Ok…I doubt it. I think that’s the toilet flush thing.
But I have a puzzle. My young neighbor that got me back into yoyoing this summer (he landed his first green triangle tonight!) has the weirdest problem.
He is right handed. He yoyos right handed. He is pretty good for a youngster…can even horse around in 4a and 5a.
But…his strings LOOSEN when he plays. Every single time. On his yoyos and mine. On strings I make for him. On factory strings. It is definitely him, not the gear. 1a yoyos have become impromtu 4a on a number of occasions.
I can’t figure out how this is. I’d just make him lefty strings…but that doesn’t really solve the mystery.
This may be really simple and I’m a goof. Quite frankly, I expect that’s what it is. However, he and I are VERY curious how he ends up doing this.
This answer might not make any sense. Forgive me. But the first thing that came to my mind is that he could be holding his yoyo in reverse when he throws? Perhaps he just learned that way somehow? I’ve never tried this enough to see if it would actually loosen my string, but it doesn’t sound like too much of a long shot >.<"
Simply put, the problem doesn’t lie in the yoyo, the tricks, or the string. It lies in the nature of yoyoing itself.
Yoyos weren’t designed to be used by the likes of the Weebados (left handed folk, for you uneducated). In fact, it pretty much wasn’t supposed to happen ever, so everytime a lefty picks up a yoyo,
Actually, you know what? My long, satirical, jerkish post is just not coming to me tonight. Teach him about sting tension, but make sure he performs maneuvers in the opposite direction.
Left from right I do alright with. Stage right and house left I can even muddle my way through.
Do I know how to get perfect tension? Heavens no. But I do ok. He has dropped yoyos off the string while yoyoing. Sure, he knew that the string was getting too loose…but he doesn’t whip/slack/etc, so…it didn’t matter that much. :-\
I remember in the 80s, when I did this for the first time as a wee one, the instruction books talked about varying between tricks that loosen and tighten to keep string tension during a routine. I had forgotten about that. I guess he does do a disproportionate amount of front style tricks. I’m not sure if that might explain it?
Could he be throwing backwards? I think I would have noticed…and I think he’s gotten way too far to be working around that. Then again, I’ve seen weirder things in life…I’ll double check tomorrow. But I’m 99.99999% sure he’s throwing correctly.
Jake Elliott’s theory actually seems the most plausible. I’ll really watch how he plays tomorrow…and see if I can figure out which tricks tighten vs loosen.
If I actually realize that he’s managed to throw without the strings rolling off his finger tips (backwards) all this time…I’ll be shocked and feel quite silly that I didn’t notice. Otherwise, I’m glad that this doesn’t seem terribly obvious, as I’ve been stumped.
-bpg
aka “The Guy Who Would Run Out to Right Field in Little League, Turn Around to Face the Batter, And Panic When It Seemed He Had Ended Up In Left Field.”
Lol I’ve put some explanation about something like this before, yet people don’t seem to care.
It’s simple, I’m pretty sure most of his tricks contains more movements counter clockwise (seen from his point of view) rather than clockwise.
Don’t understand?
Now assuming that you are (anyone) is right handed, fix your string tension, then throw a trapeze.
Then pop the trapeze out to the left, don’t stop, but continue spinning the yoyo around (just like pinwheel thing counter clockwise).
Do this at least 20 times to see the effect, now stop and check your string tension.
Boom mindblown.
Normally right handed people tend to move clockwise more than counter clockwise, because it feels more comfortable. That’s the reason why yoyo strings keeps tightening. For this reason I tried to balance the number of clockwise vs counter clockwise motion when playing, to reduce string tightening effect, this is a big advantage in contests. Lacerations and around the worlds also works the same.
It depends on the tricks he does.
Some tricks loosen string and some tighten.
the direction in which you do a brain twister is a good example. One way would loosen the tension, while the other way would tighten it.
Flush your toilet and watch the water. In most toilets the water just goes straight down, there’s no swirl regardless of which hemisphere it takes place in.
As to the yoyo, is he winding up the string an awful lot? That can loosen string tension, though really shouldn’t be enough to cause such a problem.
His family is away for the weekend. I’m kinda anxious to see him throw and check out some of your theories.
So, if he does his brain twister type tricks with the yoyo going counter clockwise when viewed from the right (towards the chest and away from the belly) then this would loosen it? When he is between tricks…he does tend to throw lots of brain twister style tricks over and over. Don’t recall direction.
He winds up the string a fair amount…but he can hand start fairly well, and has a consistent bind, so it isn’t excessive.
Thanks for the ongoing discussion,
bpg
aka “The Guy Who is Considering Retiring This Foolish Aka Thing.”
