Jyze: wind up fit! (part two…)

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Subtitle: Please, if you have not yet, take a moment and ready the first Jyze post. The Tuesday Testdrive which never transpired.

Following that post, the inventor of Jyze was kind enough to drop by & attempt (once again) to help me in my failure to Jyze.

Hi MizFit

Let me assure you, you are not alone! For some people (about 10-20% of humans), Jyze can be hard to use the first time. But, after a 2-3 minute maximum learning curve, and sometimes with a little coaching, I have not found one person that couldn’t use Jyze successfully.

It’s like riding a bike your first time. Who got it with no help? And who can forget how once you’ve conquered the idea of pedals spinning and looking a few feet ahead rather than straight down at the ground. I promise, Jyze is much simpler but takes a teeny sense of rhythm.

Hi, I invented Jyze. Well, just this version. The concept of a spinning disc on a string has been around for at least a century. Ask anyone over 70 if they’ve ever seen something like Jyze and they’ll tell you about finding the largest button in grandma’s jar of buttons, hooking a loop of string through two of its holes, and winding it up. Pull, relax, pull again. Not a big deal, right? My point? If generations of our ancestors could figure this out, keep after it for a few minutes longer and you’re sure to break through.

So, let me try to walk you through this process of winding Jyze so that you can realize the much-promised benefits of winding up fit on your next walk.

First, let me warn you of the most common beginner’s mistake: PULLING THE HANDLES WIDE APART AND WAITING FOR SOMETHING TO HAPPEN IS A WASTE OF TIME. It’s sort of like sitting on a bike and hoping it will take you someone. C’mon!

Here goes:

1) Unwind the Jyze disc and rope completely.
2) Lay Jyze out on a table with the handles apart.
3) Pick the disc up a bit and wind it 20 or so times IN THE SAME DIRECTION.
4) Rest the disc on the table and read the next point before doing anything else.

READ THIS IMPORTANT CONCEPT BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE. Jyze only works when you do the work. It doesn’t exercise you. You exercise you! Remember, sitting on a bike won’t get you anywhere. You have to pedal. Remember pedaling a bike too hard and having your foot slip off the pedal forward as you came around the turn?

Here’s the most important Jyze concept in more detail. When you start pulling, you’ll tug both hands wide apart and then let off by moving your hands a little closer together (by six inches or so) and WATCH THE DISC WIND THE ROPE BACK UP. As the disc slows, you’ll tug again, winding it in the opposite direction. If you only pull and then wait for something to happen for you, you’re out of your ever-loving mind. Stay with it for a few minutes and you’ll find the rhythm that makes using Jyze so powerful.

Ready?

5) Pick up a handle with each hand, leaving the Jyze disc resting against the table. (If you picked up the disc and it came unwound, start over with Step #1.)
6) Tug the rope by pulling the handles away from each other. Don’t jerk it, yank it, but simply tug it smoothly. This should spin the disc with a smooth action.
7) Immediately let off a bit (handles a closer together by six inches or so). Don’t slap your hands together. Just simply let off a bit.
8) Watch the disc as it twists the rope back up. As it slows, tug again. Don’t wait for the disc to come to a complete stop before you tug again. Don’t watch it unwind in the opposite direction. You actually have to participate in this part!
9) Repeat. As you get the basic action down, winding faster and pulling harder will come automatically.

Now, if you’d asked me to teach you to ride a bike via blog, I think I would fail. But if you’ll believe that frontier children played with a button on a string long before you or I were born and island children today still play with something similar (I have no idea what it’s called), and you’re willing to try again, then you have a chance of being successful with Jyze.

A personal confession? I struggled at first to get the darn toy that gave me this idea to stay wound. But why quit because you struggled a bit! Who of us gave up learning to ride a bike when the promise of fun trips down the sidewalk was so close? You can do this!

Wind up fit!

Brett Walker
President/Owner
JyzeFit

P.S. I’m still willing to take that call (even make one!) if you’re not successful after this attempt to explain things.

The below is what happened when I attempted to put the message into practice.

Please to remember there is a reason I lift weights. Im wholly, utterly and entirely uncoordinated.

What we have here is MizFit’s failure to Jyze.  Would you fail? Who can say.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I99EBo74Rc

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Comments

  1. Jyze looks like endless amounts of fun. I really want to get one so I can jyze down the street. It would be excellent.

    Thanks for all the helpful advice about it! And Miz it looks like you have a great time playing with these toys 🙂

  3. I think I need to climb outside the box with you, because I just don’t see the attraction. Is it possible that I have arrived at crotchety old lady stage?

    I salute you for trying.

  4. Whoa long email 🙂
    I think if it took instructions, offer to call and an email I’d throw in the towel.

    Your face is hilarious.

  5. Did Ren Man want to give it another shot?
    It might be a guy-thing but now I want to see if I can get it going!!

  6. I have to admire how much time and effort you’ve put into this Jyze thing. I would so have hurled the thing into a wood chipper by now.

    Sorry, Jyze people, but even the functional versions don’t look that fun to me.

    Mizfit, you, however, are hilarious!

  7. Why am I cracking up that he sent you that long email?

    Did he not realize he’s just making it all…seem more confusing? 🙂

    LOVE THE VID.

  8. I stand by my initial remarks about the infernal waste of natural resources you find yourself confounded by.

    Things prairie children do out of complete boredom tend to translate badly into the adult marketplace.

    Beating rats with sticks, squishing june bugs, and climbing trees are all good forms of exercise but they just don’t find a place in the average adult lifestyle.

    ‘nuf said.

  9. Oooh admire your restraint! Stuff like that can be frustrating for me. and they tend to get thrown across the room. LOL Patience is a virtue, but it’s NOT one of MY virtues!! LOL

    Thanks for trying again. 🙂

  10. Please call him on speaker phone and have him walk you through the process and tape the whole thing.

    I’m begging you 🙂

  14. OMG… the look on your face at the end! Love it!

    I would totally fail at Jyze-ing plus I’d be too embarrassed to do it anywhere other than home… alone.

    Too bad 🙁

  15. Love the change up to the tiedye.

    Love your face as you try to figure it out.

    Love to know how the name is pronounced.

  17. and I did love me my ZOOM BAL!
    And the Jyze is still on my desk.
    Next video? Me Jyzing down the street.

    I believe I can JYZZZZZE.
    I believe and I don’t know whhhyyyyyy.

    (Please to sing to the tune of I Believe I can Fly)

  18. I’ve done the button and string toy, during an elementary school thing long, long ago. I was wholly uncoordinated then, and can’t see myself managing much better as an adult-size clutz.

    I’ll stick with the kettlebell. Kneecapping is the worst I’m going to do to myself with it.

  20. Very good try Miz. Maybe the whole point of the Jyze exercise is to elevate the level of frustration, thus releasing endorphins?

  21. Honey…if the man still can’t make you jyze…MOVE ON. There are plenty of other toys…

    I place this next to the thigh master in my mental hall of useless exercise gadgets.

  22. oh man i read “If generations of our ancestors could figure this out, ” and thought it was going to finish… so if you can’t do it ur stupid:P but i’m impressed you tried again! jyze is a weird name…

  23. marianne? no words 🙂 totally laughed.

    and ttfn half expected that as well. totally expect that now.

  26. It looks kinda fun to me…for a minute or two. If I could get it to work…which is highly unlikely.

    It reminds me of learning to yo-yo (yes, I can remember that far back). I often ended up with the yo-yo just hanging there at the end of the string. Actually, that still happens a lot when I try to yo-yo. Maybe Jyze isn’t for me….

  27. I had no idea I was so competitive.
    I really want to try this know and see if I can do it.

  28. I doubt I’d ever use it. And the examples of people playing with things like a Jyze are also sad: pioneers amusing themselves and children in the Great Depression. Neither of those groups had the resources for “real” toys.

  29. We used to do this with a long piece of yarn and a big button when I was a kid – I’m wondering if the Jyze feels similar? That said, that was quite the e-mail instruction, lol! LOVED the video of you trying it. Comic gold.

  30. Thanks Miz.
    I will now have I BELIEVE I CAN JYZE in my head all day.

    I’m easy that way.

  31. I was mispronouncing it to rhyme with Geez as in “Geez, this things sucks.” I believe I can Geez. The video was too funny watching the brilliant Ms. Miz trying to figure out the thang.

  35. Sorry. Jyze just looks silly! and apparently fairly worthless.

    Missed the morning show that was going to try it out so if they found a point.

    It seems to me you didn’t get the rhythm, though. When you pull out you have to almost immediately keep the arms moving in. NOT pull and stop. THAT will cause the Jyze to unwind.

  36. So… basically… you got it, it actually did work, but then it turned out to be not so much fun? I STILL don’t get it!

    I want to see you try Kanga Shoes. (kangoo jump? Have you seen THEIR videos??)

  37. oh deb you mightcould be right!
    There’s a reason I PASS on hiphop cardio classes.
    This Jewish lady lacketh the rhythm.
    (EDITED TO ADD: I can yoyo. not sure what my JYZEdeal is!)

  38. Heh, I’ve done something similar, the button and string thing…it does take a good deal of practice, and I honestly don’t think I could do it while walking 😛

  39. LOL I wanna try! I think I could do this… It works on the same principle as a yo-yo.

    Miz, can you yo-yo?

    I also think I see what you’re doing ‘wrong’… you’re not applying a smooth tension to the string, there are points where you let the disk drop as you switch out with your arms. Rather than moving your arms front and back (at least until you get the hang of it) keep your arms front to side (like doing a fly) Think pects and shoulders.

  40. Thanks for the laugh.
    Miz and everyone trying to help you totally made me giggle this morning and I needed it.

    I come back to the can you yo-yo question as well.

    Will there be a part three?

  41. You don’t have to be over 70 to remember playing with those as a kid – we all had em!

    Just keep practising and you will get there.

    Oh, I regret the fact that I can’t hooha hoop, because that is good for the waist apparently.

  42. I vote try try again, too.
    Because it isn’t me and because it all makes me laugh.
    😉

  43. Geez, he was pretty patronizing in that email! I’m sorry, but if something is that difficult to learn, well then it’s the product and not the user.

    That said, the look on your face when you finally got it to work, and then not work, was PRICELESS!!!

  44. hmmm… I hate to critique your jyzing, but… I think you need to pull more simultaneously and evenly with both hands. Just sayin’.

    Now – as for that longass email… my favorite part was when he said blah blah blah “…you’re out of your ever-loving mind”. Nice.

  46. “Ask anyone over 70 if they’ve ever seen something like Jyze and they’ll tell you about finding the largest button in grandma’s jar of buttons, hooking a loop of string through two of its holes, and winding it up.”

    Over 70? Say what? I’m nowhere near that age and I used to do this all the time as a kid. It was fun for about 30-seconds, then it got so damn frustrating I could scream because I had to keep winding it up just when I had a good pace going. You are not alone in your lack of coordination, Miz.

    I’m thinking (hoping) there are better ways to get rid of the unsightly flab that automatically waves buh-bye when I raise my arms. :-0

    –Susan

  48. Remember when you said we should change the word from “workout” to “playout”? that thing seems like too much work and not enough play.
    Now I’m looking for this weighted hula hoop thing…now that seems like a lot more play…..
    Lets see…..hoop…check…..hips…check…..go!

  49. That email made me want to gag but good for you for trying again. By the way your arms look, you’re doing just fine without the Jyze 😉

  50. I was just now searching for about this when I came upon your post. I’m only visiting to say that I really liked reading this post, it’s very well written. Are you going to post more on this? It looks like there is more material here for later posts.

  51. Wow.
    That’s not how I would have pronounced that word…..
    but I’m sick like that.

    Good for you for trying it.
    Thanks for the laughs! 🙂

  52. It’s a workout just to try to use it. LOL Maybe that’s the point.

    I’m not very coordinated either. I trip over jump ropes. I break things … I’m working on it.

  54. Sounds complicated – I agree, a video of him using it is in order!

    Also – I like the tank top, I have a weakness for all things tie-dye.

  55. I didn’t actually see you wind the Jyze up properly ON camera. Is it possible that you don’t know how to wind? I mean, we saw you counting but were you winding correctly?
    Anything that takes THAT much effort has to be like one of those kid toys advertised on TV. In other words, best left at the store. I’m sure the inventor won’t like that comment.

  56. I love where it is intimated you want the jyze to exercise you.
    It looks as though it could be a great workout though, Miz, ion can get it going.

  58. OMG.. too funny!!! Quite honestly, just reading his answer gave me a headache so I commend you for trying!!!

    You know what, I think I am going to stick with my weights! I LOVE THEM!!!!!

    Hugs to you for really trying!

  59. Catching up so I read both posts back to back.
    Too freakin funny.
    I loved your face in the video from the first post and then watched your serious face try to puzzle the thing out in this one and laughed my ass off (sorry. can I say ass?).

    It still looks pretty cool when other people do it.

  60. Seems a bit like a yoyo…which not everyone gets…I can’t see that being all that much fun. I would get bored pretty quick I fear…I’m more interested in the resistance exercise thingummy I’ve seen in the internet. The TRX system…Know anything about it?

  61. The TRX system…Know anything about it?

    I know that I really, really want one.
    Does that count? 🙂

    Ive heard such great things about em and have been thisclose MANY days to ordering one.

  62. That was SUCH an irritating email! The whole last paragraph would have made me crush the toy in my hands. Well done for the patience bit! Perhaps they should send you a replacement that is pre wound so you can give it another go.

  63. Awww well. I gotta say, you’re a real trooper and have more patience than I woulda under the circumstances.

    Say, that device looks very similar to those Indian hair removal thingies that I see at the mall kiosks all the time, albeit an oversized version. Maybe I could use that on my bikini area?

  64. Love the face LOL!! you are hilarious..the device? Scary. I’d hit myself with it. Probably while trying to toss it out the window in frustration lol

    xo

  65. Well, maybe it’s your guns, Miz. Perhaps you are too strong for Jyze-in’. I am coordinated to some extent (I like complex step aerobics, at least) but this looks too complicated for me.

  66. You do look hilarious trying to figure this out, but I think you’re really making this too hard! There are two things to remember before you watch the video clips that I’ve given you the link to below.

    Thing #1: You’re pulling a rope, not a rubber band! There is no stretch. Again, it’s a rope. If you expect the disc to wind the rope back up, you’ve got to let off! Pull from the middle with a quick tug, and then get your hands back toward the middle.

    Thing #2: This can be learned. There are thousands of children worldwide who can do this. Pull out from the middle, then let off. (I think I just said that.)

    I know you can do this. Here are two links: http://jyzefit.com/player/promo_60.html (people who know how to use Jyze) and http://jyzefit.com/player/winding.html (a few more simple examples of how to wind Jyze)

  68. I am laughing so hard that they came back to try and help you again (#66).

    You are their new Jyze cause.

    Funny.

  69. I think Mr. Jyze President didn’t do his product any favors when he wrote that email. Your video, however, is hilarious. I too would be sure to fail to Jyze.

  71. Not sure this looks like fun to me however I love the new tank top.

    I did send an article in for your magazine. It’s interesting about the adds they don’t want to pay for but will give stuff.

    Sometimes we can’t have the best of both worlds, Miz.

    You can use mine as an article here if it works for you.

    Thanks,
    Tess

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