More seriously, my origin story!
Also check out @DocPop’s origin story
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I originally got into yoyoing in the 70’s as a 2nd or 3rd grader when the fad came through my school. I got a Duncan Butterfly, which was the cool thing at the time, but like all fads the interest faded. About 30 years later I got into kite flying and building. On the kite forum, around 2005, someone posted a photo of a Cherry Bomb unscrewed with the bearing showing. I had only ever used a fixed axle Duncan, so I had to try out one of the new bearing yoyos, just to see what it was like. I ended up getting a YYJ Dark Magic and was hooked by the first successful bind.
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The gwtwforum is still there and the place that put me in touch with yoyos.
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Watched a movie at my house and a friend of my mom brought a yo-yo. I just liked throwing it around so I was like “I need this in my life,” and so I asked my mom to buy me one and the YYF Velocity turned out to be my first actual yo-yo.
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During the 90s yoyo boom, I was in primary school, and back then the clutch was king. I only had a simple generic wooden yoyo which resisted my efforts to come back to my hand nicely, unlike my friends yoyos with a clutch. So it never really caught on with me.
Fast forward 10ish years and I’m watching a program on TV called “Rude tube” which shows the most popular videos on YouTube at that time. Along comes a video of a young kid called Grant Johnson called “Stronger yoyo”, and he throws this yoyo and my mind was blown. It didn’t look like anything I had ever seen before. I couldn’t believe that this kid was doing these amazing tricks with a yoyo!
Shortly after this I bought the one which I consider to be my first yoyo: a Power-yo Black widow. It had a high walled V shaped profile with a starburst response and an adjustable gap, pretty nifty if you ask me. It also came with a trick CD which had some advanced but now simple tricks. I remember hitting my first trapeze on it, and it was so fun and satisfying! After a while I realise I needed to upgrade, so with a bit f research and after watching Andre teaching tricks on expertvillage, I treated myself to a Dark Magic, which opened so many trick doors to me.
Another 10 years on and I’m still throwing and loving it. I owe it all to that video of a young Grant Johnson showing what he could do with a yoyo. I’ll have to dig out that Black Widow sometime.
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