Look: The Throw Monkey’s caps remind me a lot of Curious George. Its kinda cute. The body on it is very thick and almost clunky, and rudimentary in appearance. The molded body has that Pro Yo look entirely. After some use and if you drop it frequently (very likely starting out), the rubber rims will become very dull looking.
Feel: The feel of this in the palm is as it looks, thick & fat. It’s completely oversized, and dwarfs many other yoyos you’d compare it with. It has a soft supple feel. At first the rims feel really hard and stiff. I thought, this can’t be rubber! But, You can press your fingernail into it which will leave an impression so we know for sure its rubber. And when I dropped it the first time, it bounced, so it’s trustworthy.
5A Play: The handling of this yoyo for 5A is relatively good. Its great when you’re learning a new trick when chances are you might drop it. The drawbacks I have with this, is its size. I think its just too big. For throwing 5A style, you need a good grip for your finger. I feel that if you have small hands, you may not like it, and if you have large hands you may not like it. I am not too keen on its feel in the hand for 5A. I can’t seem to get a really good commanding throw on it. Also it is very vibey, and gives an unstable feeling. It is a rather heavy throw for 5A too so there is not much room for slow paced practice because it will totally outweigh your standard counterweight. Once you develop the skill for the trick, you can easily move to another throw that you like with greater confidence and see the difference. Because you’ve already mastered it on the Throw Monkey!
1A Play: I actually throw this more for 1A than 5A now. It has a totally diffferent feel to it. More stable although still has a lot of vibe. I’ve never thrown anything with this much vibe before. You can feel the vibe from the yoyo all the way up to your throw hand finger. Especially during “double or nothing.” It’s like a jackhammer on the string. I kinda laughed about it because I thought, wow, I’m throwing a Jack Hammer hehe. It does look cool throwing it around though, without caps that is. However the thing comes severely responsive, like tug responsive out of the box so you have to clean the bearing to get the desired unresponsive feel.
CD: The included CD ROM presents a broad spectrum of tricks, ranging from String Trick, Looping, Freehand, and Offstring. Each style includes 8-9 tricks with real time and slow motion shots as well as front and side shots with text instructions for each trick. Also you’ll find maintenance tips such as changing weights, adding counterweights, string tension, cleaning, lubing, etc… It’s a nice added value with the yoyo. So thanks Duncan!
Conclusion: This yoyo has some good points such as, its tough as nails and durable for 5A and won’t ruin floors thanks to the rubber rims. However I feel that it needs some tweaking to make it a real plastic player. For one, I feel the size can be reduced. It doesn’t have to be so big. I’ve seen some kids throw it around with some difficulty and get even more vibe than what I get so I think Duncan could make it FHZ size and it’d be easier to handle. Also widening the gap on it will make a difference, the thing is too responsive out of the box. And lastly, give it a better axle system to help reduce vibe. I believe it’s worth the expense if you’re wanting to get your feet wet on 5A, but as a training wheels throw only.
