Recommend A Proyo?

So I was given this fabulous Proyo by John Higby. We already had 2 proyos, and I had written them off as worthless hunks of plastic. Yesterday I played with the Higby yoyo a bit, and found I could do loops better than with my raiders, and almost as good as with my NXGs. So I pulled out the old blue $2 proyo and messed with the string a bit. It was double wrapped and I single wrapped it. It still was not happy. So I unscrewed and rescrewed it a couple times to get the wooden spindle spinning more uniformly, and pow, it is 50 times better than it was. I almost managed to do warp drive a few times.

I still think the Yodel 2007 outperforms it by miles, but I might start recommending these to kids who ask what they should buy.

Pluses:
+ REALLY CHEAP. (In both senses of the word)
+ Unscrews to get out knots.
+ Wooden Spindle gives better sleep times than fixed axel.
+ Returns without binding.
+ Easy to sleep (if not over tight string tension).

Cons:
+ Narrow Gap.
+ Cheaply made and feels too light.
+ More sensitive to string tension than a bearing yoyo, which is bad for newbies who always wind the rong way.



Here is my preference for looping:
NXG >>>> Proyo > Raider > Modded Raider.


Note: I think my modded raider is cracked and was overcranked, but Pat claims he tests every Raider before he ships, so I'll just assume that Modded Raiders need some kind of expert godlike skill to use and leave mine on my shelf until it rusts.

Juggling in Wisconsin

We travelled last week to Wisconsin for my Grandma's funeral. We determined that Grandma and Grandpa have a total of 87 kids, grandkids, great grand kids and great grand kids.

Here is are my cousins Adam and Brody. Brody can juggle 3 balls reasonably well. Adam is better at yoyos. Hopefully we will get to visit them again soon under better circumstances.

I'll post some pictures of us yoyoing if I can find them. Brody has resisted learning to bind, but Adam can do a normal and reverse bind and a few simple tricks. I quickly taught him atom smasher (I thought it was funny to teach Adam Atom Smasher), barrel rolls, and a few picture tricks. It was weird how much different his Hitman feels than mine. It just feels heavier and slower. Not sure why... it doesn't seem like dual silicon would make that much of a difference.

We tried to teach our 4 year old cousin (2nd cousin?) Tristan to yoyo, but he was more interested in dragging the yoyo all over the place. He almost managed to get a NXG back to his hand a few times, but lost interest before we could perfect his technique!