So what is the secret to getting long sleep times out of responsive yoyos? And I don’t mean the kind of really long sleep times you get from unresponsive yoyos, but at least something useful, like in the 2-3 minute range.
Keeping a responsive yoyo responsive means keeping it properly lubed up with thick yoyo lube. But as we all know, lube is the enemy of spin time. So how does one keep a yoyo nice and responsive and also yielding good sleep times?
For example, if you watch @AndreBoulay demonstrating tricks (using the Dark Magic yoyo), you can see it has both really good responsive action and impressive sleep times (for a responsive yoyo). What’s his secret? (And pleeeeeze don’t say it is the Dark Magic yoyo itself, because that ain’t available anymore and therefore isn’t helpful to anyone who doesn’t have one).
The Dark Magic is an adjustable gap yoyo. With a slight twist of the halves you can make the gap a bit smaller or wider. I’m pretty certain that the bearing in the Dark Magic André is using would be considered an unresponsive bearing. Slightly narrowing the gap on the yoyo makes it possible to tug return depending on which trick he’s teaching.
This is what I’ve always assumed anyway, @AndreBoulay may chime in here and prove me wrong lol.
Okay, I’ll bite. How does one practice getting long sleep times out of a (properly lubed) responsive yoyo? In other words, what is the technique to be practiced?
Fun fact: I actually can’t do some tricks on a responsive as well now as I could when I was 2-3 months in.
In those first few months I got really good at doing tricks carefully in a way where it wouldn’t catch the response. I can’t quite do it as well anymore, my throw is a lot more “reckless” now
The problem I’m having is completing a combo before the spin dies to the point where I can’t get it to return. For instance, my Sage will let me complete a trapeze -> brother -> trapeze combo and still get it to return (barely), even though it is borderline unresponsive at this point. It needs some lube to tighten up the response. My freshly lubed SFX is nice and responsive but the spin dies on the string after landing a trapeze -> brother combo. So clearly the lube is a factor/problem.
This leads me to wonder about Andre’s Dark Magic setup.
At that points it’s just your throw, work on harder and cleaner throws. I can get longer combos than the ones you mentioned on a looping yoyo and fixed axle so the yoyo/setup isn’t the problem
One of my secrets on the ‘original’ Dark Magic with the adjustable gap was that I used a KonKave bearing with a ‘tight’ overall gap. It allowed me to keep it nearly responsive - but the konkave centered the string at the same time - kind of gave best of both worlds. Loved that setup (but adjustable gap was part of the reason YoYoJam’s cracked and so they removed that feature with the Dark Magic 2. What I’m using in the video is thick lubed narrow bearing actually. You can get nice long spin times on most responsive narrow bearing responsive yo-yos - it just requires precision and keeping string dead center at all times.
This is also why I like the Deep State, it uses a recessed standard (wide) C bearing. You get awesome bearing choices!
I am kinda very anti “adjustable gap” yo-yos, I think they give people way too much rope to hang themselves, plus it’s sooo fiddly. Just buy a proper responsive and a proper unresponsive, the solution to all problems is BUY MORE YOYOS cc @smileypants707
My freshly lubed SFX is nice and responsive but the spin dies on the string after landing a trapeze -> brother combo
If you are using the SFX with half-spec bearing (instead of full size C), the gap is too tight for trapeze; the strings rub the response too much. YYJ designed the SFX (and most other YYJ Solid Spin yoyos of this generation) to be unresponsive. In my opinion, the half-spec setup was an afterthought and not optimized for responsive string tricks where you want to balance response and spin times. You could buy YYJ or Dif-E-Yo shims though…
Like Andre said, it all comes down to precision. When you throw a trapeze, if your string is rubbing on the wall of the yoyo it’s going to cut down on the spin time. So a lot of it is going to come down to getting your throws more accurate, keeping things on an even plane.
One of my favorite (responsive) players is Spencer Berry. This is one of my favorite tricks in general, looking at the time, this trick took 10 seconds, and it’s pretty complex. 2-3 minutes is a TON of time, 3 minutes is a contest finals performance to put that time into perspective.
Was originally made using a stock FHZ if I remember. Been working on it with a responsive for quite a while. Need to just sit and focus on it and learn it, such a great trick.
