I have been using a responsive Yo-Yo for all my time playing. Just when I got back into Yo-Yoing recently is when I learned about unresponsive play.
I bought the starter pack from YYE the “One”. I know I will have to get a better Yo-Yo. Even in the responsive set up its just “Okay”.
Not sure if this is a situation where I am the “Old dog learning new tricks”, but my problem is with binding the yo-yo to make it return. I say its just mental because it just doesn’t feel right. I mean I’m used the Yo-Yo sleeping and I tell it to return to my hand, not manipulating it to return with a bind. To me it feels it is going against the soul of Yo-Yo play. I hope that made sense.
My questions, am I just weird that I am feeling this way?
If anyone else has felt this way, what got you out of this line of thinking to enjoy unresponsive play?
After you get comfortable with binding, it just becomes part of your flow if that makes any sense. And as you learn new binds, you will find they happen more naturally.
I find binding and learning new binds one of the more satisfying aspects of yoyo play. They also end up being some of the most interesting things for non-yoyoers to watch.
It seems to me that there are just too many tricks in the modern 1A repertoire that only really work when the yoyo is unresponsive, and the idea of stringing together long, interesting combo chains comes from having all that unrestricted spin time at your disposal.
As such, I’d have to say that unresponsive yoyos are about as “unnatural” in a (yoyo) world previously dominated by responsive play as Homo Sapiens were in a world previously dominated by Neanderthals, which is to say it only seems that way until you apply the benefit of hindsight to see the forces of evolution at work.
There’s still a huge world of responsive yoyo play still out there, including some incredibly difficult tricks to learn - if you’re into that.
When I first learned the unresponsive bind it was like opening a door to something completely new. If it ends up not being interesting to you after you’ve learned a couple tricks with it, there’s nothing wrong with sticking to responsive and looping yoyos. They are still great!
Id say take some time to get comfortable with binding and unresponsive play before you form a hard opinion on it.
It feels kind of weird at first the idea of “I really have to do a trick… just to get my yoyo to come back?” which was I personally took a little longer than most before fully switching to unresponsive but as others have said it eventually becomes second nature
Okay, that’s a complicated question, but i would say yes, that’s a little weird.
The going against the soul of yo-yo play is where you lost me.
It’s not weird if you just feel like it is more fun to play responsive though, lots of folks would agree with you there. Fortunately there are some fine responsive throws out there now that will let you push the limits of your responsive play.
Maybe it is just that One that is making you feel weird, they kind of weird me out too.
If you really think about it, an unresponsive yoyo is still a toy that is designed to go down and eventually return wound up to your hand. Eventually the bind just becomes the intuitive last part of a trick, and it starts to feel more normal.
Just work on finding interesting ways to bind. Honestly I play a responsive yo-yo and an unresponsive yo-yo with virtually the same attitude, and many of the same techniques.
Also, play what you like to play. Nowhere is it written that the only “good” yo-yoing is unresponsive. I absolutely think it’s worthwhile to dedicate the time necessary to feel comfortable with modern tricks and ideas, but if you find that play uninteresting or prohibitively unnatural, that’s perfectly ok too.
@Blaidd_Drwg Many players today have little experience with true responsive play as they start with unresponsive. Therefore, that’s what they know and they know it well and often become awesome 1a players!
I’ve yoyoed all my life, well maybe not the first five years of it, and I understand what you are saying about the soul of yoyoing. However, I don’t know that it’s the soul as much as it is the process of discovering all the possibilities of using your response to its maximum potential. In unresponsive, you don’t have that, you don’t want to feel the response until you have it come back to the hand, usually. It’s opposite of what we do with responsive, so needing to bind feels foreign and well, possibly unsatisfying as compared to a tug and a return.
I have a couple of suggestions:
Play the yoyo semi responsive. It will still feel unresponsive compared to what you’re used to and allow you to tug bind when you want. I play this way on occasion as well as responsive/unresponsive.
Play with basic binds and challenge yourself to bind immediately after the trick without pausing, having it become part of the trick.
As far as weird, there’s nothing weird about yoyoing except those that yoyo.
I know exactly how you feel, but am finally transitioning over. It took me some time, much after when I became proficient at binding, for it to truly feel natural. It is now part of the play, not something else I have to do while playing. I like to yo-yo while I walk, and so felt that just lent itself to responsive play. What really made the difference was when I started playing unresponsive on my walk into campus, just throwing and binding. After a few days it suddenly felt much more natural, very much like responsive play. I still take a responsive at times for walks, but non-responsive has become almost as natural.
So my suggestion would be to just throw and bind, while you are doing something else, and it will feel natural.
I’m with you. I don’t even consider unresponsive stuff as a yo-yo. Some sort of perverted mini diabolo. If you cannot tug and return to hand, it is NOT a yo-yo. Before someone responds back … I can bind. I have used binds. I choose NOT to use a bind. That is not yo-yoing !!
Ridiculous they call responsive play beginners stuff now. So much more skill to do string stuff responsive. I once saw Daniel Volk do every string trick in the book with a wobbly, plastic with wooden axle Russell. Now that is skill. The “dead play” yo-yos just get you to string tricks faster without years of developing the talent.
You can take some of these “dead response” models and upgrade to responsive. I keep a stock of half spec bearing on hand. A lot of them you can pop out the wide bearings and drop in the narrow. You can also get slightly shorter axle stubs to make them work the way a yo-yo should. Some need trying different response pads too, but they work well responsive. Some of the new metals (and plastics) have bearing seats that are too tall to take the narrower bearing. I’ve even taken a hand file and filed down the stubs to make them fit. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Oh, and highly recommend the new Freehand Next Gen. You have to put in a shorter axle and file down the bearing seats to accept the Half Spec C bearing, but the new cap design aligns the halve so true and smooth. One of the best RESPONSIVE yo-yos that I’ve found lately.
Nobody says this. What happens in reality is that given that the vast majority of people is interested in unresponsive, responsive foundational tricks are advised to be learnt first for the beginners. That’s why the modern correlation between responsive and beginners exists. Responsive has a steeper learning curventhan unresponsive, anyone who has played both will tell you that.
Also
Yeah. That’s your opinion and that’s fine. Since the definition of what’s yoyoing and what’s not is given by the one who plays, i choose to include unresponsive inside my definition of yoyoing. I have more fun having both styles available for me.
However, with the ever-increasing size of yoyos, I can see how it might seem like 1A throws are also becoming “perverted mini diabolos”.
On the other hand, both responsive and unresponsive yoyos employ a response system, and in most cases today, the same response system. The physics are the same in either case: string slack is “grabbed” by the response pads and it causes the yoyo to wind the string back around the bearing, bringing the yoyo back to the hand. The only difference is the amount of string necessary for the slack to engage the response system.
Playing a yoyo that doesn’t return until you’ve “forced” it to by laying in more than one wrap of string into the gap allows one to exert more control over it, and having more control allows for more complicated and impressive tricks. I’m not moved by the whole “It’s so much more impressive to see someone do a Double or Nothing on a Duncan Imperial than to see Evan Nagao do his tricks on an Edge Beyond” argument. That just strikes me as a case of The Olde Days Were Better Syndrome.
That’s not to say that responsive play isn’t fun or can’t be impressive to watch in the hands of a master. I’m only saying that characterizing unresponsive play as “not really yoyoing” is patently absurd and doesn’t hold up under any kind of objective scrutiny.
For real tho. It’s funny that the level of elitism here is drawn so randomly. Using this logic, anyone with this philosophy must disregard bearings of any type and avoid any profile shape derived from the classic butterfly shape, since any of that is “not yoyoing !!”, and only play with wooden, imperial-shaped yoyos.
I can see what op is saying. To this I pose a question…did the first yoyoers throw the yoyo with a curved arm to get more speed or just kinda drop it out of their hand? If the throw is essential to yoyo, why is the opposite of the throw going against the soul?
No criticism meant. It’s all yoyoing to me and as long as it fun that’s cool.
Thank you all for the responses. Sorry I was only able to read and not respond until now.
I had no intention of polarizing anyone like Led Zepplin’s “Stairway to Heaven” or the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s or team Jacob vs team Edward ( lmao!!! I know I lost cool points for the Twilight reference). I do not want a downward spiral of strong opinions that may hurt anyone’s feelings.
I will take the advise and work on my binds, maybe it will feel natural after awhile.
