesterday! Albeit with a misshapen, quasimodo style, but hey I even got the dismount, again mutantly.

I’ve also learned 2 key axioms: 1) If I wear a belt with a metal buckle, my new mint-condition yoyo will SEEK IT LIKE A MAGNETIC HOMING MISSILE and 2) I will never, be able to do a snap start, ever. AAMOF I’m pretty sure all the videos I’ve seen are deepfakes, this seems physically impossible.

Finally, a couple of tools that have been a must for me.

Tool #1: an Android app called Precise Frame mpv video player; it allows you to slow down video, seek backwards/forwards by seconds & step through frame-by-frame both ways. Youtube’s controls aren’t sufficient for me, and many times a tutorial fails to mention key things like “Ahh…he grabbed the string with his NTH there…” etc. Invaluable for yoyoing & my other hobby: pen spinning. Um I mean one of my ridiculously many other hobbies.

Tool #2: a lock pick, for snags. One type of snarl in particular keeps plaguing me, pics below. Obiously I’ve spent more $ on yoyos than a camera! This snag happens so annoyingly often that I had to come up with an alternative to constantly taking the yoyo apart; I’d wear out the axle threads. The lockpick (yep, one of my other hobbies) isn’t sharp & doesn’t harm the string. I just wish I could figure out what causes the snag, seems to happen on even just a regular throw. Pulling it open in the 2nd pic, the center string goes to the axle; how TF has it looped around itself from a simple throw?!!

tightsnarl
tightsnarl1920×1949 244 KB

loosesnarl
loosesnarl1697×2673 378 KB

lockpick
lockpick1281×2521 464 KB

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yea that type of knot will happen. search and practice “safety throws” :wink: also be careful with the lockpick. the ones i have and have seen are stainless steel and they’ll def scratch al ano. there are a couple options you can find that are a softer grade al and are ano safe, or just buy/print a plastic one. i have a wooden toothpick in just about every cabinet and bookcase all over the house lol @Xanadu Alex may be able to help with a keychain version if any are left

also your camera is probably fine. looks like you need to clean the lens silly :zany_face:

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I’m with you on the snap start. I’m retired and I’ve been throwing for nine years and the videos make it look so easy and yet to this day, I can’t do it. Granted the better I got over time, the less it’s even necessary except for when I’m learning a new gt mount. I found that the plastic knitting needle’s on Amazon are great for picking out knots and super cheap.

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the way i do snap starts (small delicate hands) is less of a true finger-snapping motion and more of a quick twist like im spinning a bottle cap closed. its a bigger motion than i thought it would be - i kinda twist my whole hand and its usually just enough spin to bind. when i see (hear?) all these folks actually snap their fingers while theyre holding the yoyo its crazy to me like that routine where andre snap starts into a flop is nuts. maybe with practice i could do it on a heist or loonie but like no way ever on anything normal sized

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I’ve tried every way I’ve found videos for it. I can only get the yoyo spinning just a little though. It won’t come up enough to even regen to get it going faster. I’m thinking one day it’ll just click

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It’s an odd movement to make at first for sure. I was mostly wrist at first, I couldn’t translate a regular snapping of my fingers to snapping on the yoyo.

The snapping movement of your fingers is just the first part to get down (it probably won’t be an actual snap at first, your fingers don’t really know what to do with themselves). IMO it’s not even the important part.

The second part is pulling up with the yoyo once it’s spinning to give it the oomph to actually bind. This is the part that matters. Once you understand how much to yank, you can get a pretty slow-spinning yoyo back up into your hands. You can bring your nth down to help meet the yoyo if needed. It’s been a few months now since I’ve watched any tutorial for it but IIRC no tutorials really addressed this part, they all focused on the snap.