So, I’ve noticed a lot of kids in videos are really un-smooth. Is there any reason for this? I believe it is because unresponsive yoyos are quickly becoming more affordable and convenient than responsive yoyos. Or maybe there are a bunch of people like me who like to record their tricks before they’re fully developed so that they wont forget the trick…
Discuss.
Probably a little bit of both.
From what I understand, playing responsive doesn’t smooth out some people. Playing unresponsive doesn’t make people unsmooth. It is simply a lack of practicing the muscle memory of a certain trick. Smoothness comes from doing certain tricks until you are sick of them.
Thats what i think of it.
Playing responsive you have to be smooth, or get swollen knuckles. Obviously you can learn to be smooth playing unresponsive, but you don’t have to. There are bunches of people on here that have never played responsive, so I’m also going with both that and the fact that people are proud of their new tricks, and video them before they are smooth at them.
Have Fun,
Tom
More people being critical of other people. Be more critical of yourself. You could use some smoothing too. Everyone could.
i think if youre having fun playing with your toys then youre doing it right 
i agree with the above post if you’re having fun then no problem, but there is nothing wrong with perfecting the art while having fun doing it. I have only been throwing about a year and I always create tricks with a unresponsive yoyo and I smooth them out with a semi responsive one. It has worked for me so far.
Well if they’re enjoying it then it’s good. But when they come and boast about it while still not being smooth then it’s another issue.
Icthus, I noticed the OP noted their lack of smoothness and gave a reason for it. Just saying
Good discussion topic though. I believe there are too many factors involved for there to be a definitive answer though, as the reason may change from person to person. In my case, the tricks I know best I perform smoothest. The tricks I’m just developing I perform with extreme stiffness. I started out on responsive yo-yo’s and gradually graduated to unresponsive yo-yo’s as the difficulty of the tricks I was getting into deemed them necessary.
Unfortunately these days, the impressionable minds of our beginners see the best using the best and assume the best yo-yo on the market will make them play like the best. This isn’t the case. These people still learn the tricks but it takes them longer to perfect them. I have noticed however that these people learn more tricks than I ever did starting out. Might be a fair trade off? Not sure, I will always recommend a beginner use a beginner yo-yo like a dragonfly until they are getting into advanced tricks.
The further a beginner pushes themselves to learn harder tricks on a responsive yo-yo, the more amazing their tricks will look when they transition over to an unresponsive yo-yo. As always this is my opinion based on personal observations from teaching just under 100 kids over the last few years. Nothing is truly to be considered a catch all explanation. Especially in such a complex hobby.