My first yo-yo was a Duncan Imperial and Duncan Butterfly, I bought them together. The “Big Bang” of yo-yo’s hit our school, and EVERYONE had a yo-yo. My first “real” yo-yo was my DM.
My story, beyond my first yoyo!- My friend brought his Imperial to school and I tried it and I just got hooked so he gave it to me then my dog chewed it up… man you guys shoulda seen my reaction. I was like BLAHHHH! and GAHHHHHHH!!! and yelling at my dog and stuff. But then my mom took me to Wal-Mart to get a new Imperial but I wanted to get a ball bearing one because it sounded cool(lol) so I got a Mosquito and it was so cool at the time. I was happy. 
I learned most beginner tricks on that then I got a Speedmaker. Speedmaker was like the yoyo from heaven after playing with that Mosquito for 2 weeks. Heehee. I went through the Intermediate tricks with that(lol-Samad went through beginner and intermediate with a Speedle-I couldn’t do all the beginner with a Mosquito.) So, I went through the Intermediate level tricks with my Speedmaker, got to Matrix, and realized it was too responsive for those long tricks. It just kept responding in the middle of my tricks by surprise. Well at least I have tougher knuckles now… lol. And no, I didn’t have thin lube at the time to make it less responsive. So, I decided I needed something less responsive, so I went with a Speeder. I didn’t want a DM, because my friend had one and it doesn’t really appeal to me. So, I love my Speeder, and I am all big and happy. Whee the end. Got to go eat dinner bye.
a legacy dm and dv888
Fast 201.
Hmm first yoyo that i can recall buying was a coke yoyo… I think there were 3 differnt ones coke sprite and fanta. They were made very much like the fast eddies of today… by russel. Under the cap was a trick to learn. I remember drinking alot of coke to get all 36 tricks? I think the hardest trick back then was hmm… shoot the moon?
My brother had a lacrosse game at Chico and he lost. It was a 3 hour drive so we toured the town. Lo and behold we stumbled upon Bird and Hand. I got a Yomega Brain Chico Nationals edition. Soon after I “graduated” to a fireball and finally a Raider, with no improvement whatsoever. Kinda was on/off for three years and at a robotics competition, people watched me yo-yo and some kid there showed me Braintwister, directed me to yoyoexpert.com, and yeah.
IF THE GUY FROM THAT SHOWED ME WITH THE BRAINTWISTER TRICK AT FRC IS READING THIS THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!
my friend left his duncan reflex at my house and i played with it i could not make it sleep for more the a second lol but the was my first throw with a yoyo ever was like look i can do a sleeper it was fun i so i got a duncan dragon fly it was pretty good it sleeped for like 5 seconds not too bad then i was like i need a new yoyo then i got a yomega hot shot sleeps for like 15 seconds good yoyo i learnd the trapeze brain twister rock the baby all the basic stuff like that now my newest yoyo is the yyf protostar and thats the epic tale of how i got into yoyoing ;D
Duncan Butterfly.
I got a proyo when I was three. I could make it go down and half way up the string. In second grade this guy (Jake Willis if you must know) Came to our school as a sub. I was amazed by the tricks he did. I picked up an Imperial and couldn’t do anything exept mabey make it sleep. I did it a little in third grade but didn’t get “hooked” until that summer.
It was a swirly yoyo I got in 5th Grade.
My teacher would give us 2 stickers for everyday we were good in class (I know, its stupid)
And each friday, there was some boxes with candy, little toys, and treats, that costed us stickers. Well I spent like 50 stickers to get a swirly designed yoyo. haha, then I just got hooked. xD
I got my first yoyo in 2006 at age 6 or 7 at the FAST challenge in Singapore. It was handed to me by Steve Brown. At first, when my mom saw him she was like," Nice mohawk. Teenagers these days." Then we talked to him and he was so nice. He ended up handing me my FAST 201. It was awesome. 
hmmm…let me think back a year ago…lol
october…last year…get the swine flu…bored…pick up mosquito…go to youtube…type in “yoyo tricks”…rest is history:)
My first was in 1978, a white Duncan Imperial. WOOD. Wood body, wood axle I think as well. I could be wrong, but the body was wood, I know that much. The “hot toy”, all the kids had one. So, now I had one too. I can’t recall if it was my birthday or Christmas as those days are close together, but it doesn’t matter. It was probably Christmas. “give him close for birthday, make up with cool stuff on Christmas”.
So, there it was. Seen yoyos on TV, thought it was cool and amazing. Now I had one. Couldn’t sleep it, couldn’t gravity pull it back. In fact, I couldn’t even throw it right, which was a HUGE part of my problem at 7 years old. Asking for help wasn’t working either, as nobody would give me any help. I tried though.
I was a yoyo failure. I know because my parents told me so. I was apparently the only kid on the block who couldn’t yoyo, which was strange because I knew the other kids on the block and nobody had one, or at least wouldn’t admit to it.
So frustrating. Throwing palm down as hard as I could, went down and would come MOST of the way up, but that means “a tad more than halfway” was the best I could do. Tricks were impossible. Well, I could do “around the world” but it was more of a “sling it in a circle”. That wasn’t very satisfying because I couldn’t do it like on TV.
Finally, the string broke some months later. Wore out. I was yelled at for breaking my toys. If it was a wood axle, it’s amazing the string even lasted that long. Maybe I tied it to fix it a few times. I can’t recall. Either way, I caught hell for it. Yoyo was taken away and yoyo was GONE from my life. Well, not really. Still liked to see it on TV. Still wanted to learn it, but was rather off-put by my previous experience. Never stopped liking yoyo. Don’t know why, but does it even matter? The early negative didn’t kill my interest.
Fast forward to 2011. May. I’m a grown man, I can buy my own toys! And I did. My second yoyo was a Duncan Reflex and my third(bought at the same time) was a Duncan Imperial(gotta get back on that horse). Success with the Reflex. Big deal, right? It’s a clutch. Success with the Imperial. That’s REAL!! This just proved “Yes, I can do this, so now I can follow this yoyo hobby at last” after proving some really basic stuff to myself.
4th yoyo: Dark Magic II. Yeah, I got me a real yoyo now!
Kinda wish I had the original Duncan back. Oh well. What’s gone is gone. Nobody is taking my DM2 away this time and I’ve broken a bunch of strings. So there!
Oh, and special thanks to the internet, especially YYE for simultaneously educating and confusing me. This was supposed to be a simple toy. No, we couldn’t leave well enough alone, could we?
I really forget the name of my yoyo, I think it has looping shape, slept about 5 second. I think it is a super yoyo and I never saw it again
a yomega brain then i got a throw monkey for Christmas or my birthday and then i quit.
My first unresponsive throw was a velocity i got it in March this year.
Coke, Sprite & Fanta Russell yoyos during a promotion in 1994 or 1995.
one of those cruddy yoyo balls. ;D
I spent a lot of my time with my Grandmother when I was quite young. She had grown up in difficult times and yet still manages to have the freshest perspective on the world. I degress, as a child she learned how to entertain herself and so she always had made her own toys and joys. So one day she tells me to come out to the garage with her. She cuts out several small circles of wood and without measuring puts a hole through the center of each and then connects the halfs with a dowel. Now the cool thing is they’re adjustable gap! Yep you put a longer piece of dowel through the holes than you need and then push and pull the halves together.
Heck we could have sharpened the ends and had spikes! Anyway of course she just made a slip knot and put it around the axle. Then she quickly cut out the shapes of many vehicles, out of thin plywood, that had a notch for where the wheels should be. this notch fit over the dowel that connected the halves of the yo. So it was a yo and several cars and trucks.
Then came my first purchased yoyo, red Duncan Imperial.
Gotta LOVE those grandparents!!!
duncan imperial -> duncan butterfly -> aerobie aerospin -> barebones, by dif-e-yo -> no need to search further…
mgodinez
sunrise…
I first had a speed beetle when I was 9 and stopped playing, then when I was 12 I got a maverick.