Ever since I’d been throwing an ultra wide yoyo I made (57mm wide) I’ve noticed some benefits. The first and most obvious one is that risky catches are far easier. I’ve also noticed that when performing horizontal tricks, the yoyo tilts far less than with thinner yoyos.
Are these benefits across the board for all very wide yoyos? Are there any more benefits to very wide yoyos?
They can also have very broad rims for nice catches at high speed
Yes. Catchable, less prone to tilting, chanco for some nice weight distributions. Usually comfortable on the hand.
One question i have is when does the width of a yoyo truly traduces into a catchability benefit and where does that number stop? I mean, back then, 42 mm was a very standard width for yoyos and people had no problem hitting wild stuff on those (e.g. Paul Kerbel and the Horizon, which is considered a narrow yoyo). Now, 44 to 46 mm seems to be the standard, and yoyos that are considered “wide” are 48 mm and above.
Let’s say, if you have a combo consisting of various risky hops, and you would try that combo with a series of yoyos ranging from 42 to 50 mm in width, at what number would your succes rate for the trick peaks? So that width number would be the ideal in order to maximize your succes rate, and making the yoyo wider wouldn’t traduce in higher accuracy, so theorically, it wouldn’t make sense to make yoyos any wider than that number. It would be cool to make that experiment.
A nice idea, but how could that really be measured?
I suppose you perform the same combo ten times, stepping up a mm each time.
Let’s say repetitions of 5 for said combo. And a 100% success rate means landing said combo 5 times, each repetition having a value of 20% for said rate. So, using various yoyos with increasing widths each, we could be able to observe at which width the success rate starts being 100% every time.
An imaginary scenario: A player hits said combo 3 times out of 5 with a 42 mm yoyo, 3 times out of 5 with a 45 mm yoyo, and 5 times out of 5 (100% success rate) using a 50 mm yoyo. So, we could conclude that 50mm is the minimum width that maximizes trick performance.
The huge limitation here is that this relies entirely on the player’s skill and ability, so this method wouldn’t be usefull at all to desing yoyos in general, but very useful to design signature yoyos, so the player can have a tested way to find his/her ideal width for a yoyo.
Huh. Theorizing about this stuff is fun.
While a wide catch zone means you “miss” fewer catches, I don’t think it totally cures the problem.
What I mean is, if you get used to such a wide yo-yo your catches will be sloppier. Just because you made the catch, doesn’t mean it was a clean one and if you have bad catch discipline the yo-yo will start to tilt and you will have other issues.
It’s funny I’ve been thinking about this lately because I have the YYR TM and I’ve mentioned before that has a really unforgiving catch zone.
But the flip side is, it makes my technique better. If you make a catch with the TM, it has to be well aligned. If you make a catch with the TM, it was a good catch, period. The kind of catch that keeps the yo-yo where it should be, the kind of catch that won’t ever make the yo-yo lean or lose spin etc. so you can just glide smoothly on through to the next element with good momentum and flow.
The Cadence will allow you to make a wonky sloppy catches with poor technique, your hands out of place etc. The routine becomes like a jalopy just banging and bumping into everything as it meanders and weaves back and forth drunkenly down the road.
Sometimes I actually mess up certain tricks more when I’ve been playing with a smaller narrower yo-yo and switch to a wide throw, I tend to accidentally bump into my hands or hit a string I don’t mean to, so I have to slow down and be a little more careful until I get used to it.
Although lately I haven’t been playing with any one size, width, or shape too long. I do that just cause I enjoy using multiple throws, I mean yesterday I used 3 different yo-yos within 20 minutes.
I will say this though, a wide yo-yo is definitely shines when I’m coming home from the bar a little tipsy but still want to get in a late night throw session before bed.