Right, so. As a gift, I was given a handsome wooden yo-yo. I’ve been having a lot of fun with it, but I’m not so good at the tricks, and need some really specific help on a few things.
I haven’t found a reliable way to make the darn thing sleep (stall, stay down, whatever) yet. I know, in theory, that you sort of cushion the throw, but I honestly don’t know how to go about this.
Because I can’t do that, I can’t do most of the cool tricks. As a last resort, do any of you know any tricks that I can do without knowing how to stall?
And finally, any nifty things that I should know? Shower me with your yo-yo knowledge!
Not sure if this is considered a trick, but… Instead of starting with your palm up and snaping the yoyo down, start with your palm down and snap the yoyo up/out somewhere between horizantal 45 degrees above horizantal. When it get’s to the end of the line pull it back in. I"m not sure if that’s a “trick” but it’s kinda cool. Other then that try doing the same thing, but as your snaping it up/out, continue your hand in the up/out motion and go in 260 degree circle, with practice you can do an “around the world.”
Unless you can get it to sleep, you’re limited to loop tricks which basically amount to whipping the yo-yo around your hand when it comes back up and sending it down again instead of catching it.
There’s a lot of reasons why your yo-yo might not sleep. You may not have the wrist motion down, there could be a knot in the string around the axle, the string could be too tight, or the inside edges of the yo-yo could be too close together or too rough (if it’s wood).
Try letting the yo-yo drop to the end of the string and just letting it dangle in the air until it stops spinning around. This will ensure the string isn’t too tight. Then try and sleep it… if it still won’t sleep, visually inspect the string and the axle. Notice that while the string is made up of two strands twined together, there should only be a single strand encircling the axle (and no knots anywhere except next to your finger!).
Sadly, many yo-yos are more iconic than they are actually usable as toys. If you really want to do tricks, do a Google search for “Turbo Bumblebee” or “Custom Reactor.” Those are a couple of my favorite high-quality transaxle yo-yos. They run about $20-30 a pop, but hey… you’re worth it.
Any of the Duncans should work fine, too. When I was a kid I used to do all sorts of the staple tricks (Walk the Dog, Rock the Baby, Round the World, etc…) using any of their models. I found their Imperial model the best. The Butterfly models were also nice, but the Mondial is the one for serious yo-yoists. I’d recommend the Imperial to start on.
Hazel-rah’s got your problems down. Many yo-yos I’ve seen these days are complete crap, and are even TIED AT THE AXLE! WTF is the point of this? If this is not the case, then the string itself is too twisty (unwind using hazel’s method.)
A proper “around the world” requires your yo-yo to sleep. You flip it out with your hand, and rotate your wrist (maybe your arm as well) a fell 360 degrees. The yo-yo should be at the end of the string the whole time. You give the yo-yo a slight snap with your wrist at the end of the full turn, and it returns to your hands.
Most of the cool yo-yo tricks require your yo-yo to sleep, unfortunately. The easiest trick to start with is “walking the dog.”
The key to sleeping (assuming you have a yo-yo that can) is to relax your hand as the yo-yo reaches the bottom of its movement. A yo-yo tends to stay down if you don’t jerk it up, so if you keep your hand loose and relaxed, the yo-yo will sleep.
Also, attach the yo-yo to the middle finger, on the fingertip just behind the nail and in front of the first knuckle nearest the nail. Gives you better control.
FoxFireGrrl, check the string where it winds around the axle on the Yo-Yo. If it’s tied there, the thing won’t sleep (walk-the-dog, etc) The string should loop around the axle with no knots, and you should be able to spin the yo-yo without the string catching the axle.
Also, this may be very simple, but when I was starting out yo-yoing, I didn’t know how to correctly tie the yo-yo around my finger. Anyhow, you tie a loop at the end of the string. Now, you don’t put your finger through this loop (as I thought when I was a kid.) instead you feed some of the string through the loop and put your finger through this. Thereby, you will always get a perfect fit for your finger. Make sense?
