CLYW

I look for feel. Does it make tricks feel good? How does it flow? How does it effect the execution of my tricks? How does it feel in my hand? How does it effect my exploration of new ideas?
I mean I'm making it complicated but essentially I just look for whether it's giving me fun times or not.

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Things I don't care about are spin times, the velocity it can achieve or if it makes something easier to do (having a return top that makes everything easy could even hurt your skill level as a player).
I tend to even lean towards return tops that select other people think are garbage. But to me it's beautiful, to me it's all about personality and not about making the most aerodynamic shiny spinning object. My taste in cars are very similar. I like all the groovy older designs that mechanically give you no advantage and might even be harder to drive, but damn does it ever have character!

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Sometimes I go into specifics, like how good is it for magic drops? Regens? Rejections? Although keep in mind that you can't have it all in one throw. That's why it's nice to switch it up!

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- Charles

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Well hard work can be fun. You can have both. And perhaps even if it isn't super fun at certain points, it's about pushing through to get to where you want to go, I see what you're saying in that sense.
I was bummed out about the times I would do the practicing and then not even make finals. I couldn't even show my hard work. Of course, I could have put in extra hard work to make it through prelims, but at that point in my life and with the other things that were going on, it just didn't seem worth it to me (although I'm sure that the practicing still made me a better player).

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Sometimes I just don't feel like it and I think that that's a good enough answer. It's a toy to me first and foremost. I like the messing around and the relaxing more than I do the practicing.
However, I do sometimes have the desire to get better at free-styling and make a routine that I think is really good. But when you ask me if I want to win?... well... I couldn't care less about that. Get rid of all the ego, all the pride; it doesn't matter how you compare to other people. I would just want to make something that I think is dope (and perhaps even express something of myself).
If done really well perhaps that would even win, but man yoyoing is just so hard. Knowing Jensen so well, and hearing of Ando and Yuuki (not that i'm comparing myself to them), making a freestyle of that level to take a world title in such a majestic fashion requires you to make sacrifices in other parts of your life. I don't want it to infringe on my friends, my family, and my other pursuits. I'm just not that driven to do it right now, yoyoing is a hobby for me.

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I think that I would like to make a couple dope freestyles in the future, but I'll see where I'm at if that time comes. And I'm not trying to make competition look bad, I think that healthy competition can be great for the motivation and progression of all players; but we can obviously get carried away with it fairly easily.

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Thank you for your compliment, and for your honest thoughts. You could even argue that I'm selfish in not realizing my potential; but I have to find the balance of giving back to the world and keeping it enjoyable for myself. They have to work together, and I think that I do a fair amount with videos and exploring ideas anyways.

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Well that should be enough reading for one day!
- Charles

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