Your recommendations are expensive for me, can you recommend cheaper 0a yoyos?
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The problem with metal 0a yoyos is that there arent many, and they dont make many of them. I think the most readily available would be the YYF Confusion. It should be good if you grease up the bearing and use some combination of thick/thin pads, its got the right specs (although maybe a smidge heavy for my taste). I have not used the Confusion.
The YYF legend wing is cheap and great if you just want wooden fixie. Also the standard Duncan Butterfly was my first fixie and to be frank, I learned a ton on it before I moved up to the Day Tripper.
I personally recently had @pyrotechnic modify a Duncan Pro Z to remove the starburst, and add the Core Co response pads from the DT/Weeknder and frankly its awesome ($35 total with mods/shipping). After I did that, I was told by a few members of the forum the stock Pro Z with a greased up bearing is a great option as well. The Day Tripper and Zipline’s Wood Z are both based around the Pro Z shape/size.
My two favorites are the Day Tripper and the Deep State. Although the C-Bearing and slightly wider gap in the deep state makes it play a little slower than the Day Tripper, with a greased up bearing its still reliably and predictably responsive which is what you want.
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I use a Butterfly XT and it’s working really well so far.
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The Day Tripper can only be obtained via BST at this point, so it is sort of a non-starter for many folks.
It’s hard to find a really good fixie that isn’t on the expensive side (i.e., over $20). You need to look at bearing throws for the most part, and even in that case the good ones are expensive. I think the Weekender is well worth the money, and it is (still) available from Doc’s site.
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I’m kinda tempted to try a stock Pro Z now just so I can be confident on whether its a good bearing 0a player when the bearing is all greased up lol
love that IG page. so many cool little tutorials
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Not just learning, also remembering what you had completed in the past.
I may go back to a notebook to keep track.
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Remembering everything is not easy
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I haven’t stopped learning all new tricks but they come slower now that I’ve been doing this for about 2 years. I think that the reason for me that things have slowed down is due to 2 related things: trick difficulty vs my natural talent and complexity.
When you first start out, trapeze, brother, double or nothing are challenging but you can basically see what is going on and remember what you need to do, then practice and correct what you’re doing wrong. Most people can figure them out I think.
Once you get into more advanced tricks say spirit bomb or candy rain learning a trick requires you slowing youtube down to .25 speed, pause, play, and re-watching exactly what happened and remembering do I underpass next or is it a hop? Which string do I hop to? Along with the fact that catching the yoyo on the string in between two other strings with the slack not getting tangled and your spin is running out now because you’re not on axis. That is just difficult on its own. I personally don’t always have the motivation to watch videos in slow motion for an hour to figure out the 3 second element then try it for 20 minutes before giving up for the day, which makes learning slower.
Other tricks I’ve seen and tried to learn I originally thought oh that looks easy until I slow it down and realize that there is a rejection that is in there or some other element that my brain seems to be incapable of telling my arms, hands and fingers to do it.
So I guess my natural skill plateau and the time investment to learn new tricks are both reasons not necessarily that I’ve stopped learning new tricks, (I still like to try sometimes!), but reasons that my learning has slowed and there may be a point where it does stop. I think that threshold is different for everyone and why some may give up after learning walk the dog and others don’t stop until they have won several yoyo contents at the national or world level.
P.S. First Post to the forum after lurking for months.
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welcome back
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I don’t put a lot focus on learning new tricks on unresponsive yoyos. The majority of my trick learning is focused on 0a. Also like others I have other hobbies that take up my time on top of having a family and working 60 hours a week. So I guess I do still learn new tricks but it’s not the focus of my yoyoing. When go into a session it’s mainly to zone out and relax.
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I grind the tricks that I know a lot to get it smooth and consistent, so I take absolutely forever to learn one trick. Some of the more difficult tricks like Eli Hops and horizontal takes me months to get right, and I’m still grinding Eli Hops and horizontal. I also tend to make sure I get one trick done before moving on to something else, which means I won’t learn something new while grinding a trick. Because of this, I’m not playing as much because grinding the same thing over and over again isn’t all that fun. So yeah, a bit of a negative cycle that keeps me from learning tricks.
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I like elements that I can use on the fly, what Jeremy of Rain City was doing in his one take tutorials.
Used to be more trick oriented, somehow my attention span is not wired for it anymore.
Some tricks are so short, I would call them an element. Example, “Gentrified” which I haven’t thought of in years. I realize this is all subjective, what is a trick, what is an element,
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Very accurate assessment
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I haven’t read all the replies, so this may be reiterating someone else, but:
I’m still learning new tricks, but I’ve definitely slowed down and it’s become harder. The main challenge is time. The initial tricks I learned all went relatively quickly, sometimes 2 or 3 or day. Now that I’ve moved on to harder tricks, they take more time to learn and smooth out. I’m at the point where I’m learning half or a third of a trick one day, and having to learn the rest on successive days. That can sap my motivation if I’m not careful.
Another issue with time is finding tricks to learn. Once you get through the trick ladders on the various sites / YouTube playlists, you need to start hunting down trick videos. And then, there are fewer tutorials. So learning a trick from a video that isn’t meant to be a tutorial takes even longer.
I’m still working at it, but I can see that, for someone that this is just a hobby, just working through what they know and smoothing out as much as possible, or just using it as a meditative / calming activity, could be preferable to the frustration of feeling that they’re not progressing as quickly as before.
And for people who will inevitably mention “you just have to put the time in”: everyone has different responsibilities in their lives and this isn’t the only hobby everyone has. Those people are likely using that time to progress in other hobbies and are content to have accomplished what they have thus far in yoyo-ing.
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Anyone that is yoyoing is learning. Maybe the tricks aren’t new to them but they are becoming more practiced with what they know. That’s good!
Some people are motivated by competition. You better have something new! Others, yoyo totally for themselves and are self competitive or not competitive at all. All of this is good!
Some find the progress rewarding in yoyoing and measure it by the number of tricks they learn each week. This isn’t the only way to measure progress though. However you measure progress, it’s good!
Some are always watching videos and trying to emulate their favorite pro, others just want to spend time with a yoyo and their own thoughts.
Sometimes life slaps you in the face in a big way! This can encourage you to yoyo more, less, learn something new (distraction from problems), or fall into doing tricks you know super well.
Only incredibly awesome, fun people, that aren’t afraid to try something different pick up yoyos and they all do it for their own reasons. That’s perfection! At the end of the day does the number of newly learned tricks really matter? Maybe, maybe not!
Have you ever wondered how many tricks you have forgotten?
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I keep see this thread on the front page of the forums. I love it. Some good discussion, and it has me inspired to actually learn something new this week.
@anon14765792 Definitely go with the Butterfly XT. It’s a good weight, low cost, and (most importantly) consistent. I’ve owned a few Legend Wings in the past few years, and while it is iconic and readily available, they do have consistency issues with weight, balance, and quality. Pick one up eventually, but for learning the XT seems like a better choice.
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Yes. I don’t even know that many and I have trouble remembering everything. I started writing them down in a notepad to help keep track.
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