This, or get a FHZ, and remove one of the pads. You’ll get the organic shape and responsiveness. Responsiveness helps a lot in cleaning up technique. If you’re not on plane, if you’ve got extra slack in your string, you’re not smooth, etc it’s going to snap back.
Not sure why Kieran would say it’s so difficult. I love my DK, probably my favorite yoyo of last year. Never even considered that it was a “difficult” yoyo 
I am going to avoid responsives for exactly this reason. I still suffer PTSD from them. 
The advice to go responsive is bad advice IMO. Go narrow unresponsive (or narrow and undersize, if you really hate yourself).
I’m still standing behind DK as perhaps the all time greatest “I want to be in extra hard mode” throw.
You mean like a Resto?
For years, I was really into the notion that responsive yo-yo’s make you smoother with unresponsive yo-yo’s and of course fixed axle makes you smoothest of all, so you should take the most arduous path to become the most highly skilled player… worked for Barney and Bob Rule and Steve Brown…
Nope.
Throwing a flat bearing helps you to understand how to maximize THAT kind of bearing, but it doesn’t efficiently help you learn to use a centering bearing to its POTENTIAL. Same with thin/wide profiles or with low-mass/high-mass rims. I agree that certain super-basic tricks and elements can be refined using more challenging hardware, but you can absolutely develop the same level of skill holistically by throwing a wide, dead-unresponsive, center-trac’d, rim-weighted competition yo-yo. In fact there are plenty of terrific players now who came up that route only to discover way later that “hey the slim, flat-bearing responsive thing is a fun counterpoint”.
TL;DR - if you’ve got a yo-yo you really connect with, throw the h-e-double-hockey-sticks out of it and don’t worry whether you’re maximizing your own potential by implementing the right handicaps at the right stage.
Resto would be another good choice. DK is more “fun”, I personally found the Resto hella frustrating. But it’s a legit idea.
Mighty flea.
lol nice flex 
Agreed. @zslane you’re definitely over-thinking this. It’s not an exact science.
On one hand, it helps to understand the mechanics and technicalities of what you’re trying to accomplish. But on the other hand, you can’t really translate it in a practical sense. What I mean is, You’ve just got to jump in head first and start gaining that muscle memory. There really is no substitute for just… trying it…
When I first started skating, I use to pick apart the mechanics of every trick I aspired to learn: Ollie, kick flip, varial, 360 flip, big flip, etc…
But while it is definitely useful to understand what is going on scientifically, the problem was, that I cannot perform anything in slow motion, or in an environment with lesser gravity allowing me to slow down to match my muscle function with my brain function.
In the end, I just had to try it, and fail awkwardly until my muscles started to get with the program.
The same goes with organics, flat bearings and narrower yoyos. It may seem intimidating, but just try it and fail until it starts to feel more natural.
IMO, your Parlay is the perfect place to start. Just start throwing that one more often, and when you begin to feel more comfortable with it, throw in a flat bearing and spend time getting use to the difference!
I definitely am not trying to flex against Kieran. We’re two totally different players. I just do not consider the DK to be a difficult yoyo by a long shot. I mean if you are only used to something like a Draupnir, yeah it’s going to take some getting used to. But I never played it thinking “man this is a tough yoyo to use.”
This earns bonus points for employing a) a yoyo I already own, b) a One Drop (my favorite brand), c) a this-followed-by-that sequence.
Well Kieran’s signature is the Cadence, which is pretty wide.
This is bad advice IMO.
What do you base this on? Did you try it? Have you thrown a normal fixed axle yo-yo for an extended period to see what it can teach you? I have.
Pretty sure the DK is wider than the Cadence, and has a larger gap. Just different shapes, and a larger catch zone on the Cadence.
Considering you told him to just throw something he enjoys and him explicitly saying on multiple occasions, not just in this thread either, of his hate for responsive and how glad he was to move on to unresponsive, I think it somewhat makes sense in this particular situation
The Parlay really is a joy to throw IMO. A little unforgiving at times, but it’s not unbearable by any means.
I may be wrong here, but I’m not 100% sure that is what Ed was saying, that playing responsive is bad advice.
edit. i think it goes back to when I sold guitars. Will playing on an acoustic make you a better player on an electric. Yes it will, guaranteed. But is it the best path for everyone? No it’s not. Some people just want to be the next Vai, Satriani, insert other shredder, and for that an acoustic isn’t the way. It’s best to get the gear that’s going to allow you to do what you want. Now will an acoustic still help that future shredder? Yes it will, but it may detract them from playing too.
Reread what I wrote when I said to try a fixed axle yo-yo. I didn’t say anything about it making you smoother. I said it will teach you things about your throw. Which it does.