On our site you will find an incredible wealth of reference videos for many of today’s modern tricks. Each video is shot in 210 frames per second high speed allowing you to see each subtle movement like you have never seen before. Watch them at home or use this plug-in with FireFox to take the videos with you on your media player of choice.

We also pride ourselves on having Chris Rhoads, the Senior Editor of HSYY. Chris is an essential part of this site since he works totally unbiased when doing his reviews, his reviews are well thought out and include insight from the manufactures.

Let’s not forget the HSYY store, this store is owned and operated solely by Brett Grimes, owner of HSYY. His vision was to open a store that catered to the player from a players perspective. With this insight the store will bring a freshness that other stores lack. Keep an eye on the monthly swag contests!

The High Speed YoYo Team is:

Brett Grimes – Site Owner, Tutorial Videographer, and Operator of the High Speed YoYo Store

Chris Rhoads – Site Editor and Lead Reviewer

Jared Alperin – Lead Videographer and Assistant Reviewer

Jacob Gross – Assistant Videographer

Jake Willis – Assistant Videographer

Perry Prine – Modder Extraordinaire

Thank you for visiting our site, hopefully its been helpful, and informative. We hope that our store meets all of your modern yo-yo needs.

Brett:

How I Got Started: It all started for me about a year and a half ago, one of the employee’s I work with was selling some yoyo stuff for his son on ebay, I was bored so I asked to buy one. I instantly found Andre Boulay’s instructional videos and learned as much as I could, I knew right then I wanted to be like Andre and teach the community. I began documenting my progress on youtube and here we are today, running an instructional site.

My Style: I think I have a unique style that makes people think “Hey I can do that” my style or lack of is achievable with a little work and practice. I am not a fan of fast tricks, or super technical tricks, I like simple tricks that look good, or at least I think so.

Favorite YoYo’er: Guy Wright with out a doubt he is so smooth and innovative in his tricks he inspires me daily to get better. Alex Love is another person who has had a main influence on me, we became great friends and he still gives me hints and help to this day. I am always watching videos but those two stand out the most for me.

Personal Achievements: Starting Highspeedyoyo.com to teach new throwers. Bringing on Chris Rhoads who I believe is the best reviewer on the internet for yoyos. Having Jared Alperin join the site was the third person to make it onto the team he brought a style more tech which the site needed. Finally turning this informational site into a store was a huge step for me and the site. I love this hobby and will continue to make videos both here and on my youtube channel in hopes that newer people to this hobby can learn and continue to promote the hobby.

Jared

How I Got Started: Around April of 2009, my fiance started carrying around a Duncan Butterfly she found at my parents house. She was throwing it so often, that I decided to look up yoyos online in order to buy her a better one as a surprise. I ended up ordering a YYJ Legacy, which arrived shortly after. At the time, she was away for a few days, so I decided to open it up and give it a few throws. I immediatly became frustrated with not being able to return it to my hand, and went searching for binding tutorials. After a few hours of struggling, I finally began to consistantly bind, and was completely hooked. I ended up buying another yoyo for my fiance, and have never left the house without a yoyo since.

My Style: My yoyoing is constantly evolving and growing. I’ve always been geared towards tricks that are fun to do, and visually appealing as opposed to purely difficult. I go through phases of vastly different types of tricks and combos, depending largely on interesting tricks I see my friends doing, or fascinating concepts that catch my eye in videos.

Favorite YoYo’er: I can’t really say I have one favorite yoyoer. There have been so many sources of inspiration from people all over the world, that picking one would simply be impossible. If I had to throw out names of the yoyoers who have taught me the most as well as made this hobby so much fun, they’d be the local guys I hang out with: Elliot Jackson, Dan Tsaikos, Andrew ‘Maddog’ Dalton, Jeff Coons, Nate Sutter, Dominic the ‘Cool Accent Guy’, Henry Dineen, Jake uchlicki, and of course the lady who started it all, Robin.

Personal Achievements: I’ve had boatloads of fun helping out with HighSpeedYoyo, and getting to know many interesting people through the community. I also host a yoyo meetup in the greater Boston area that meets regularly, and have made awesome friends whom I’ve had many great times with.

Chris

How I Got Started: Hmmm….Which time?

The original reason I started yo-yoing is like most others, my dad got me into it. He bought me my first yo-yo, a GITD Duncan Imperial back in the summer of 1984. I was 7 at the time. From there I learned as much as I could and took the yo-yo everywhere. I still have the Duncan but don’t throw it anymore because the axle has come loose on one side. I may have Landon Balk restore it for me and add a bearing to it. For me back then the yo-yo was a way to stay focused, I was a hyperactive child and having something in my hand helped me focus and think. Stems from the fact that I am a visual/kinesthetic learner. Over the years the interest in yo-yos waned as my attentions turned to comic books, science fiction novels, computers, and then girls.

The reigniting of my interest in yo-yos came a couple of years back and i blame my students. I was teaching my third grade class about forces and motion as a part of a simple machines unit. They were struggling on the concept of pushes and pulls so while at home I pulled out a Yomega Fireball that I got from a vendor at CompUSA when I was an employee there. I brought it in to school to show the students pushes and pulls, how the yo-yo was pushed to the ground and how I had to pull in order to bring it back up. Without those pushes and pulls there was no movement, it just slept at the bottom of the string. That got me playing again and I began looping a little bit and just having fun. Knowing that Youtube had videos of everything on it, I decided to just check it out and see what people were doing with this toy. That was early last year. When I did my little search I came across names like Andre Boulay and Johnnie DelValle. They were doing things that I thought was out of this world. At that point I researched what was going on, what the different types of play are, and then settled on a good 1A yo-yo for beginners. At fist I picked up a YYF Velocity and then I found a Lyn Fury and fell in love with the play that the Lyn gave me. I researched modding it and making it dead unresponsive. After a couple of months of plastics and swearing that I would never pay that much for a metal yo-yo, One Drop came out with the affordable M1. I contacted the guys at OD and asked them if it would be possible to reserve a red and pewter M1 and the rest was history.

Now I yo-yo just for fun and find it very relaxing. I will never boast to be anything but an amateur who is having fun. There are many out there who are worlds better than me, including my fellow players at High Speed YoYo. I just have a flair for writing and the vocabulary to back it up.

What keeps me throwing is the community that revolves around this incredible toy.

My Style:Whatever is fun to do. i really don’t have a defined style.

Favorite Players: Ed Haponik is a personal favorite of mine. His style is fun to watch, he blends old and new together seamlessly, and he ALWAYS looks like he is having fun while throwing. I find his videos to be some of the most entertaining on the internet. I have to say that my absolute favorite players are the young kids that go out there and give it their all. They may not have the skills yet but they are excited about throwing and are having blast, even if they can’t walk the dog yet.

Personal Achievements: This, all of it. I have been throwing 1A seriously for several years now. I am not the best but I enjoy what I do. I never imagined that I would meet so many wonderful people and help run a website that is read by players around the world and translated into different languages. So if you are reading this, thanks.

Jacob

How I Got Started: Back in march of 2010 I was cleaning out my closet and found my trusty yomega x-brain. I messed around with if for a few days and decided to try and look up some new tricks on the web. I was shocked with what I found, the new unresponsive play was just shocking to me. It was nothing like my rock the baby and around the worlds that I was working on. I ordered myself a yyj speedmaker and that lead to my new hobby/obsession.

My Style: I haven’t been playing long enough to develop something that I would declare as my style yet. I am still learning and have much more learning ahead of me. So far I have a preference toward slack and whip tricks. I enjoy tricks that have a nice flow and direction, ones that aren’t just what seem to be bouncing from one sting to the next.

Favorite Players: I really like the style that Guy Wright plays. His tricks are great, they are usually focused on slack and they are what some would consider slow, This allows you to see what is happening, while some might think his tricks are easy at first glance. I assure you they aren’t and many of his tricks must be smooth and at the right speed to be completed. I am not a big fan of watching many professional yoyo’ers but Guy Wright is the one that I can watch his videos to the end and usually watch them multiple times to try and get ideas for my own tricks.

Personal Achievements: As far as my achievements in the aspect of yoyoing, becoming part of the highspeedyoyo team is by far my best achievement. It is great to be a part of the team and looking forward to what is on the horizon.

Jake:

How I Got Started: In the summer of 1984, I was ten and was fortunate enough to have a family connection to the late, great Fred Otto. He was a yo-yo demonstrator for Pro-Spin Yo-yos, and they needed kids for their first yo-yo commercial, so we planned our spring break around being in a yo-yo commercial with my cousins. It took 8 hours for a 30 second spot. A few months later, Fred Otto was in Cleveland for a layover and my family took him out to eat. At my mom’s encouraging, I asked Fred to show me a yo-yo trick. Within 2 minutes there was a crowd around Fred as he made an old metal-axle yo-yo do amazing things. That’s when I knew I had to try and be that awesome. Since then, I have seen yo-yos and yo-yoing change dramatically, and 10-year-olds get better than me, but I will never forget Fred Otto in the lobby of that restaurant wowing complete strangers with a $2 yo-yo.

My Style: I think the best way to describe my style is occasionally slick, and mostly spastic. I am old school trying to be new school, and I only look good when hotshot kids try looping and I whip off 100 in a row.

Favorite Players: I have a ton of favorites, and I really like just about everyone. My favorite group is the kids in my club who started out with me showing them things like how to wind a yo-yo and rock the baby, and are now way beyond my abilities.

Personal Achievements: As the leader of the Lorain County yo-yo club, I am proud to say we have a strong group who are really enjoying yo-yoing, and we’re becoming well-known in our area. I think yo-yoing is an awesome hobby, and showing that to so many people is what I am most proud of. I can point to many people who are yo-yoing because I got them hooked. I am also an artist who specializes in yo-yo paintings, and I am very proud of my work.

Perry:

How I Got Started in Modding: Steve Brown showed me the work of Eric Wolff and Takeshi. I thought to myself….”Hey! I can do this!” So, I bought a lathe, and started with basic recesses and worked up from there. It didn’t hurt having a precision machining background from a trade school either.

My Style: When modding, I almost always use Duncan product. I grew up on Duncan, and have a lot of respect for the brand. I tend to stay away from mods that simply make the yo-yo “look cooler”….I want my mods to play better, not only look better. I’m often told my mods look “like they came from the factory that way”…which is one of the highest compliments you can pay to a yo-yo modder. I enjoy reshaping yo-yo especially. I like to do one-of-a-kinds quite often as well.

Favorite Modder: I can’t say this is just one person. Eric Wolff and Takeshi Kamisato we’re my initial inspirations, (all thanks to Steve Brown for showing me their work) but then I became somewhat familiar with the work of Shinobu Konmoto (SKon), Takahiko Hasegawa, Mark Allen, Kyle Weems, Landon Balk, Shiga Yuumi, Chris Rice, and Ettore Ferro. I owe so much to each of these people for doing what they did for yo-yo modding.

Personal Achievements: I have to say, becoming the 2011 World Champion of Yo-Yo Modding is one of my proudest moments in life. Second to this is either breaking a Guinness World Record (Of which I still to this day hold) , or winning the “Iron Mod” contest this year in Orlando with fellow modder Landon Balk as my partner. (Landon took 1st. place in the World Mod Contest for having the highest score for a custom built yo-yo, my entry was the highest scoring “mod”. I took 3rd. in overall scoring). Being a respected modder by some of the world’s greatest players is pretty cool too.