Okay. OKAY. Bleachers, I need eyeballs. Floor, I need eyeballs. Third row, blue shirt, buddy — yeah, you, hey — eyeballs.My name's Dez. I've been in a gym every day since the ninth of January. I have thrown this thing eleven thousand four hundred times since then, I've gone through thirty-one strings, and I have a table by those double doors right there with ninety-six units on it that I would love to not drive to Amarillo tonight.
Here's the whole assembly in four sentences and then I'm gonna shut up and throw.One. Watch the string, not the yo-yo. Two. It's the wrist, it is not the arm. Three. Throw it straight or it's dead. Four. Nobody winds it for you.
On three. One. Two — hands DOWN, hands down, I see you — three.
[three hundred kids on a gym floor]
Watch it. Just the string. Ppphh — sorry, mic. Watch the string.See how it's not moving? That's the whole trick, that's it, that's the thing, the string is standing still and the yo-yo is doing four and a half seconds of work underneath it. Four and a half. That's a good one. That's a good one right there and I'm not gonna get another one that good before lunch.
Now — Camden. Front row, you've got a hand up, and I know what you're gonna ask, because a kid asks me this at every single school, four schools a day, eleven weeks. You're gonna say: can you make it do the thing.And the answer is I can make it do the thing for as long as it's spinning and not one second longer, because everything I do to it costs some. Every swing. Every time the string touches it. Every loop I drop it into. It doesn't get any back. There is no getting any back. I throw it, that's the whole budget, and then I spend it.
So when you see me hurry — I'm not hurrying. I'm affording.
Biggest kid in the room, where are you. Back row. Stand up.Everybody look at him, he's gonna throw the worst one in this gym and it's not his fault.Big arm. Huge arm. Throws it like he's spiking a volleyball. And here's the deal: the string is ten inches. Ten. You get ten inches to put every bit of spin on it that it's ever gonna have, and then the string runs out and it's on its own. A big slow arm takes a half second to cover ten inches. A wrist snap takes a tenth. Same distance. Way more spin. Sit down, you're great, come see me at the table.
And if you throw it crooked — if it comes off tilted even a little — that's not a shorter throw, that's a different throw. It leans over, the string climbs the inside wall, and you can hear it. It hisses. It sounds like a zipper. A slow straight throw gives you two seconds. A fast crooked one gives you three quarters of one and burns the string doing it.
Somebody in the second row just went ohhh. That's my favorite sound. Do it again. No — hang on — on three. One. Two. Three.
[bleachers, folding, being sat on all at once]
$3.99 That's the wooden one. Bare wood axle, string wrapped right around the stick. Enormous friction. It sleeps about two seconds and it comes straight back on the littlest tug, because the string's already grabbing it the whole time. Good yo-yo. Honest yo-yo. Buy two.
$29.99 That's the ball bearing. The sleeve spins on a bearing, the string basically touches nothing, and that's why you get four and a half instead of two.Now hear me, because this is the part where I get a phone call from a parent on Monday. That one does not come back. Not because it's broken. Because it's good. The same thing that makes it sleep long makes it not return, those are the same thing, that is one property with two names. You have to make it come back — you tug, the string lifts up off the axle, it grabs, and all the spin that's left turns into climbing. Lots of spin: it comes up hard, it smacks your hand, it sounds like a knock on a door. Not much spin: it comes up halfway and flops back down. None left?Then you wind it. By hand. Forty-five seconds. In front of three hundred people. I've done it fourteen times this year and I count every one.
Third row, blue shirt — you did it again — eyeballs.
Okay, my voice is going. My voice has been going since Slaton. So instead of explaining this next one I'm just gonna do it and you watch the string.See my other hand? That's the hand doing everything. This hand's just holding a spinning object. That hand puts one finger against the string at one height and the yo-yo falls into whatever shape that makes. That's all a trick is. It's not wrist magic. It's a finger at a height. Put it high, you get a big loop. Put it low, you get a tight one and you've got about a second and a half to be somewhere.
Careful though. That string's moving across a spinning axle and if it catches your finger it burns you. Look. Look. Middle finger. That shiny patch. That's from January.
Yes ma'am, in the back — $14.99 — that's the one with the clutch in it. Weights fly out when it slows down, clutch grabs the axle, comes back on its own. Great for a beginner, genuinely, buy it.This one in my case, though, the springs are shot, so it doesn't wait til it slows down. It grabs at two point eight seconds every single time whether I'm done or not. Which is why it's the one I demo with — I know exactly what I've got. Ppph. Table's by the doors. I pack up at 10:20.
Last thing and then the 9:40's coming in through those doors behind you. This string right here is cotton, it costs eleven cents, and it's fraying in exactly one place — where it crosses the axle — and when it goes, it goes with no warning at all, and that yo-yo leaves at whatever speed it had and goes under those bleachers and stays there. I've got six in the case. Six. I am not buying more til Lamesa.
On three. One. Two — three.
Prices good through Friday, PO must be in by 4 PM. Table by the double doors. Not responsible for strings.