I started in around '98 when Twix/Skittles were doing their big marketing thing over here in the Netherlands. Picked up a Skittles branded Russell with a wooden axle for like…$2 at a candy store.
Played with that until the string broke one day and the axle along with it.
Bought another one…same thing happened.
And another one…
The one day I was in the city centre and the candy store had some yoyo pros who did a little beginnen contest. I won that and one a “golden” yoyo that had not a wooden…but steel axle
Some time later I bought a Yomega Saber Raider in a local skate shop (couldn’t believe I paid like $25 for a damn yoyo lol).
Played that thing off and on for a few years. But life was busy and new yoyo tricks and people to yoyo with were hard to find.
20 years later my daughter dug up my saber raider and asked me for tricks. I showed her some and decided to check out the current yoyo scene/market online…
I had a normal interest in yoing after seeing the Smothers Bros shows, then when I found the Dennis McBride vids on VHS, that kicked it up quite a few notches, until I hit that fixed axle level of being able to do enough to amuse myself, but not knowing any other players or anything about new goings on.
Then I stumbled upon How To Be A Player, and that pushed me over the edge into the yo-yo, spin top, juggling mess I find myself in now.
saw the Ben Conde x Veritasium - stringless yoyo video in 2016,
Thought it looked rad so bought a velocity and started learning the basics string tricks,
the rest is history
the brandon vu videos also really made it seem cool and helped keep the enthusiasm up
I was in New Orleans and I was at a gift shop and I saw a bimetal yoyo for around 45 dollars I asked my parents if I can buy it and they said no because it was to expensive so instead we bought one of the crappy yoyos in the back of like 2 dollars and here I am one year later using my 75 dollar yoyo attempting fricking godspeed
When I was about 10 I finally figured out how to just make a Duncan imperial work. up and down. it was always incredibly frustrating to me initially. but i slowly started to get the hang of it. I started messing around with yoyos more in the early 90’s after the yomega brain became a popular thing and I realized it offered more spin time over fixed axles. i then found raiders and saber raiders, turbo bumblebees, etc. and by highschool when the boom hit full force I had the most tricks of anyone I came across ( I could rock the baby from trapeze, and had a barrel roll to brain twister to rock the baby combo which most thought was impressive at the time). it was mostly a fad for the majority of kids in school so they were not heavily invested in learning harder tricks. but for me there were not a lot of readily available sources for new tricks beyond triple or nothing, and spit the atom, etc. i wasn’t all that into front style tricks and could not figure out looping… Later around 2000 i found sector -y and Doc Pops experiment 004 video. that’s when i realized that there was infinite possibility, that tricks could have flow, and I wanted to do THAT. I took a long break from it in the mid 2000s because I hit a wall with wrist mount and magic drop and simply could not keep up, but I’ve been back at it since 2021 and have learned a lot of cool stuff since. i never should have stopped playing.
For me it’s Hajime Miura 2015 and a friend doing 3A ninja vanish on a Chinese website. After that it’s mainly Minato, Hajime, Daisuke, Hiroki, Patrick, Chak-Wing, Zihao, and some other I temporarily forgot.
Honestly same story for me, but it took a little 2 years after to finally purchase my first OD and get fully into yo-yoing since, S A M E I didn’t have the money for one. Such good memories
Fellow terraria fans spotted! I also found YoYos from terraria, but on pure accident. I was looking up the Terrarian (the Terraria one) and went to images (I thought it looked awesome), scrolled down a bit, and found the terrrarian (the OD one)! One thing led to another, I picked up a yo-yo, and now I’m here!
1992 I was in the Navy stationed in Coranado Island, San Diego exploring a new city. I was in the community of Hill Crest on the main land of San Diego. While eating lunch at a theme hamburger restaurant place. A guy dressed as 1950’s soda jerk was throwing a SB2 yo-yo. That was it for me, the search was on.
When I was a kid it was Tommy Smothers on TV Saturday mornings. Modern day it was seeing @Alex_Hattori do the DNA while I was watching battlebots with my son. I hadn’t thrown a yoyo in fifty years and I was absolutely blown away.
Duuude. I have a very similar story, the second half. We too, moved into our new house just over a year ago. Saw my collection and got hooked again. After not really throwing since about 2012. Went to pnwr this year and saw Aliyah’s 3a… and got hooked on 3a.
My real start was around 2006ish. Watching a cheesy dating show on MTV called Next. Some dude on there was trying to impress the girl with his yoyo. The trick he did, i don’t remember, maybe a skin the gerbil type. Either way i looked up yoyos and came across the worlds freestyles. Mickey blew my mind of course. Bought a speed maker from yoyonation as soon as i could. Then found a duncan butterfly and i remember just practicing trying to hit trapeze with a dead yoyo for a few days while i waited for the speed maker. It was yellow.
Found jake bullocks 2nd place freestyle maybe just a dew days after and quickly got a FHZ, which came with that mini dvd and… here were are.
