I know a few of you have some interesting stories about how you begun throwing so let’s have a moment and share.
I started in early fall a few years when I was young, I had always thought that i didnt have a special talent im not good at sport, or at playing instruments unlike my older siblings.i wanted to be like them but I just wasn’t able to. So one long ago I was at the mall my family and had cash to spend. I wandered in to a toy store and viewed many things but none struck my interest until I saw a large rotating pillar covered with Duncan yo-yos so I picked up a butterfly Xl and a freak hand. The following week I got hooked got pretty good but my throws managed to get smashed by a rather large bully. I was devastated and one day when my father got home he gave me a box that contained a Duncan echo and that’s where I got my start.
When i was younger I got a Duncan Imperial on easter day for many years… and my dad would usually end up playing with it.
after my parents divorced… I found one of them in my dresser when we moved. I hadn’t got one for several years at this point… I couldn’t yoyo at the time but I carried it in my pocked for several months after cause it connected me to dad. Somewhere along the way I figured out how to do the basic walk the dog, rock the baby, forward pass, etc…
fast forward many years… I now have a son… I guess as some point I had picked up some of the kids “toy” yoyo’s and used them. My son asked for a yoyo this last christmas and I picked it back up so I could teach him…
I started off with a duncan Imperial, but could not do anything but throw and catch cause it was tied to the string. After like 3 months, friend of mine came to the park with a yoyojam i forget, and we all loved it, so 5 people started throwing. me, modman10, yoyoboy224, and 2 others. my first yoyo that could sleep, was a yomega power brain xp wing, then a dragonfly, then a flying squerel, then a Dark magic 2 as my first unresponsive yoyo. That was all a year and a half ago. (about)
In fifth grade, i just wanted something to do. I picked up a fast 201 that i received as a party favor or something, and just took to throwing a sleeper. i showed a friend, who did rock the cradle. I FREAKED OUT. I quickly learned that, and trapeze, and a few basic tricks. then i quit. Two years later, i picked up a cheap metal yomega at a toy store. I brought it to a tennis camp that i was going to at the time, and some kid did a braintwister on it. I FREAKED OUT. i then just started learning, eventually trying out a northstar, and realizing the joys of unresponsive play, got myself a dm2. two years later, i am here.
1: 1977 I think. Maybe 1978. I think 1978 because of the house the “final incident” took place in.
I was given a yoyo for either my birthday or Christmas. The days are close together, so they often get merged. Either way, I think it was Christmas. A white, wood Duncan Imperial with gold artwork. The yoyo itself was “the hot toy” of that year for boys, long before this “Tickle Me Elmo” crap. Anyhow, long story short, I was ridiculed for not being able to use the yoyo. I tried for MONTHS with no success. My parents could at least throw and gravity pull it back, but nobody would show me even a basic throw. Wore out that string and kept tying knots in the bottom. Was caught one day re-tying the string, so clearly the yoyo was broken(in my parent’s day, they’d play until the string broke and then just trash the whole thing). and it was taken away.
Failure.
In May of 2011, that’s when I decided to try this again, after hurting my back moving heavy audio gear around yet again. I’d had a series of major back injuries in 2010 and 2011 already, and while I will never quit pro audio, I needed something else to do. I figured I’d start off with one of these clutch-types to ensure success getting started, so I bought a Duncan Reflex. To reinforce that, I bought a Duncan Imperial. I figured if that worked out, I’d get the Duncan Butterfly. Back when I first got the yoyo, the really good kids used the Butterfly. Well, a lot changed between 1978 and 2011, that’s for sure. Landed on YYE, did research, videos, learning, had a bit of an an information over-load and a small melt-down processing too much information too fast. The Butterfly was NOT my next purchase, a DM2 was. And that’s pretty much my real start.
Started in 2006, stopped in 2006 when I lost the Duncan Tournament that my grandpa bought.
Started again in August of 2010 on a proyo my mom got me while we were on vacation in South Haven, and just did around the worlds and pinwheels all day on the beach. My dad told me about a trick where you land the yo on the string and that blew my mind, so I looked it up and found Andre’s expert village tutorials on YouTube, and promptly bought a maverick and learned all those tricks, and moved on to 5A in January 2011 with a FHZ I bought. After a few weeks I bought a Hayabusa because I thought it was supposed to be some super cool 1A throw, but soon found out it was for offstring, and so I got decent at that, but still didn’t have a good throw for 1a so I just used the Hayabusa with one big spacer and one small spacer until May that year, when I got a DNA. I learned SOOOO much on that DNA, but then I got the urge to get more yos, so I asked for a Dietz for Christmas that year and got it. Single best choice I’ve made for a while, that yoyo got me farrr. I bought a Echo and Protostar in October 2011 and those were great too, but I hardly used the Echo cause I messed it up a tiny bit whole trying to remove the bearing. The next year was basically the best year for me in yoyoing. I got a Supernova and attended MER an even made finals, that was the day I said to myself “OWEN Y’ALL GOING PLACES WITH JOJOS SO TAKE IT SERIOUSLY” (Use your best black lady from the hail video on YouTube voice) and I did. I started making videos October that year and started going to yoyo club thar year, and I grew tons in terms of yoyoing that year, and even got the attention of a few companies. The next year I started stepping up my video game and made Below My Feet and that got a good reaction, so I thought I’d start making less videos but higher quality (Have I been doing a good job?) and then got a sponsor offer from Square Wheels in March when I made a audition video for DS and I gladly accepted.
Around 2008ish, someone gave away a yomega yo zone video. I took it and watched it and was blown away. Bought a bunch of junk yoyos, broke them, lost the pieces, made it to double or nothing and gave up. Last year in 2012, we went gift shopping for a friends birthday and the store had a Yomega maverick. I thought, “well heck, for 30 buck I can get a metal yoyo!” but I didn’t have any money then. I saved up, and bought a dv888. When I got it, I threw it and it didn’t come up. Looked up how to bind, got it in an hour, then learned my first tricks again: the Matrix and Plastic whip. Fast foward to now, still yoyoing and having fun.
Ah, I remember when I was a little kid, like 6-8 years old whenever I went to my cousin’s house they had this cheap dollar store wooden yoyo and I would love to do gravity pull on it I didn’t know that you could do anything more than walk the dog at that point. But I just loved to do gravity pull on that thing haha. Just wanted to point that out
Ok, so the first real yoyo I ever got was a yomega fireball. So I was 10, my parents and I were going Christmas shopping, when we were about to leave I saw a rack filled with duncans and yomegas, I instantly wanted one, so I told my parents. I saw that the cheapest one was the yomega fireball at $8 and I was like WOW, THATS EXPENSIVE FOR A YOYO!! haha, because I didn’t know anything beyond walk the dog as I said. I saw a few yoyos in the $20s too but I thought $8 was too much already as it is so I just asked my parents for that one. They thought it was expensive too xD but they got it for me. So it came with the yomega trick books, I started flipping through it. I learned how to properly do gravity pull, sleeper, and forward pass. So I did that for a bit and that was all I knew, I lost the yoyo a bit later…
3 years later, I found it. It was November last year. I found my fireball! So I started off again. I started looking for yoyo tricks to learn online and I found this website, I thought it was perfect. I loved how the tutorials were set up by skill levels and build off one another so I started here. First instinct, I looked at the last trick on the list, White Buddha! I thought it was insane and I would never learn it… I still haven’t but I’ll get it soon enough, I already know And Whut from the master section. So… back to the story… I quickly learned most of the beginner level tricks. Then, on to intermediate, time to really learn 1a. But… I was inable to learn trapeze with my yomega and after a ton of practice, I could only land it 5% of the time… I tried and i tried but I couldn’t get it. Then… a week before Christmas, my friend gave me an early Christmas present… A yoyofactory One and a yomega hyperwarp heavy wing! I was stoked, I learned trapeze pretty quickly after that… Eventually learned most of the intermediate tricks after that. That’s pretty much where it all started ;D
And now, here I am, Ive learned most of the tricks on this site and then some. 4 months in, still growing, still learning
I didn’t know that you could do anything more than walk the dog at that point. But I just loved to do gravity pull on that thing haha. Just wanted to point that out 