I was gifted a duncan butterfly from my moms friend when i was like 6. My pop showed me some looping and picture tricks, and i thought that was all yoyoing had to offer at first. Afew years later i saw some videos on youtube of some of the competitions and was blown away. Went out and got myself an unresponsive yoyo the very next day and havent stopped practicing since.
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I bought a 3 dollar yoyo from hobby lobby. I naturally already knew how to throw and catch it and started “making up” tricks like “around the world” ( no videos). Then, it broke. Both the string and the yoyo… I returned it ( got my three bucks back!) and didn’t get another one for months. Finally I bought a Duncan Butterfly from Walmart. I started to learn some tricks, and then, the string snapped. So I tied to use yarn…
So I returned that one too. I then bought a dale Oliver tiger shark from amazon. While I waited I tied a string to a toy so I could practice my picture tricks. When I got my tiger shark, I finally started to
learn tricks up to brain twister.
Then I had another problem, the yoyo stopped coming up. So we looked it up and it said to lube the bearing. So we tried Vaseline, it didn’t work.
So I finally bought a yotricks sage with lube and strings. There my journey begun.
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Dazzling Dave (Dave Schulte, National Yoyo Master) came to my school in 6th grade for a yoyo show. Everyone had yoyos for a couple of weeks. Most people forgot about it, but I stuck with it. Turns out we had a local yoyo store called Air Traffic where there were “yoyo nights” where you could go and learn a trick or something. I went to one of those and learned about unresponsives, got one, learned how to bind and do mach 5, and yeah, I was hooked.
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Wow. I didnt even know physical yoyo specialty shops existed lol
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A yoyo demonstrator came to my school as well (may have been Dazzling Dave, but not sure). This was back in elementary school. I was inspired so I bought a profly, speed beetle, and FHZ over the course of about a year. Played with them all the time until the FHZ friction stickers died (I didn’t know they were replaceable). Fast forward about 12-15 years later and I found my old speed beetle while going through some things. Now after discovering this community, I’ve rekindled my love for yoyos.
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Yoyo demonstrators came to my school in 8th grade. They were called the NED show. They performed picture tricks and trapeze kind of stuff. I remember buying a yoyo from them and a trick DVD, and I have been playing ever since. 
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Video of Evan Nagao’s 2018 Nats winning freestyle.
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After learning my first few tricks I remember how good it felt to do them and I got this intense drive to become the best player I could be. It has taken me years but I think I am at a point where I am confident enough to say that I am great yoyoer who is capable putting down bangers in front of people who watch me. 
The obsession then is the same as it is now. For yoyoers the passion never really goes away. I love that I have yoyoing in my life and I could not imagine my life without picking up a yoyo!
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Me too, lol. I stumbled across this video while on a youtube binge, and was absolutely blown away with how far yoyos have come since I played with cheap brain yoyos during the 90s boom. I learned about metal unresponsive yoyos and had to get just one. My plan was to buy a decent one and learn enough tricks to have as much fun as it looked like Evan was having in his video. I had no idea how deeply I would delve into the hobby at the time, but at this point im pretty sure that ill yoyo for the rest of my life now.
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This topic is such an awesome idea!
This is the kind of story I want to read about every member. 
For me, it was last November when we went to an arcade with a group of friends and we decided to all « win » one of these super cheap yoyos that don’t even sleep as a souvenir.
I had lots of fun just throwing it like a total noob, palm facing down, getting a bit frustrated that the string loop was too wide for my finger, etc…
Then came December and I was getting curious about how yoyos worked. What I thought would be watching just a simple video ended up spending hours watching youtube, I was so surprised that not only I was throwing it wrong but that I was supposed to make a slipknot with the loop.
I also discovered that the yoyo community was genuinely wholesome and welcoming.
I ended up ordering a YYF One early this year and a couple days later a Y01 Node. When I threw my Node for the first time is when I’d say I was 100% hooked and ready to go deep into this hobby.
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Yes, exactly the same with me! Except I hadn’t played with a yoyo since the late '70s when the ProYo was the yoyo to get. My plan was the same as yours, and now I’m buried under a mountain of yoyos!
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I just graduated college and returned from 7 months travel in Israel. I had 3 months before grad school, i was at a house party with a group of friends, in the was someone i never met before. His name is Matt. He looked as bored as i was when he got up went to a open space in the room and started throwing. I was blown away. I asked him what he was doing… he pulled out a second yoyo, that was my first lesson and that’s was it… the next day i went to toys r us got a yomega Firestarter and raider. I still have them. For the next 3 months i hung out with Matt multiple times a week till i had to go to grad school. Best party ive ever been to as i recall. Im still friends with Matt and throw with him when we get together.
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I was handed a yoyo. Yep, that’s the entire story.
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My friends and I played around a bit during the 90s craze but nothing serious. I was cleaning my house before a move and found an old Fireball which gave me an immediate sense of joy and nostalgia. I took it to work the next day to play with during my down time and one guy was able to rock the baby which I had completely forgotten, but remembered doing back in the day. Not wanting to be shown up on my own toy, I googled “yoyo trick tutorial” and haven’t missed a day since.
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Not just for yoyos. It was a store for a variety of hobbies, games and skill toys
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I beat the Halo 3 beta and turned off the xbox at my friend’s house. When we switched inputs back to cable some kid was SHREDDING it on stage with a yoyo. I assume some sort of WYYC footage but I have no clue. It was 2am. We hopped up and went to Walmart and bought butterflys. The next day found out about ball bearings and went to Target and got some mosquitos. learned everything possible with that level throw while doing paid surveys online saving up my earnings for my first real throw. Bought an Iron Man Wooly Marmot with $120 worth of survey money that I made probably in a months time. Found out about the local yoyo club in MO called MOYO. Went, the rest is history baby.
Happy throwing
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Not my first exposure to yoyoing but certainly the first time I had my mind blown by it. 
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my dad and my best friends parents worked at the same church and we are both homeschooled so on Wednesday from around 12 till 9 we would go to the church and before church started we would always try to find something to do and it only took some time before we found some crapy Yoyos in the church and then our Sunday school teacher at the time should us walk the dog and rock the baby. The next week my best friend came to church with a yomaga brain and I got hooked, I got an N11 and for a few months I threw but I got bored of it because I could not learn any tricks, but then I moved to NC when I was 13 and a half and one day I got bored so I decided to pick up my N11 and start throwing to pass time. The next thing I knew was that I was in love with the sport of yoyoing and now im here 2 years later.
a very long story but worth it
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went to my cousins’ cousins house (in feb 2016) (not related in any way shape or form by blood) they had an old old old wooden yoyo, did sum cool stuff bought a butterfly xt (this wuz back in 2016 i was around 8 at the time) i stood on a bench cuz i didnt know how to make a knot or a slip knot, then bought a F.A.S.T. 201 then about 3 months after i went to hawaii and met a guy at the mall (around 16 yrs old) he yoyoed which wuz cool, i asked him to do a gyroscopic flop (he now knew i yoyoed 
) uh then i got ok and i was able to do sum stuff up to a whip to kamakaze, then quit in december same year, then 3 years later i get back into it a week b4 quarantine yay!
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Tommy Smothers
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