How many of you guys and gals started by just picking up a yoyo and decided you liked it without influences like pros or guides? This was actually how I started after receiving a 25 cent yoyo.
thats how i was. i learned as much as i could from books and whatnot, then decided i wanted to go further and found this site.
I don’t think I really have much external influence.
When I first got hooked on the yoyo, it was seeing it on TV. I think Tom Smothers with Smothers Brothers reruns, and stuff on variety shows, kids shows and other stuff. I also saw some street performances. But this was I think back as far as 1976 or so before my family moved from San Francisco.
My first yoyo experience was a disaster in 1978/1979 with a Duncan Imperial, and with no guidance, nothing was achieved, including such staples as gravity pull and sleeper. Of course, I knew NOTHING such as trimming the string. Jump to May of 2011 when I decided I needed something to do between work stuff, I chose the yoyo. Just pretty much out of nowhere. Well, nowhere isn’t exactly the right term, but it came from a place that had been pretty much forgotten.
I don’t say I really want to play like any other player. I know what works best for me is what will work best for me. I’m more focussed on being able to perform tricks, acquire skills and knowledge. My end goal is to be able to do combos and amuse myself and have a good time at it.
That’s not to say there aren’t performers and/or specific performances that I’ve enjoyed watching. I’m also not up on what style goes with what player.
So other than seeing it on TV and a few times out on the streets(or rather in Golden Gate park) and wanting to be able to do that kind of stuff, I can’t say I really have any influences.
My mom has pictures of me starting at 5 years old with a yo. Carried that red imperial forever, in fact I still have it. Never had anyone to yo with or to show me any tricks. First time I saw anyone yo on television I was really excited. That was Tom Smothers, first time I ever saw a trapeze. To be honest that yo was used for many imaginative games as well as yoing.
I have always enjoyed yoyoing but have never had anyone to help me with any tricks or inspire me until the internet. I guess that’s the way it is when you always live in very small towns. So, now I try to give kids the opportunity to try it for themselves by running a club. The club still doesn’t do much for my skills as I’m usually teaching walk the dog or rock the baby or helping kids learn to untie knots. I sure do enjoy sharing the excitement of their first succesful gravity pull or whatever. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: There are no lame tricks if they bring even one person some joy or a smile.
well my first yoyoing started way back in the day I think i was somewhere between 6-10 when I got my first yoyo and I learned the basic gravity pull, sleeper, forward pass, walk the dog, and around the world but that’s all i could do because no one I knew really knew of anything else. So fast foward to about 4 months ago. Me and some friends were loitering around our town of silverdale WA and had nothing to do so we decided to just go into toys r us just for the heck of it. my friends all went around riding ripsticks and bikes that were way too small for them. Then we came across the small part of the store with yoyos and I remembered how I used to have a bunch of fun with them so I thought “what the heck, I’ve got some spending money I’ll grab a yoyo.” so I bought one that wasn’t too cheap but looked like it would at least be better than the duncan imperial, I got the duncan reflex. So we kept loitering around town and it turned out I still had the muscle memory to to all the tricks I once knew and all my friends were fairly impressed cause they couldn’t even do a gravity pull, then one of my friends said “Just watch he’s gonna go look up a whole bunch of tricks online and next time we see him he’s gonna be a frikkin’ master.” So I did just that. I googled yoyo tricks and it took me here to yye and that’s what started my love for yoyoing.
Mine started with a party favor “up and down” kind of yoyo my cousin got at the dentist. That night my mom bought us a full sized Ja-ru yo at the grocery store. A couple weeks later I saw someone playing with a yomega brain, and the sleeping caught my interest. Following day I tried begging my parents for one but settled for a red Duncan Imperial since all I had was $5. From there I actually learned how to make it sleep, rock the baby and so on.
Holy crap, that’s basically the completely same way I started.
My influence - every kid on the block had one, or their older brother did.
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I found a sonic spin in my closet and started messing around with it. About a week later I checked out some tricks online and took off from there.
I started with a Yomega Fireball as a gift and learned tricks from the little book it came with. That was just stuff like walk the dog, sleeper, around the world, and brain twister. Then i found websites like YYE on the internet.
So no, i guess you could say i did not have any influence.
Just started by stealing a yoyo from my older brother, and found out I liked it. Never really seen him use it.
Then one day I was at a trade show and tommy smothers was there, and he took some other random yoyo I had gave me a wooden yoyo and showed me a string trick, told me if I learned it I would be a pro.
But really between me stealing that yoyo and meeting tommy it was like 3ish years and I yoyoed every day during that time, so I guess I had not real influance.
When I was about 6, my dad taught me some tricks on a one piece wood yoyo I got from a summer camp I go to, I could do Forward Pass and Around the World and so on, but I lost the yoyo after a while. The interest then lay dormant until I got into the 6th grade, when, for a few weeks, yoyoing was what all the cool kids were doing, I was easily one of the best at that point, but lost interest after a few weeks. Then, in the 9th grade, someone sent me a video of some modern yoyoing, remembering me as one of those yoyo kids. I’ve been hooked since.
Wow, I think that’s the first time I’ve typed out my story. For no one to read, lol.
i started by buying a duncan imperial, just wanted to go up and dowm with it and then i looked online for tricks like walk the dog and as i got better i got a duncan butterfly, and then i won a DMII from a little contest online and it just kept growing from there
i just picked my dads old throw one day and started yo-yoing… i had never even see pro yoyoing
That’s the same way I started my bro got a party favor and it was a yoyo and i picked it up and started throwing it and i then got a yomega Xodus 2 and then maverick and then nova and etc.
not sure what competition qualifies as… but i had the desire to beat an old classmate of mine at something simple. then it took off on its own
That’s how I started just needed to do something while I had a big lay over in an airport. So I had a Yugioh clutch yoyo.
I’ve been yoyoing since i can remember but the first time i really started getting into yoyoing was in ninth grade speech. i had to give a “how to” speech and had no idea what to do. At the time i was throwing a Duncan butterfly and just learned rock the baby. Two days before the speech, being a fixed axle, the string broke. i had my mom drive me all around town looking for yoyos. Finally i found a Duncan dragon fly at toys r us. i learned trapeze then found andre boulay on ehow and learned there. that Christmas i got a yyj hitman
i got into the modern world of yo-yoing … when i saw a yoyo in party city and typed it in maps on my iPhone … and got theyoyoguys #, who lived in springfield and went to his basement, which was full of yo-yos and started searching on google and ran into this site!!!
i just saw a duncan butterfly in walmart for 3 bucks and was like meh ill try that seeing as it was cool when i was younger. played with it about a week, figured theres more then up and down to yoyoing. my friend saw me playing with it and gave me a duncan dragonfly he had forever. learned trapeze without knowing what it was called, then i found this site and ordered a DM2(which is out for repairs cause i broke it on my face). now i have a 888x which i hate and i cant wait for my DM2 to come back lol.