resolution

i've never been one for new years resolution. i guess i'm of the 'calvin & hobbes' mindset that the rest of the world should resolve to bend itself more to my own likeness. not really, but everyone is like that on some level (which is why it's a funny comic).

this year though, i have an obvious one, and it's caused me to be a bit more reflective and try to impose some more upon myself. so here we are. starting tomorrow, i resolve to:

• throw one wooden yo-yo for the entire year of 2012 (or until the world ends, whichever comes first). see previous entries for details.
• completely give up drinking soda pop. i've done this before, but always seem to squeak little exceptions by myself until i find myself holding an empty 64oz 'thirst-slayer' from 7-11.
• keep a journal by my bedside wherein i will write down all the foods i ate during the day. i don't really want to diet; i just want to be more aware of what i'm taking in.
• sit an hour of zazen per week. i have become lax in this practice.
• work on my iai kata at least twice a week, lest i forget how to tie on my hakama.

as for the 'one yo-yo' bit, which is clearly most pertinent to this blog, i last threw a bearing yo-yo on christmas eve. i thought about doing some sort of elaborate 'goodbye bearings' 11:59pm thing, but it would be superfluous. i'm sure the time will come this year when i sincerely miss throwing my other yo-yo's, but right now i'm still really excited to be narrowing everything down to the simplicity of the spyy 'eh'. i've been throwing it almost non-stop since i got it, and i'm as enamored of it as i could be any yo-yo.

it's going to be tough with all of the temptation i have in our 'yo-yo room' (see pics embedded throughout). i have no idea how many radical yo-yo's i have on display or in storage. a few hundred i guess. and though i feel like i should make some kind of elaborate gesture in bidding them adieu for the year, it just feels silly. i don't want to lock them up in a closet. i want the temptation (and to overcome it).

so i guess, 11:59 is going to come and go without much changing at all. i'll keep throwing the same yo-yo i have for the last week, perhaps a bit more excited to be 'officially' beginning on a journey, the end of which is unclear. i don't have any goal in mind for how i will play at the end of it, or for whether i'll want to go back to ball bearings (or other woodies) in 2013. this is about coming closer to who i feel i am as a yo-yo player, about determining what i need and where i want to go, and about stepping off of a path that i feel is adequately trodden without my footsteps.

first touch.

the eh arrived this morning around 11:02est. steve included the backup, along with a couple of other spyy treats (which i'll only get to enjoy for a few days before the journey officially begins) and a nifty jig for evenly sanding axles to desired length.

the entire parcel smelled like burned wood (steve lasered these just a day ago). the smell will gradually fade, and i'm sorry for that because it's wonderful. on a throw, the eh is incredibly smooth. it doesn't spin quite as long as my tmbr irving pro (which sports a wider profile & diameter and a walnut axle), but it's smoother and snappier.

as soon as i felt the spin, first trick i tried was spirit bomb, which is the string trick i use to evaluate pretty much any wood yo-yo. video here. it surpassed expectations. the oak is pretty slick and felt just a little loose on flyaway dismounts, so i've sanded a couple of the replaceable axles and am in the process of getting things dialed. pretty confident that i can hit whatever i want on it, though maybe that's the new-yoyo hubris talking.

it's a huge relief to have the thing in my hand and know that i can make it work how i want and make it last.

SPYY 'eh': completion

this guy is leaving his home in canada tomorrow and will arrive the 23rd (merry christmas, me)!

made of solid oak, take-apart design, and replaceable hemlock axles, this is it. this is the yo-yo i'm using for the entire year of 2012. i do have an identical backup if i should destroy one utterly, but both of my glued-axle oak spyys are still kicking after 6 months, so i should make this guy last.

these are not for sale. they are not being produced. making this kind of fixed axle yo-yo is time consuming and not cost-effective. i have a spare and steve has one of his own, but beyond that, there are no plans to revisit this on any kind of scale. my apologies if you were hoping they'd be on yoyoexpert for $19.99 or something.

there's a great chapter in the book 'the princess bride' by william goldman (the book is arguably better than the movie, which is a classic), in which background is given for the character, inigo. though it didn't make the film, it describes his life as the son of a master swordmaker living quietly in the hills above toledo. domingo montoya makes the greatest swords since excalibur, but, in the effort to avoid attention which might detract from his craft (he doesn't call himself an artist), he allows another maker to sell his swords as his own.

somehow it gets out to a rich swordmaster that domingo is the real deal, and count rugen shows up requesting a sword which would match his 'peculiarities'. domingo denies having any great skill and tries to persuade rugen to visit yeste in madrid, until rugen shows his 6-fingered right hand. then it's on. not only does domingo admit to being the 'genius of the hills', he accepts the job for nothing (allowing a single gold-piece as a deposit, at rugens urging), and tells the count to 'come back in a year'.

then, for the next year, inigo watches as his father essentially beats himself into ruin in making the sword. he took the job due to the implicit challenge of making a perfect sword for a 6-fingered hand. for an amateur, any long-handled cleaver would be fine. but for a master to reach his potential, the entire sword would have to be reimagined from the ground up. all of the measurements would have to balance each other seamlessly. in the end, after peaks of elation and valleys of terrible frustration, inigo wakes in the night to find his father staring, becalmed, at his creation. 'finally, inigo,' he says, 'i am an artist.'

i'm not a master. i don't have 6 fingers. i'm also not going to kill steve like rugen did domingo and provoke the eternal revenge of his sons who would eventually do me in (god, i love that movie).

in terms of how this whole affair pertains to steve's craft, though... i feel like there's some balance. i went to him with what i thought was a simple request; to basically punch out a few more wood halves from his drill press. he did like a hundred for his wedding. we cranked out 12 or so in an hour at canada nats. he could have settled.

instead, he hit it with trial and error for a month, working late into the night and giving up his lunch breaks to make, essentially, the best all-wood yo-yo he could. everybody has something they really care about (or everybody should). i think in some aspect of our lives, we all need to adopt that stance of 'no-compromise' to arrive at our potential (as craftsman, as artists, as yo-yoers, or just as people). compromise is not a bad thing, but in terms of our approach to ourselves; our self-improvement and sense of self-worth, it's a tantalizing poison.

i guess this whole project germinated from the idea of no-compromise (of a different sort), and i'm thrilled that the same spirit was present through the birth of this yo-yo.

365

did i mention that i have a problem with year-long commitments?

... not in breaking them, mind you... in MAKING them.

in addition to the whole "one wood yo-yo for a year" thing, i'm also joining the crew of 365yoyotricks.com. besides me, some of my best friends in the world will be sharing a trick every week. Nate Sutter, Drew Tetz, David Ung, and Sebastian Brock have all signed on (Steve Brown will be contributing 2 tricks/week). besides the companies those guys represent, yoyoexpert.com will also be sponsoring. frickin' wicked.

part of me is a bit nervous about getting 52 [good] tricks on video using just a simple wood yo-yo, but the other (bigger) part of me knows that the floodgates will open, and is thrilled to all hell about being part of a crew this radical. i look up to all those guys like crazy, and trying to keep pace with their creativity will be the most wonderful kind of "daunting" imaginable.

getting back to the yo-yo, it's coming along nicely. ironing out things like the shape of the corners, the axle material, the wood density, etc. it kind of feels like i'm a 60's north shore surfer whose shaper is hard at work finalizing the details of their big-wave gun... getting the pintail just so, setting the rocker so it won't pearl on big walls... until i remember i'm a yo-yo player.

actually, even after i remember i'm a yo-yo player, it's still a lot like that.

newborn

first time i see the yo-yo i'll play for the next year. steve's sending me live updates as he cuts it. yesterday he sent me an email which was so obscurely technical that i only vaguely understood what he was talking about. this i understand.

i love everything about this little iphone shot, from the smoothness of the raw wood to the "eye"-like pattern of the grain to the dirt and chips on his hands. i look at this and i'm thinking of a hundred-thousand throws and catches.

more to come as it takes shape.