YoTricks.com

Once you’ve got the yoyo string properly adjusted for your height it would be nice to find a fast way to wind the yoyo up. Now, I know we all know the old standby to just wind the yoyo like this, but if you’re trying to learn tricks that can be really frustrating and tedious because it takes forever. So I’m gonna show you… how to wind the yoyo like that.

Now, to learn this trick it would actually be easier if we first learn the three basic principles that help a yoyo come back. The first principle is that the yoyo has to be spinning. I know that one is kind of obvious but if the yoyo isn’t spinning it’s not gonna come back. The second one is that there has to be some slack in the string. Until you give this slack to the yoyo, it’s not gonna come back. And that’s why, actually, when you pull the yoyo up, or, if you were to drop your hand quickly, the yoyo comes up… because you’re giving the string slack.

Now the third principle is that the string has to be straight in-line with the yoyo. So I’m gonna use a trick I’m gonna show you in the future called sleeping beauty (aka UFO) to illustrate this point. Right now there’s some slack in the string, but until we line it up and make it straight, it doesn’t come back.
So those are your three principles: you’ve got spin, slack and straight. So we’re gonna use this trick to do all three to the yoyo at the same time, and that’s what’s gonna make it come back.

So, what you wanna do is hold the yoyo in your opposite hand between your thumb and your middle finger. And then take your yoyo hand and put it straight above your head. Now, I’ve taught this trick to some people and they get nervous that the yoyo is going to hit them in the face to they move their hand off to the side; that doesn’t work because the yoyo doesn’t come up straight. So, with your yoyo hand over your head your gonna pull up and with your opposite hand your gonna push down at the same time, and ideally the yoyo will pop up and sit right about here in front of you. If you pull up too hard then the yoyo is going to go straight up into the air, and if you don’t pull up hard enough then the yoyo is just going to stay there and it’s not going to get the slack it needs; so you need a good balance between your two hands. When you get it just right the yoyo just goes up into the air, you can put your hand under it, it will wind all the way up.

It takes a little practice to get it just perfect but if you can really nail this trick early on in your yoyo career it’s going to make learning to yoyo a whole lot more fun and you’re gonna see much faster progress.