Slashdot Mirror
Extreme Yo-Yoing
Roland Piquepaille writes "Unless you're a dedicated yo-yo fan and a serious competitor, I doubt that you'll hand over $400 for a yo-yo. Even if it's a state-of-the-art hogh-tech yoyo made with a forged-magnesium-alloy and coming with the latest in axle technology. With this one, you can use the freehand style, meaning that your hand is not connected to the yo-yo, but is replaced by a small counterweight. In 'Reinventing the Yo-Yo,' Science News Online says 'its balance is ensured with precision tooling to micrometer tolerances by a computer-controlled lathe.' This long article doesn't solely focus on this luxury item. Instead, it looks at the history and the physics of the yo-yo, and includes many references. A good read for a weekend! This overview contains other details and extra references about the Freehand yo-yo."
Wow, that a nice yoyo. I have had good experience with the Yomega's before. It always seemed a lot smoother than a Duncan. I preferred using a bufferfly model at virst to get down the tricks, but the classic model is the way to eventually go. I could do lots of tricks at one time, but I could never do the dual tricks that required using a second yoyo with your left hand. BTW, a nice Yomega will set you back less than $20.
--
Retail Retreat
I'd be interested in seeing how many of these Duncan expects to sell. After all, professional yo-yoers are a pretty niche market as it is, and I'd expect the number of people willing to spend $400 on one to be even smaller.
As a notable public figure, I have to remain anonymous.
Due to some injuries with yo-yo fanatics in our school systems, we have decided as a whole to ban yo-yos in our state in public buildings; schools included.
Recently, a teacher had to have surgery done on her eye to fix a laceration caused by a yo-yo hitting her eye while a student was showing off in show in tell. It cost taxpayers $37,000 to repair the damage caused by an item no more than $4.
Yo-yos being banned here will set a precedent.
Highlights from the 2003 Japan National Yo-Yo Contest
Yo-yos have been around for millennia. Historians have found evidence in a painting on a Greek bowl from around 500 B.C., for example. No one knows whether it was the ancient Greeks or Chinese or someone else who invented this toy.
Really?? I have a very distinct memory of being first exposed to this "myth". Years ago when I was in elementary school, I was a fan of author Donald J. Sobol. In addition to the Encyclopedia Brown mysteries, he had also penned a book consisting of nothing but obscure trivia facts. There was one blurb declaring the yo-yo as being of polynesian origin - originally used as a hunting tool. There was a cartoon showing a little boy perched from the safty of a tree branch deploying a stone yo-yo at the snout of a wild boar. Now I'm wondering how this myth got started such that it made it's way into the awarness of my boyhood literary hero.
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
This new $400 yoyo that duncan are releasing isn't really designed for 'serious yoyo'ers', duncan made it purely so they could get lots of publicity (just like this article) for having the worlds most expensive retail yoyo. (and probably a world record aswell) They probably will produce just enough to give one to each of their competition team members, and enought that all the hardkore yoyo collectors to buy.
A few other notes:
all the major freestyle competition winners have used yoyo's such as duncans freehand1's (no longer in production) yoyojam hitmans's, yoyojam nightmoves etc etc - all yoyo's ranging from around 20-40bucks.
The most expensive yoyo's that any actual player would buy would probably be Dif-e-yo's (www.difeyo.com) - they are very very nice