I have a bit of the old school story. I’m 30 and have been using a yoyo in some way since early childhood. I had the wood yoyo from the Klutz yoyo book and learned everything that’s on the beginner list here on a solid wood fixed axle with almost no freakin’ gap, including trapeze. High school was when the late 90’s fad hit and some friends had things like fireballs and bumblebees. The idea of something that required response stickers and cost 30 bucks seemed a bit too much, so I got a fireball. Learned to do Splitting the Atom, got real profiecient at trapeze and started learning double or nothing. Kinda lost it due to time commitments, but randomly picked it up every couple of years to confirm that I could still do the same old tricks. Then 8 years went by and I purchased a velocity a month ago after doing some searches into yoyos and learning that there was such a thing as unresponsive yoyos and binding, which was not on my radar previously. Was looking into some former hobbies and interests because I’m a true geek like that. Now I can combine Matrix, Buddha’s Revenge, Rewind, and Mcbride Rollercoaster in a longer combo and am starting to be proficient at basic whips. So. Much. Fun…
I started with yoyo’s i got for christmas… broke them all. Got more here and there… broke them all. Saw someone do some sweet tricks, so I bought a butterfly and did some tricks with it and was hooked… then i broke it lol then got a dark magic 2 and learned more stuff til I gave myself a black eye (tried to bind with the responsive bearingXD worked ! right into my eye), then I put it down for a year then picked it back up one day when I was cleaning my room and got really into it again and still am. 
You didnt break the dm2? XD
I first tried to yoyo at age six. EPIC FAIL. It just fell to the floor. Fast forward 10 years. I move to small town Alabama. Get super bored. While visiting the capital I swing by toys r us. They have a yoyo section. Mostly Duncan’s and Yomegas. I begged my mom for a super cool looking Xodus 2. Watched to instructional DVD and here I am. Mom still thinks Xodus 2’s the best yoyo ever lol.
Nope! well broke the caps off so I could thumb gring haha I mean the other yoyo’s I played weren’t very high quality. But I’d try to widen the gap to get longer spin times, but that didn’t work out so well lol.
Yoyopeople were performing at my local library. Needlass to say, I was hooked instantly :). I started off with a yomega maverick, then went on to a raider, fireball, then my first advanced, the dm2. After that, when i got my dv888, I went to my first contest at the 2011 MA States. BEST. DAY. EVER! At christmas time, my cousin got me one of those beyblade things, and I took a 9 month break from throwing. once I got back into it, in October, I went on and kept at it! So glad that I did! To this day, I yoyo and I get better with every bind 
What part of Alabama did you move to? Still down here?