When the competitor’s yoyo stops spinning they need to restart their yoyo which will give them a major deduction. But when they fail to rewind their yoyo successfully so that they have to rewind it again they will get another major deduction for it.
My idea is that only the first attempt of restarting your yoyo should give you a major deduction. So when your yoyo dies you will always only get one major deduction for it no matter how often you attempt to restart your yoyo. If you fail to rewind your yoyo successfully for a second or third time you should only be given one minus point as if you had failed a regular trick.
Or in other words: Only give major deductions for when the yoyo stops spinning at the end of the string and not major deductions for trying to make it spin again.
The reason why I’m thinking this is because when I see amateur yoyo players compete on stage and their yoyo stops spinning they will try to snap start it, but because of how hectic they are they are unable to return the yoyo successfully to their hand so that they have to snap start it again. They will get 2 major deductions for it as if their performance was interrupted two times when in reality it was only interrupted once. I think that’s too harsh. This rule change wouldn’t affect competitive play among pros as failed snap starts are very rare for them, but it would make the rules less strict for beginners.
I think it’s fine as is, but I also don’t feel strongly about it either way.
If somebody who isn’t completely comfortable at snap starting goes for a snap start and misses it, that’s the same as a better player going for a flashier restart and missing it.
If the newer player wants to guarantee not getting a second major deduction then they should opt for a safer restart that they’re more confident at doing. Just like how a good player going for a flashy restart is intentionally taking the risk of missing it.
I guess you could make the argument that it being less punishing to go for flashy restarts would be an improvement though.
What you’ve said is a good workaround for this rule. “If you don’t want any extra major deduction then don’t fail at rewinding your yoyo”. But the issue that I have with it is that I think it’s unnecessary that you would give a competitor two or more major deductions because they failed their first attempt at restarting their yoyo.
This rule wasn’t always there. In 2011 when Marcus Koh won the 1A world champion title his yoyo died multiple times so that he had to restart it or replace it with another yoyo. But there were no major deductions for this yet. After this the rule was made that if you restart your yoyo you will get a major deduction for it (but I don’t know if the rule was made specifically because of Marcus but that’s irrelevant).
Why would you say the rule was made? I would say it was made because it looks really bad when your yoyo stops spinning so that you have to restart it. It’s not fair to put a yoyo dying on the bottom of the string and a regular failed trick element on the same level. A yoyo dying is so much worse which is why it should be punished more than just failing a trick. Without a rule change that addresses this there would have been more contest winners who try extremely risky tricks, then get many points for it without being properly punished for when their yoyo died because of their insane tricks.
If your response to that question would be the same as mine then why would you implement a rule change that punishes the restart of the yoyo instead of the yoyo coming to a stop? Trying a snap start, or a bind (the slow bind trick that you do with a dead yoyo), or whatever methods there are to restart a yoyo, is just another trick element in my opinion (that shouldn’t give you plus points tho in your tech evaluation) and if you fail it you have only failed yet another trick that should get punished as such and not with a major deduction.
The rule change definitely solved the issue of competitors being able to win a contest while also having to restart or replace their yoyos multiple times. The rule as it is is not even an issue for good competitors because like you said avoiding extra major deduction is honestly not that hard. But I feel like it could have been solved better. I don’t understand what’s so bad about a failed snap start that it should give you yet another major deduction.
If you fail to restart your yoyo you will get judged for it as if you had interrupted your performance in two separate occasions when in reality it only got interrupted once. I don’t think that’s fair.
That too haha, I didn’t think of that. It would also open the possibility of starting your performance with a dead yoyo. Like a 2A player having 2 dead yoyos and then starting their performance with a cool move to get them spinning.
I think about Futoshi Maruyama’s signature 4A restart a lot.
I definitely understand your points, just since I haven’t personally competed yet, I don’t have any real opinion on this subject. Just an understanding of the logic for why it is the way it is.
I feel like rules changes are only really up for debate by people who actively engage with them (ie people who actually compete)
Yeah I get that. It was just an idea that I wanted to suggest here. But I think it’s fair for non competitors to discuss rules too. Like in football football fans like to discuss stuff like video assisted referee (VAR) vs no VAR all the time and I think that discussion is fair too even tho they’re not pro footballers themselves.
