How to Yo-Yo

Responsive or Unresponsive?

• Responsive: comes back with a tug. Start here. Classic tricks like Walk the Dog, Rock the Baby, and looping all use a responsive yo-yo.^[25][6]
• Unresponsive: a wider gap and silicone pads let it spin at the end of the string without coming back, even with slack. You return it with a bind, wrapping extra string into the gap.^[26][25]
• Inexpensive fixed-axle yo-yos usually sleep 10–20 seconds; ball-bearing yo-yos can sleep one to four minutes.^[28]

Many beginner yo-yos can be set up either way. See Beginner Gear Basics and Styles of Play on our Gear page.

String It Up

Put the string on the yo-yo

1. Find the loop end, the end without the knot. Pinch the tip and pinch again an inch or two below, then untwist until the two strands separate.^[3]
2. Spread the strands open with your fingers and slip the loop over one half of the assembled yo-yo. Don’t take it apart; the string can slip off the bearing and get caught between the halves.^[3]
3. Let go and let the string twist back up around the axle. Never tie a knot around the axle.^[3][1]

Size it and make a slipknot

1. Let the yo-yo rest on the floor between your feet and mark the string at your belly button.^[3]
2. Tie a new loop there and cut off the extra.^[3]
3. Pass the string through the loop to make a slipknot. Slide it onto your middle finger, snug between the first and second knuckle.^[3]

Freehand (5A): string a counterweight

Pass the loop end of the string through the counterweight’s hole, then through the slipknot, and pull tight so the knot closes around the weight. Or, without removing the string from the yo-yo, push the slipknot through the hole, make a new loop, pass the counterweight through it, and pull tight.^[4] See Counterweights for weights and DIY options.

Wind, Throw, and Sleep

Wind it up

Bearing yo-yos spin so freely that the string slips when you wind. The fix: lay a finger of your other hand across the gap, wind once over it, then wind three or four times under it so the string grips. Pull the finger out and keep winding.^[5]

Hold it right

With your palm up, the string should come over the top of the yo-yo toward you. If it comes from underneath, the yo-yo is upside down and will tend to spin out.^[6]

Gravity Pull

Hold the yo-yo palm down and simply let go; gravity pulls it down, then tug to bring it back. It is different from the Throw Down, which is thrown palm up.^[19][29]

The Basic Throw

“Make a muscle” with the yo-yo in your palm, then extend your arm to throw it down. As it reaches the bottom, turn your hand over and pull up to catch it.^[6]

The Sleeper

A sleeper is the yo-yo spinning at the end of the string. It’s the base of almost every trick.^[18]

• Throw hard and straight. A tilted yo-yo won’t sleep long.^[18]
• Cushion the landing: as the yo-yo hits the bottom, dip your hand slightly so it doesn’t bounce, gain slack, and come back.^[6]
• Return it with a tug (responsive) or a bind (unresponsive).^[18][14]

Challenge: the YoYoTricks.com Screen Time Challenge starts with a 5-second sleeper.^[16]

String Tension

A yo-yo string is two strands twisted together. Too many twists and it’s too tight; too few and it’s too loose. Either way, slack string curls into “spaghetti.”^[7] Normal throwing slowly changes it; for right-handers, sleepers and trapezes tend to tighten it.^[22]

Check it

Hold the unwound yo-yo like a trapeze, bring your hands together to add slack, and look down on the string. If it twists clockwise, it’s too loose; counterclockwise, too tight.^[22]

Fix it

• Let it dangle: the classic fix is to take the slipknot off your finger and let the yo-yo hang until the string untwists.^[22]
• UFO: throw the yo-yo so it sleeps flat, parallel to the ground, with your hand over the top so the string spins around it. Across your body loosens; away from your body tightens.^[9][22]
• Sidewinder: a smaller adjustment. Swing a sleeper out to one side until it rises level with your hand so the string spins out. YoYoTricks.com says to the right loosens and to the left tightens. Test which way works for you.^[10]
• Unresponsive yo-yos have their own fixes: a separate lesson covers adjusting tension at the end of a trick.^[8]
• While you check tension, check for wear too. Change a frayed, dirty, or greasy string.^[22]

Your First Tricks

• Walk the Dog: throw a strong sleeper and set it on the floor so it rolls. Swing it behind you first for momentum, and don’t let your hand get too close or it will come back.^[11]
• Rock the Baby: pinch the string near the middle with your other hand, pinch above the yo-yo with your yo-yo hand, and spread the string into a triangle cradle to rock the yo-yo through.^[12]
• Picture tricks: shapes like the Eiffel Tower and the Jamaican Flag. Practice with the yo-yo hanging, not spinning, until you know the shape.^[12][13]
• Forward Pass: swing the yo-yo forward from behind, let it return, and catch it palm up. It leads to Loop the Loop and Shoot the Moon.^[20]
• UFO and Sleeping Beauty: the UFO above, plus catching the string for a flashy Sleeping Beauty.^[9]
• DNA: a flat pinwheel, pop the yo-yo onto your other index finger to spin, then a quick laceration and sidewinder-style return. It plays with string tension like a UFO.^[21] See How Tricks Evolved for how it went viral.

The First 100 Tricks

One path through the basics, from your first throw to every style of play. Each name links to a free tutorial, most from the YoYoTricks.com library, which runs from first throw to master level.^[15][17][13] Gravity Pull links to Yomega’s video list.^[29] Skip around; there’s no wrong order.

Prefer a shorter list? Our own Trick Reference Guide slides start with 16 beginner tricks on a responsive yo-yo, then group intermediate and expert tricks into families by mount.^[2]

Stage 1: Throws and Responsive Classics

Learn these on a responsive yo-yo. Most come from classic trick lists and the 2000 World Yo-Yo Contest beginner ladder.

1. Basic Throw and Sleeper
2. Gravity Pull
3. Forward Pass
4. Breakaway
5. Walk the Dog
6. The Creeper
7. Around the Corner
8. Elevator
9. Rock the Baby
10. Around the World
11. Loop the Loop
12. Hop the Fence
13. UFO / Sleeping Beauty
14. Sidewinder
15. Shoot the Moon
16. Dog Bite
17. Pinwheel
18. DNA
19. Punching Bags
20. Warp Drive

Stage 2: Picture Tricks

Make a picture out of the string. Let the yo-yo hang without spinning while you learn the shape.

21. Eiffel Tower
22. Jamaican Flag
23. Throw the Baby
24. Itzy-bitzy Baby
25. Rock the Baby in the Pyramid
26. One-Handed Star
27. Two-Handed Star
28. Spelling Yo
29. The Cross
30. British Flag
31. Four-Leaf Clover
32. Big Tokyo Tower
33. 3D Spaceship
34. Darth Vader
35. Rock the Baby on the Eiffel Tower

Stage 3: Looping Basics

Responsive looping, the root of 2A. Great for building wrist control.

36. Leg Wrap
37. Arm Wrap
38. Chain Wrap
39. Elbow Wrap
40. Flips
41. Stalls
42. Regenerations
43. Guillotine

Stage 4: String Trick Basics (1A)

Mounts and the first string tricks. These work on responsive yo-yos and lead into unresponsive play.

44. Man on the Flying Trapeze
45. Brain-Scrambler
46. Brain-Twister
47. Double or Nothing
48. Reverse Flip Front-Mount
49. Side-Mount Flips
50. Split-Bottom Mount
51. Trapeze and His Brother
52. Houdini Mount
53. Under or Nothing
54. One-and-a-Half Mount
55. Brent
56. Cross-Arm Trapeze
57. Crazy 8
58. Kamikaze Mount
59. Wrist Mount
60. Split the Atom
61. Barrel Rolls
62. Double Trapeze
63. Zipper
64. Skin the Gerbil
65. Ripcord
66. Keychain
67. Buddha’s Revenge
68. Mach 5
69. Halley’s Comet
70. Eli Hops
71. Boomerang
72. Gondola
73. Roller Coaster
74. Hydrogen Bomb
75. Kwyjibo
76. Seasick
77. TMNT Cafe
78. Cold Fusion

Stage 5: Unresponsive Basics

Once you can bind, a wider-gap unresponsive yo-yo opens up slack, whips, and grinds.

79. Binds
80. Easiest Bind Ever
81. Unresponsive String Tension
82. Throw Start
83. Hook
84. Unresponsive Stop N’ Go
85. Plastic Whip
86. Green Triangle
87. Jump Rope
88. Laceration
89. Slackicide
90. Finger Grinds
91. Finger Spins
92. Ninja Vanish
93. Iron Whip
94. Jade Whip
95. Magic Drop and Shockwave
96. Boingy-Boing

Stage 6: Try Every Style

One starter from each of the other styles.

97. 2A: Two-Handed Loops
98. 3A: Gunslinger
99. 4A: Offstring Throw and Bind
100. 5A: Hold and Catch a Freehand Yo-Yo

A Contest-Tested Ladder

A trick ladder is a set list of tricks in rising difficulty, used at contests to ease newer players into competition.^[23] The 2000 World Yo-Yo Contest ran a 30-trick sport ladder in three levels: one try per trick, one miss forgiven.^[23] It still makes a great checklist.

Practice, Play Healthy, and Everyone Can Throw

You don’t need hours a day. You need a little time most days, a reason for each session, and patience with yourself. Here’s what experienced players on the YoYoExpert Forums say works.

Practice with a purpose

• Make time, even a little: one player who improves steadily plays about an hour a day, often less, and argues that 15 to 30 minutes of real practice beats waiting for free time that never comes.^[88]
• Know why you’re throwing: the goal can be as simple as “I want this trick a little smoother.” Playing to relax counts too, if you focus on doing each move well.^[88]
• Slow is fast: a classical musician in the same thread says to practice slowly until your hands know the trick, leave your phone in another room, and take a day off when you need one.^[88]
• Say “yet”: “I can’t do this yet, but if I stay consistent I will.” Don’t dwell on a long break or a late start.^[88]

Learning from videos

• Go frame by frame: on YouTube on a computer, pause and press the comma and period keys to step back and forward one frame. On a phone, screen-record the tutorial and scrub through the recording slowly.^[92]
• Learn in pieces: break a trick into sections that start and end in a mount, then link them. See How experienced players learn below.^[73]

Your throw, tilt, and restarts

• The floor-line drill: stand over a straight line in the floor, like a tile seam or the gap between floorboards, and throw a sleeper so the yo-yo’s gap lines up with the line.^[93]
• Don’t chase a perfect throw: experienced players say tilt correction comes on its own after thousands of throws. In a trapeze, you can level a tilted yo-yo by pressing the string against its high side.^[94]
• Restart instead of rewinding: when the yo-yo dies on the string, hold the string with your free hand and spin the yo-yo back up with your throwing hand, then bind. Some players twist cleanly, “like turning a doorknob,” instead of snapping hard, because a hard snap can jam your fingers.^[95]

Stuck? Everyone hits a plateau

• Switch it up: try another style for a while. Players suggest modern responsive or 0A to relax, and 5A, where “the mistakes are often better than the tricks.”^[89]
• Get a quick win: go back to basics, or learn a short trick built from elements you already know.^[89]
• Stop comparing: some players started as little kids. Take a break when you’re frustrated and come back fresh.^[89]
• How long it takes: one player saw spin time and technique jump at 6 to 8 months. Another compares it to an instrument: about a year for the fundamentals, two to feel comfortable, three to feel “good.”^[90]
• Is learning on an unresponsive yo-yo cheating? No. “A completed trick is a completed trick.” Or, as one longtime member put it: “There’s no cheating in yoyoing, just smiling.”^[91]

Play healthy

• String burn happens: almost every player gets it learning tricks like Boingy Boing. Most build a callus over time. Some wear a glove, which protects your finger but lets you feel the string less.^[96]
• Watch for overuse: one player developed what they believed was golfer’s elbow from all the repeated throwing.^[97] Take breaks, switch styles, and stop if your arm hurts. See a doctor if pain doesn’t go away.
• Throw soft after a shaky bind: if you’re not sure a bind was clean, throw a softer “safety throw.” A snagged string on a hard breakaway can swing the yo-yo back into your face.^[99]
• Mark a yo-yo zone: when you play with a group or teach kids, tape lines on the floor, or set cones outside, and only throw inside them so nobody runs through and gets bonked.^[100]
• See also the safety tips in Tips from Experienced Players.

Everyone can throw

• Any age: in “Too old to start again?” players in their 50s and 60s trade stories. One started around 50 and throws every day; another has played since 1966. The obstacles they named were joint pain, practice time, and impatience, not age.^[101]
• One hand: a player who lost the use of their right arm learned Walk the Dog, Forward Pass, and One-Handed Star. The forum pointed them to 2A looping and to a sponsored player who plays one-handed.^[102]
• A way to reset: many players say yo-yoing helps them decompress, like a nurse who throws after hard shifts, and others who use it to quiet anxiety.^[97][98] Doctor Popular’s PopCast interviewed a social worker who uses yo-yos in counseling with kids.^[98] It isn’t a treatment, but it’s a great way to focus.
• Come throw with us: our monthly meetups are free, all ages, all levels, with loaner yo-yos and someone to show you your first throw.

Contests and Judging

U.S. contests, including our own VSYC-26, score freestyles with the National Yo-Yo League (NYYL) rules. A freestyle is a routine to music you choose; a trick is any demonstration of yo-yo skill; and an element is one specific, scorable movement inside a trick.^[80]

Two halves of every score

• Technical Execution (clickers): each judge holds two hand tally counters, one for positive clicks and one for negative clicks.^[80]
• Routine Evaluation: four categories: Trick Presentation (mastery and style), Performance Quality (professionalism, stage use, audience), Musicality (hitting cues and pacing to the song), and Routine Construction (trick order, cohesion, theme).^[80]
• In a 1A Championship final, a 3-minute routine, Technical Execution is worth 60 points and Evaluation 40.^[80]

How clicks work

• One click for difficult but low-risk elements, like an Eli hop, laceration, or iron whip in 1A; loops, wraps, and around the worlds in 2A; rolls, kink mounts, and double trapezes in 3A; whips, recaptures, and boings in 4A; and 360s, propellers, and direction changes in 5A.^[80]
• More clicks for riskier variants, like a multi-hook instead of a single hook.^[80]
• Negative clicks for any missed element or loss of control.^[80]
• Repeats score less. Six Eli hops in a row score only the first; a later repeat can score zero. The point is to reward variety.^[80]
• No clicks for moves that don’t show yo-yo skill, like picture tricks, string moves that don’t involve the yo-yo, or tricks where the yo-yo never interacts with the string. Save picture tricks for the crowd.^[80]
• Normalization: each judge’s top scorer gets 60, everyone else is scaled against them, then the judges are averaged, so one generous judge can’t swing the result.^[80]

Major deductions

With two yo-yos, deductions count per yo-yo, so swapping both after a 2A or 3A tangle costs −6.^[80]

Divisions for everyone

• Sport Freestyle: a 1-minute, low-stress division with no negative clicks and no major deductions, split by age. It’s the place for a first contest.^[80]
• Trick ladders: a set list of tricks in rising difficulty, the other gateway into competing. See the ladder above.^[23]
• X Division: 2A through 5A compete together, with clicker multipliers to level the field: 2A ×1.40, 3A ×1.50, 4A ×1.30, 5A ×1.60.^[80]
• Over 40: a showcase division, mostly at the U.S. Nationals, where players over 40 pick any style from 1A to 5A. Nationals also hosts International and Women’s divisions.^[80]
• Music: anything appropriate for all audiences. Explicit lyrics or themes can mean disqualification.^[80]

How each style is judged

Every championship style uses the same two-part system: Technical Execution from clickers and a performance evaluation. What changes is which elements score. At the World Yo-Yo Contest, 1A through 5A each crown their own World Champion, and a 3-minute final is worth up to 60 points of Technical Execution and 40 of Freestyle Evaluation, minus major deductions.^[86][84] In every style, the yo-yo must be spinning, powered by the unwinding string, for a trick to count, and both the yo-yo and the string must be used.^[84]

• Combos are counted by element. Tricks like Gerbil or Rancid Milk are treated as a string of elements, each scored on its own. Repeating an element usually scores nothing the second time, though a high-risk repeat, like a suicide combo, can score again at reduced value.^[84]
• No bonus for non-yo-yo skills. Dancing, miming, juggling, or acrobatics earn nothing in Technical Execution, even during a trick.^[84]
• Two yo-yos, twice the risk. Negative clicks and major deductions count per yo-yo in 2A and 3A.^[84]
• Style-specific deductions: a detach costs −5 in 1A, 2A, 3A, and 5A (both the yo-yo and the weight). In 4A the yo-yo is meant to leave the string, but letting it fly off the stage into the audience in any style, including 4A and 5A, can mean disqualification.^[84]

The World Contest’s eight evaluation categories

At Worlds, judges split into two groups: Group A clicks Technical Execution, and Group B scores the Freestyle Evaluation in eight categories from 0 to 10, halved to make 40 points: Execution, Control, Trick Diversity, Space Use, Music Use (choreography), Music Use (construction), Body Control, and Showmanship. Only Technical Execution is normalized between judges.^[84] U.S. NYYL events use the four categories above instead.^[80]

Artistic Performance (AP)

• No clickers. AP is judged mainly on performance rather than technical skill: choreography, music, creative stage use, movement, and entertainment. Solo players and teams can enter.^[85]
• Awards, not places. Judges may give a Grand Prix (the World Champion title), a Creativity Award, an Artistic Award, and an Entertainment Award, or none of them.^[85]
• The yo-yo still leads. Dance, acting, and props are welcome, but the yo-yo must be the main act. There are no deductions for misses, yet judges expect close to zero mistakes, like a professional show.^[85]
• Format: routines up to 4 minutes; finalists are chosen from submitted videos.^[85]

When styles are combined

• X Division: some contests lump 2A, 3A, 4A, and 5A into one division. The NYYL multiplies clicker scores to keep it fair, because some styles tend to score higher: 2A ×1.40, 3A ×1.50, 4A ×1.30, 5A ×1.60.^[80] At VSYC-26, X Division covered 2A, 3A, 4A, or 5A, and you picked one.
• Exhibitions at Worlds: Women’s Freestyle and Over-40 Freestyle are 2-minute routines and Junior Freestyle (16 and under) is 90 seconds; in each, you choose one style from 1A to 5A. Championship divisions themselves have no age or gender classes.^[86]
• Sport and beginner divisions: no negative clicks and no major deductions, so new players can get on stage without pressure (see above).^[80]
• Duos: Doc Lucky Meisenheimer created “Doc Lucky’s Duos,” now part of the National and World championships.^[87]

For the history of each style and the gear it uses, see Styles of Play on the Gear page.

Your first contest

• Ladders aren’t just for kids: many sport ladders mix ages, and a set trick list gives your practice direction. One player’s advice: compete while you feel unprepared, so you know what to expect next time.^[109]
• Make it memorable: asked about common mistakes in a first freestyle, Evan Nagao said new competitors use too few music cues and “hype moments.” You probably won’t win your first contest, so aim to get the crowd going or do something creative.^[111]
• Sometimes it works out: a player who entered 5A for the first time at the 2022 German Nationals came home as the division champion.^[110]
• Filming a video entry: pick a spot with room to move, keep the sun behind the camera, plan the song and tricks before you shoot, and retake any trick you miss.^[112]

Keep Learning: Beyond the First 100

After the basics, the best way to keep growing is to learn with other people. These communities post a new trick on a schedule, cheer each other on, and help when you’re stuck.

Weekly trick clubs

• Trick-a-Week (YoYoExpert Forums): a tutorial posted every Friday for the year. It isn’t a race: the goal is to try a new trick each week, pick up new elements, and revisit old weeks any time. Posting videos is optional but encouraged.^[59][58] It has run yearly, with a new thread for 2026.^[57][56] An earlier 2020 version was aimed at players around the Kwyjibo level.^[60]
• Average Throwers Club (ATC), from G Squared (G2) YoYos: a free club for building your trick collection, with tricks of varying difficulty each week. It runs in G2’s Discord, where members give live video help and earn points toward a season championship and credits toward merch. There are club meets on Zoom every other Thursday, and a separate basics club for newer players.^[61][63] Season 1 ended with a casual championship streamed live on YouTube.^[62]

Style threads

• 2A Tuesdays for looping.^[64]
• 3A Thursday for two-handed string tricks, with tips from experienced 3A players.^[65]
• 4A Everyday for offstring.^[66]
• 5A May, a month of counterweight play.^[67]
• Fixed Axle February, run by the YoYo Boomers Club, and the ongoing 0A Thread for modern responsive.^[68][69]

Share your progress

Post wins in “I Finally Landed It!”, see what others are practicing in “What trick are you working on?”, and share your own creations in the Post a Trick thread.^[70][71][72]

Go deeper

• Learn from the pros: YoYoTricks.com has trick collections from players like Gentry Stein, Ann Connolly, and Evan Nagao, plus combo series, long-string tricks, and a competition-training series.^{[76][77][78][79]}
• Track your progress: Skill Addicts gives you points as you land tricks.^[32] Rewind’s database sorts tricks by level and style.^[35]
• Compete: many contests run beginner-friendly sport ladders.^[23] Find events on our Resources page, and see VSYC-26, our Virginia State contest.
• Throw together: come to a DMV Throwers meetup or visit a sister club.

How experienced players learn

• Pick the right trick: shorter tricks with fewer elements, and tutorials with a first-person view, are easier to learn from.^[74]
• Think in checkpoints: remember a trick as a path from mount to mount. It also helps you link tricks into combos.^[73]
• Review: warm up by running through a list of the tricks you know, and practice slowly until they’re automatic.^[73]
• From learning to owning: record yourself, break the trick down until you understand why it works, and practice until you can hit it on command.^[75]

Make Your Own Tricks

Past the first 100, you’ll notice most tricks are other tricks mixed together. That’s your cue to start making your own.

Think in elements

An element is one move, like a hop, a whip, or a hook. Elements are what get the yo-yo and string into and out of mounts, so the more elements you know, the more mounts you can invent, instead of cycling through the same few.^[104] A useful starting list, from a 2021 forum post:^[103]

There’s no shortcut, though. As one player put it: learn a lot of tricks, and you’ll see how they build on each other and how the same ideas come up again and again.^[105]

Learn rejections in order

A rejection pushes the string into the wall of the yo-yo so the spin kicks it back out of the gap. A 2024 forum sequence starts with tricks where you only reject the string, then adds catching the yo-yo, and finishes with Magic Drop.^[106]

Build a trick, step by step

Zammy’s 2013 guide breaks trick making into six steps:^[107]

1. Influence: borrow an idea you like from a player, from music, or from another skill toy, and make your own version.
2. Experiment: throw and try something different each time. Failing is the point.
3. Step by step: build the trick from point A to B to C, asking “where do I go from here?” at each step.
4. Write it down: optional, but it keeps you from forgetting good ideas.
5. Analyze: check the beginning (a strong mount), the middle (your main idea), and the end (a clean dismount or bind).
6. Finalize: ask “am I happy with it?” and “is it done?” If not, go back and experiment more.

Find your style

Because so many players learn from the same great tutorials, a lot of trick sets look alike today. Players in a 2023 thread point out that timing and transitions matter as much as the tricks, and one quotes André Boulay: “Make the simple amazing.”^[108] Share what you make in the Post a Trick thread.^[72]

How Tricks Evolved

Every trick on this page rides on the hardware and ideas of an era. Here’s how play grew from the classic sleeper to unresponsive, body, and horizontal tricks.

• 1920s Pedro Flores’s looped string lets a yo-yo sleep at the end of the string, opening up far more tricks. Donald Duncan spreads them with demonstrations, contests, and school tours.
• c. 1950 A Duncan employee proposes the starburst, which becomes the standard response system for decades.
• Classic contests Players compete by completing set lists of tricks, called compulsories.
• 1984 The Yomega Brain’s clutch returns the yo-yo on its own, helping beginners build a strong throw and sleeper.
• 1989 The Fireball’s transaxle spins about three times longer than a fixed axle.
• 1980s–1990s Longer spins from new axles, response systems, and materials make whole new categories of tricks possible.
• 1998–2003 Velvet Rolls (3A), freehand (5A), and offstring binds (4A) arrive. Early-2000s 1A tricks move from responsive looping combos toward technical string tricks that need wider gaps.
• 2002–03 The first C-size bearing yo-yos and yo-yos built to be unresponsive out of the box appear, as forum historians recall them.
• c. 2007 Big contests replace compulsories with preliminary freestyles.
• 2000s–2010s YouTube spreads tutorials and new tricks worldwide, including horizontal play and finger spins.
• 2020s Short-form video makes tricks like the DNA go viral.

Sources: 1920s, Gentry Stein^[38]; c. 1950, the YoYo Wiki^[25]; contests^[39]; 1984^[40]; 1989^[41]; 1980s–1990s^[38]; 1998–2003^[46][48]; 2002–03^[47]; c. 2007^[39]; 2000s onward^[38].

Early responsive play

For most of the yo-yo’s history, tricks started from a sleeper and ended with a tug: Walk the Dog, Rock the Baby, Around the World, loops. Contests were about completing set tricks better than the next player.^[38][39] Many forum players call roughly 1998–2002 “old school,” 2003–2007 “mid school,” and 2008 on “modern,” though everyone draws the lines a little differently.^[47]

The unresponsive turn

As yo-yos became less responsive, players needed a way to bring them back on command. The bind was the breakthrough; it lets a yo-yo stay unresponsive through slack and long combos, and it underpins modern 1A.^[38][26] New trick families followed:

• Lacerations: Brent Stole is a green-triangle laceration by Alex Berenguel. Its name comes from Brent, who used a similar laceration on the way to winning the 2002 U.S. Nationals.^[42]
• Slack and whips: the Plastic Whip is the classic introduction to slack-style 1A.^[43]
• Borrowed moves: Paul Escolar’s Suicide, releasing and recatching the trapeze loop, comes from a diabolo trick of the same name.^[44]
• Rolls and flops: Doctor Popular is known for the Gyroscopic Flop.^[45]

Body, head, and neck

Looping lessons include wraps around the arm, leg, and elbow, plus chain wraps.^[55] Tourniquet style (2010) wears the slipknot around the upper arm with an extra-long string for body-based wraps.^[46] Modern 1A tricks like Ghost Neck loop the string around the neck.^[54]

Horizontal play

In horizontal play, the yo-yo spins on its side. Steve Brown recalls trying a horizontal Brain Twister in his first freehand routine in 1999.^[48] The internet spread horizontal play worldwide,^[38] and Doctor Popular’s PopCast recorded an oral history of modern horizontal yo-yoing with Josh Yee.^[49] To start:

• Shorten your string. It’s faster, and it keeps a swinging yo-yo farther from your face.^[52]
• Learn the horizontal throw on a responsive yo-yo first.^[52]
• Learn each trick vertically before trying it horizontal, and vertical behind-the-back before horizontal behind-the-back.^[53]

The social era

Gentry Stein posted an early finger-spin trick in July 2020; an August 1 video passed 7 million views, and a viewer compared the twisting string to DNA, which gave the trick its name. It has since been seen across social media more than a billion times, and it works as an easy modern responsive trick.^[38] Doctor Popular’s PopCast also interviewed Páll Guðmundsson, creator of the DNA bind, also called the Tornado Bind.^[50] For more, watch Doctor Popular’s Yo-Yo History playlist, with episodes on binds, gyroscopic flops, and horizontal tricks.^[51][49] For the full story of the toy, see The Story of the Yo-Yo.

Tips from Experienced Players

• Before every throw, look around so no one is within your swing radius, and check your string for fraying or knots.^[2]
• Start with one-handed string tricks (1A). Buy strings in a pack and keep spare response pads.^[24]
• Adjust your string to your height before learning tricks, or you’ll end up throwing with your arm raised.^[6]
• If the yo-yo keeps spinning out at the bottom, check that it’s not upside down in your hand.^[6]
• Binds are easier when the yo-yo is on the string spinning the opposite way. Try pinching the string with your other hand, then lift your yo-yo hand.^[14]
• For looping, learn each trick with both hands.^[10]
• Learn offstring outdoors, away from anything breakable.^[27]
• Replace worn string, and work through problems in order: pads, lube, string.^[1] See Quick Troubleshooting.

Where to Learn More

• YoYoTricks.com: a big free video library, sorted by style and level, with a Screen Time Challenge for beginners.^[15][16]
• YoYoExpert Learn: step-by-step trick guides for every style.^[31]
• Skill Addicts: tutorials across 1A–5A.^[32]
• Yomega Learn Tricks and Duncan Tutorial Videos: classic tricks from classic brands.^[29][30]
• YoYoSam Beginner Tutorial: string, wind, throw, and first tricks.^[33]
• Classic Yoyo Tricks: the basics, a video for each.^[34]
• Yo-Yo Trick Database (Rewind): tricks by level and style, in Japanese and English.^[35]
• MrYoYoThrower: 1A tricks organized by mount.^[36]
• YoYo Wiki: trick write-ups and history.^[18][23]
• YoYoExpert Forums: ask questions, share progress.^[37]
• Our Trick Reference Guide slides, to take home and practice.^[2]
• Our printable Beginner Trick Checklist: the first 43 tricks on one page, to check off as you land them.
• Our Resources page for apps, clubs, and contests, and our Gear & Maintenance, Science, and History pages.

Glossary

Quick definitions for words you’ll hear at meetups and read on forums. Each links to where we explain it in full, on this page or our Gear, Science, and Collecting guides.