Somebody once said that everything looks cooler in slow motion. So I put that to the test.
I took something that already looks cool (at least, I think it looks cool) and put it in slow motion. I recorded myself yoyoing in 120fps and slowed it down by 4 times just for your entertainment (and mine).
I have been yoyoing for 5 years now (on and off mostly). I’m no stranger to performing in front of a crowd but I mostly do it for my own amusement. I can safely say that yoyoing is not big in New Zealand. There aren’t a whole lot of stores that sell yoyos and there aren’t a whole lot of people who yoyo. I have never actually seen myself yoyo until now and I am pretty pleased with what it looks like.
Yoyoing is quite competitive around the world. It is broken up into several classes. The class that I mostly work with is called 1A which involves using one yoyo and doing tricks that mainly consist of landing the yoyo back on the string. The video also has a flavor of 4A in which the yoyo is not attached to the string. This is a relatively new style of yoyoing for me and I have a long way to go.
Yoyoing is a lot of fun and a lot of frustration. First you start with yoyos that just simply go up and down. This is a pretty good place to get the general feel of controlling something spinning at the end of string.
Then you move on to something more interesting. You go into the yoyos that can “sleep”. You throw these yoyos and they will stay spinning at the end of the string until you give it a light tug. This starts getting a bit tough but its all very much doable. The only frustrating thing about this stage is having to wind up the yoyo when you mess up or having to undo knots on the string.
Finally, you get into the world of unresponsive yoyos. These are yoyos that don’t back up to your hand easily. This is where things a lot more interesting and a lot more frustrating. I spent two weeks just learning how to throw a yoyo and then get it back up to my hand. I almost gave up at this point. But with time and practice, it happened. Then I spent the next two weeks learning how to start a dead yoyo without winding up the string manually. Once you get this far, there is no turning back. Keep at it and everything will happen in its due time!
Somebody once said that everything looks cooler in slow motion. There are tricks that I perform that to me “just happen”. I don’t think about it; it’s all a muscle memory and the yoyo sort of just does its thing while I do mine. So sit back, relax, and be mesmerized by a yoyo.