Yo-yo related tips and tricks

Switch it up… When someone requests walk the dog, " walk it" across your arm

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Try different play styles. When I started out I was only a 1a guy. I’ve also tried 4a 3a and 5a. I’ve been hooked on 4a for the last 2weeks. It’s all I want to do. I crave it now. You never know what you’ll fall in love with.

I dont have any tips but I do need some. when i do tricks I can’t go to the bind fluently(I hope I spelled that right). Any tips are good.

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Try to end on a trick that you can easily get to a trapeze or under-mount (Depending on which way you need to bind.). Then just go for the bind when you can.

It just takes a little more planing. When it comes to just practicing or yoyoing for fun though it shouldn’t matter too much though. Only matters if you’re making a video or something like that.

It’ll come with time, just try to plan your combos out a bit and practice your binds. (You almost never can practice binding too often.)

Well good luck. :smiley:

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I gots another question. I am trying to teach myself how to yoyo with my right hand(I’m left handed) so I was just wondern’ if y’all had any tips. I’ve started by using a yomega brain.

I’m working on getting good with my left hand (Right handed.) so I start 2A and 3A.

The one thing I can tell you is work on getting a good solid throw.

It’s very important to have a good throw because every trick you’re going to do can be do a lot easier if you have a good throw.

Also work on binds (A fundamental for 1A/3A/4A/5A.) if you move to an unresponsive yoyo.

go back to a more basic yoyo and challange yourself to use it as well as one that pampers to your skills

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Try different companies and see what u like.

Something that may be obvious but took me a while to figure out. If you are still learning the quick starts and are having to wrap the yoyo by hand if you alternate which way you wrap it up it helps your string tension if you are right handed (wrapping away from you tightens your string, wrapping towards you loosens it).

Also if you hold your string up to check tension and it spins clockwise (the part farthest away from you to the right) it needs to be loosened and if it spins counter clockwise it needs to be tightened

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try to buy a few small and large bearing yoyos so you see what you like.

Decide and prepare certain cool-looking tricks to teach people should they get interested in yoyoing after seeing you play. Sometimes, if you choose tricks that are too difficult or not impressive enough, they might lose interest in yoyoing, and it would be harder to get them interested again.

Don’t forget there is a lot more than one way to bind. You can go from a trapeze, undermount, one and a half mount( drop everything on none throw hand, throw yo yo towards non throw hand), ect.

You can do a ripcord motion from almost any mount and end up in a familiar mount. It can bring you from chopsticks to trapeze and bro. Trapeze and bro to trapeze, etc. Just experiment with it.

I discovered this like a month ago and it’s very handy for transitioning from one mount to another.

That pathetic little threaded stump in the RecRev Sharp is an called axle. :smiley:

If you get a new throw and it feels wierd (say you were used to light throws and got a 70g. throw) keep playing it and you’ll warm up to it. Who knows? You may find something you like.

I think the best way is not to throw too strong, it’s hard at first because the yoyo tilted easier and tricks feels harder. Over time you will notice how to control your yoyo tilt, basically when it tilts towards one side, you use your string to push/move your yoyo slightly off the line. This is a very important technique and mostly comes up naturally. Just keep trying, once you get it, you can control how much your throwing power and how to control the tilt without even thinking.
Good luck

even though something may not seem that impressive to you, nearly anything other then Rock the baby will impress most people. Heck, even walk the dog and rock the baby does the trick most of the time.

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When you’re in Green Triangle, pop out of it before you do anything else! It’s the absolute easiest way to get knots. Also, get to know your triangles: get yourself to know which way to pop out of a GT by instinct to save time and steeze. Standing there in a GT wondering what to do doesn’t impress.

Jumbo Sharpies make for really good beginner’s counterweights.

When your string doesn’t feel good, change it!

The response you get after lubing your bearing is natural. Play for a couple of hours and it’ll set in perfect.

When watching vids of people doing gnarly tricks, pay close attention to what they are specifically doing. you might be surprised at how simple some hard-looking tricks are.

Throwing in humidity/damp or wet weather might make your hands and string moist, and that will mess up your string tricks.

Keep your bearing away from water at all times. I cannot stress this enough; rust will destroy your bearing and there isn’t anything WD40 can do! (By the way, don’t use WD40. It attracts dirt and messes up plastics.)

When purchasing a throw, pay attention to the specifications! Wider yoyos are generally more stable, heavier yoyos generally spin much faster, smaller gaps are generally more responsive, etc.

Practice, practice, practice. You won’t get any better if you don’t make an attempt at it.

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Never drop the strings when you’re in the middle of Buddha’s Revenge (the part after you toss the yo-yo over your pointer finger) or you’ll end up with a knot

The correct answer to is that a real yoyo is not to tell people that it is not imaginary like a smart aleck. Explain unresponsiveness and let them try a looper. (BTW keep a looper on you at all times its the kind of yoyo most non yoyoers will reconize.)

every once in a while i like to remind people of Ed Haponiks wisdom manifested into his 66 rules of yoyoing…

  1. learn to loop. with two hands.
  2. when you play yo-yo in public, look up. be aware of your surroundings. say hi to the people who look at you in wonder. say hi to those who look at you with disdain.
  3. be generous with your time, and with your toys. if you have the means, at every event you attend, give something away to someone (who does not ask).
  4. understand the differences between yo-yoing for yourself in your room, yo-yoing for judges at a contest, and yo-yoing for a small child at the park.
  5. try to find and play yo-yo’s that come from every decade of the past century. appreciate their differences (and similarities).
  6. when performing for an audience, always look better than they do.
  7. be proud you’re a yo-yo player. have pity for those who think you shouldn’t be.
  8. never act like yo-yoing is a big inconvenience. no one’s making you do it.
  9. be prepared to walk the dog on command. always.
  10. never blame the judges. maintain the attitude that, if you had REALLY won, it wouldn’t have been up to them at all.
  11. hit a true laceration on a stock renegade. fly-away dismount.
  12. don’t talk about how ‘so-and-so’ is a lousy player (or human being) if you’re unwilling to bring it to them personally.
  13. don’t confront someone about being a lousy player (or human being) unless you’re right. and be sure you understand the consequences.
  14. when you’re getting paid to yo-yo, be on time and do your job with a smile.
  15. don’t yo-yo with the goal of being admired. don’t worry over whether you’re ‘somebody in the yo-yo community’. be ‘somebody in real life’ and then be the same person in the yo-yo community.
  16. recognize that you don’t really know very many tricks at all. this should make you feel inspired rather than pathetic.
  17. find a mentor. or twelve. no need to be explicit about it, but they should know who they are and what they mean to you.
  18. stay up all night playing yo-yo.
  19. compete. ladder, freestyles, best trick, or whatever. register, pay, and support the contest.
  20. carry a paperclip in your wallet.
  21. don’t accept sponsorship from a company you don’t absolutely love.
  22. carve a palm tree on a yo-yo using a pocketknife.
  23. understand how your yo-yo’s work. be able to maintain them.
  24. never begrudge your dings. not in yo-yo. not in life.
  25. respect the venue.
  26. meet the masters (national or otherwise). shake their hands and thank them for making yo-yoing something more. make that YOUR goal.
  27. take care of your hands, wrists, body, and mind. when those things fail, so will your yo-yoing.
  28. don’t go out of your way to vilify this or that company. support the ones that you feel benefit the community and yo-yoing in general. that’s enough.
  29. travel to a contest alone.
  30. travel to a contest in an overfull car.
  31. respect your elders.
  32. don’t fiddle obsessively with your bearings. they’ll do their job if you let them.
  33. it’s one thing to be awed, but don’t be intimidated by yo-yo players, regardless of their skill.
  34. learn to snap-start.
  35. find a yo-yo that you can’t play well at all. play it exclusively for a month.
  36. go to worlds.
  37. be able to do enough of each style to wow the uninitiated.
  38. do something else. take up an instrument. knit. do card tricks. shoot skeet. something. 39. make yourself useful at contests. help set up. help clean up.
  39. don’t be careless with other peoples’ yo-yo’s. don’t be overprotective of yours.
  40. own an old wood yo-yo.
  41. if you bring a bunch of yo-yo’s somewhere, it will be understood that you want people to see them and be impressed. don’t be surprised when they aren’t.
  42. pass out on a yo-yoer’s floor in delighted exhaustion.
  43. learn all you can about every major player from every era of yo-yoing’s history. this art is FULL of fascinating characters.
  44. be neither proud nor ashamed of your collection.
  45. don’t seek to be someone else’s favorite player. seek to be your own favorite player. and in that regard, NEVER succeed.
  46. don’t leave home without it.
  47. learn to twist your own string.
  48. play responsive, but don’t act like it’s a big deal.
  49. practice more. post less.
  50. develop yourself such that someday, if you should find yourself in a room surrounded by your heroes, you will be pleasantly surprised to find that you belong.
  51. invent a trick. Heck, invent so many tricks that finding a way to record them becomes a necessity.
  52. don’t hide behind the mantle of an ‘online persona’. that has zero to do with being a yo-yoer.
  53. run a contest or event. make it a benefit to the companies that are willing to sponsor it. make it a benefit to the players who come and spend their day.
  54. don’t use the word ‘sexy’ to describe a yo-yo. or ‘sexay’. or ‘secksay’. or ‘pure sex’. or ‘smexy’. to do so makes you sound as if you have no real context for the word ‘sexy’.
  55. make a video. before you publish or hype it, make certain that it’s something that you would want to watch all the way through, even if the yo-yoer were some random guy you’ve never met.
  56. yo-yo transcends gender, and yet the vast majority of yo-yoers are male. respect and appreciate the few girls and women brave enough to wade through all the smelly aggro testosterone to do their thing.
  57. find a globe. locate ‘the other side of the world’. befriend a yo-yo player from there (or as close as you can manage).
  58. at one point, you were just starting out. whether it was last week or 50 years ago, remember that time. treat those who are learning the basics with care. answer their questions, help them with string tension, and don’t act like they need to get in line to kiss your boot.
  59. acquire a yo-yo from shinobu, eric wolff, or john higby.
  60. always have a spare string on you.
  61. have more than one gear. go fast when it’s time to go fast. go slow when it’s time to go slow. understand when it’s appropriate to play simply and when it’s best to be strange and complicated.
  62. don’t set too much store by contest results. at their MOST valid, they give an idea of who played the best for three minutes, on one given day. respect everyone who can get up there with poise and intent.
  63. disregard these rules. make your own rules. and make allowances for those who won’t play or live by them.
  64. treat every throw as if it’s your last. (throw today.)
  65. treat every throw as if it’s your first. (throw forever.) the two are not actually contradictory.
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