Monday, April 12, 2010

Wounds

"That's how tricks have meaning - when you have to pay a price for them."
– Ed Haponik

When you injure yourself yo-yoing, you know you’re doing it right. You’ve lost all inhibitions, and you’re just out there rocking things as hard as you possibly can. And, hey, yo-yos are pretty hard – you’re bound to hurt yourself eventually. This are some of my...more memorable marks.


Finger string mark – We’ve all got one of these. It’s like you’re married to the hobby, but you’re too much of a dork to realize that the ring doesn’t go on your middle finger.

Calluses – You may not realize it, but yo-yoing gets you calluses on your fingers. It all sort of depends on what your style is, and what tricks you do over and over. Like everything else, they’re personal. And hey, even though you didn’t get your calluses from chopping down trees or saving a whole bunch of children from a lot of fires, it doesn’t make them any less manly.

White stuff from throwing cotton string – I don’t know what the deal with this stuff is. The skin is kinda rough, pretty dry, and all white. Is the cotton drying out your hands? Is looping causing some sort of callusing thing to happen? Who knows! All that matters is that it’s a sure sign you’re doing something right.


Perfect circle mark from the yo-yo hitting your arm – I’ve always liked this thing. It doesn’t take much force, and I figure it helps that I’m super-white, but the perfect circle mark is always delightful.

Busted Anything – Lip, teeth, nose, head. It’s all the same. At TN States Ed gave himself the nice wound below (as well as the origin of that opening quote). I find it funny that these super heavy, hard metal yo-yos that we sling around all crazy never cause any real harm – but one light, relatively soft-wood No-Jive just destroys the head of a newbie looper.

Funny bone – String catches a third of the way down the string and it swings in that perfect arc to ARGH-ANGRY-PAINSVILLE!

Racking yourself – When it happens, the only thing we can do is stop throwing long enough to manage a sympathetic, "Dude." Pfft, but after that you're on your own. Man up!

This is Ed's head after a "failed" attempt his trick "Flinch." This also happened to be what spurred the opening quote.



2 comments:

  1. Haha! I know I've done all of these a minimum of seven times.

    Awesome entry dude. And the white stuff from strings... Were you talking about like dry white skin? Because both cotton and polyester strings hardcore dry out my fingers.

    Keep writing! I don't like having to wait so long to read more awesome entries!

    -Amp

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  2. "Keep in mind the Dreadnought G at this weight can be dangerous if care is not taken." (Taken from the YoYoExpert page) :). When I first read that I remember thinking that it is a bit baffling that we don't hear about more serious injuries. Anyway, nice, thoughtful post.

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