end of the road

 

well... just about 3 weeks. 

3 weeks left on my 2nd year spent throwing a single wooden yo-yo. i know i haven't updated this blog as i intended. life intervenes. i assuage my guilt by reflecting that really whatever i say here is meaningless to anyone else. this whole experience is a meditation. there's no way, really, to communicate either its specific strangeness or whatever lessons it's contained to someone else. absurdly pointless though it may seem to most, it's a way which must be walked.

i was able to fly down to orlando for the florida state yo-yo contest this past weekend. it was surreal to attend a contest again after the past few years of pandemic yo-yo isolation. my last event was the world yo-yo contest in 2019, and i was not prepared for how nostalgic and wonderful it was to see other players perform and trade tricks. it showed in relief the degree to which i once took for granted years and years of these opportunities. it was so great to catch up with fellow judges, connor scholten and dennis shatter, with eric koloski and sean perez, with the man with the golden mic, danny amir, lucky meisenheimer (who gifted me an amazing hard-cover edition of his book) and with so many players whom i haven't seen these past years.

it's weird to get old. like i didn't get into the yo-yo scene until my mid 20's so i was always older than most of the top players... but now i'm older than some of their PARENTS. and it's crazy because i can still relate to a teenager about trick creation or presentation, or the comic irony of certain weird elements, but with every advancing year my existence as a strange, anomalous "yo-yo fossil" feels more and more baked-in. i feel like i still think of yo-yoing the way i did when i was young, but to consider myself through the lens of a kid at a contest - the irrelevance of a 40-something guy throwing a wooden yo-yo is staggering.

a lot of people asked me about my experience with the deHcade this year. as mentioned, it's pretty odd to be at a yo-yo contest and only be throwing one wooden yo-yo, but it was strangely not difficult. in fact even if you aren't restricting yourself to one yo-yo in daily life, i kind of recommend picking just one yo-yo to bring to an event. try to throw only that. we live in fear of restriction - of missed opportunities. but you also see a contest differently if you take away the specifically overwhelming variety of all the throws to try. you also come to more deeply feel that functionally, all yo-yo's are the same, because it's always YOU throwing them. 

yo-yo's are a bit like lenses through which you take in the world. you might see different things more clearly with this or that, but you're not different, the world's not different. you simply adjust your focus. it's interesting.

the deHcade... has definitely seen better days. i have not been delicate with this yo-yo this year, and in the past few weeks and months, it has really started to show the wear. some large jagged chunks are missing from the rims, and i have to be aware which side i throw from on certain mounts to avoid painful catches. the threads have become worn to the point that it needs a lot of care to avoid flying apart on hard throws. incredibly, even with some significant damage to the wood near the axle on one side, it still plays amazingly smoothly.

i think dutifully picking it up from my nightstand every morning and throwing with it every day has been good for me. as i experienced in 2012, i feel close to it, but really i think i just feel close to my own playing - a hard feeling to describe... 

Tom Waits has a great quote: "Your hands are like dogs, going to the same places they've been. You have to be careful when playing is no longer in the mind but in the fingers, going to happy places."

i feel like having sought uncomfortable or strange places with this stripped down yo-yo has helped me confront and push my own attitudes of what's "good" this year. mainly i think good yo-yoing just asks a question. sometimes you find an answer, and maybe it's inane, insipid, or brilliant. but the answer is less relevant than the question. it's the asking which matters, and when you take a year to throw a yo-yo which most players would see as laughably primitive, you either content yourself with the same places you've been forever, or you start asking some really weird stuff like "what yo-yo tricks can i make without throwing the yo-yo?" or "how can i make this stalled disc rotate on two planes simultaneously?"

"how can i ask what i don't know to ask?"

"how can i wonder something new about this simple thing?"

i don't really care about going back to bearings for the ease of it or because i miss this or that trick, but i do think it will be fun to go back with that mindset fresh in my brain. i just hope i can avoid falling into only familiar rhythms. but y'know... there's value in that too. 

maybe the best evidence for my getting old is the understanding that the greatest misuse of yo-yoing would be in playing without joy.

eHquinox

i've made it! (72% of the year.)

that's not actually a legitimate achievement, but it's the equinox which somehow FEELS like it should be a moment of reflection (or perhaps resetting intention). but yeah, 265 days and basically 3/4 seasons with the same all-wooden, fixed-axle yo-yo.

and it's been kinda great!

the other day i was looking at my yo-yo cabinet and i just feel so distanced from its contents lately. i KINDA had an urge to throw a no jive a few weeks back, but i just threw the deHcade, and recognized that it was an IDEA i was craving as opposed to any tactile experience, much less any specific tricks which have been unavailable.

one thing i do wonder is whether this experience makes me a "worse" player. i'll note before i even touch on this that the idea of "worse" (or "better") implies a level of objectivity that i don't possess, and which i don't even really believe applies within yo-yoing. but it is interesting to consider whether limiting myself to a single wooden fixie has prevented me from opening doors available to me with the rest of the yo-yo's available throughout the wide world.

i don't think so.

first off, everyone has constant access to any and all yo-yo's they wish to throw. the mere availability of that hardware is not the primary obstacle to achieving ultimate yo-yo mastery (if such a thing exists). more than anything else, whatever your yo-yo niche, you just have to play A LOT. i can pick up a different yo-yo every day of the week, but if all i'm doing is a few of the tricks i've known for years before putting it back down on the shelf, that diversity is doing little for me. 

if anything, the limitation of a single yo-yo has caused me to become extremely adept... AT said yo-yo. the deHcade absolutely feels like an extension of my arm at this point. i know just how it will respond, including within different weather conditions and slightly tweaked gap widths. it spinning along on the string feels strangely analogous to my own breathing these days. just a feeling which i probably filter out as ambient background noise or the hum of my own brain. what will be striking will be the first time i throw an unresponsive yo-yo again, and the shriek of the bearing jolts me out of my wooden reverie.

i do wonder how much i've forgotten. lengthy picture tricks are especially hard to access on a fixed axle, and it will be fun to try to explore that territory again. i also don't really have a tactile memory for the unresponsive regenerations i like to do. i know HOW to do them... i've just totally forgot how they feel.

in general, however, i think that every experience which causes us to dive more deeply into our chosen art or field makes us "better", and this year has certainly qualified. i've been able to play a very basic, simple yo-yo and stay (or at least feel) creative with it, which makes me happy.

i did inadvertently WASH my deHcade the other day. i had it in my jeans pocket, and i just threw them in there without thinking. didn't realize it until i advanced the laundry and took a soaking yo-yo to school. the axle swelled incredibly, and when i got home it became clear that it would be inextricable from the halves. i was momentarily worried that i'd need to switch to my backup (a bit like starting over), but no. i was able to drill through the axle and break it apart with a thin screwdriver. so the deHcade i started with picked up a couple minor scars (and maybe a bit more vibe) but it's good to go.

and so am i! 100 more days. honestly it's more stressful to imagine going back to throwing whatever than it is to imagine continuing on for these next few months. :)

i forgot to blog.

sorry... i mean... if you've been anxiously awaiting a written account of how my 2nd year throwing a single wooden fixed axle yo-yo is progressing.

if not, then, i guess... bonus!

like the lego movie, everything is awesome. as i mentioned a few months back, it's surprising how little i have missed my other throws. they sit patiently, locked within their strange little airlock/museum of a display case, and i can count the number of times i've missed throwing them on a couple of fingers. (mostly i'd just like to toss a no jive.)

i am beginning to think it's reflective of a change in my attitude toward throwing more than anything else. i really haven't thrown as hard this year. maybe that's not the right way to say it. more like: i haven't been as consumed with the idea of progression. i took some time to look back at some of my tricks from the last few years, and had a pavlovian response which was a combination of stress and fatigue. i chased some really hard (for me) trick ideas for awhile - years! it was worth it to me then, and it is still, but i'm in a different place as a thrower lately. this year has definitely been more about playing DEEP than going hard. i'm filming sessions way less, but i'm probably throwing as much as ever. but the emphasis has been on digging into a session with more intention (and possibly delight) as opposed to with a mindset of "seeking".

it's weird because, while i've always preached an attitude of contentment as a yo-yo player, for 15+ years or so i've mainly been about trying to break ground or push outward into areas i haven't seen. not that those things are mutually exclusive, but there's always been an undercurrent of compulsion driving my playing. it feels strange to have largely shed that this year. strange, but great - i'm spending a lot more time shooting moons, spinning varials, and stopping go's than trying to push anywhere.

i was at the beach last week, and one morning i was out in a lineup which was almost entirely older guys (and yes, i realized i AM one). everyone out there was so chill. the waves were all waist-high or smaller. there was plenty of room, so no one was worried about space. pretty much every good turn or long ride had the lineup hooting and cheering each other on. those sessions are always so much more restorative than the ones where you catch a legitimately "impressive" wave or strive valiantly to push yourself forward. not so different.

the deHcade is holding up great. i've barely had to change the axle and while i'm not tossing it against brick walls, i'm definitely not babying it. i hope colin is doing well. i know he was pretty burned out in terms of making wooden yo-yo's and it was time for him to focus on other stuff. still really appreciative of how he and andre supported me for 10 years of eH yo-yo's.

much love everybody.

all is well (... TOO well?)

i kinda thought i'd be feeling it by now.

like honestly, maybe i was really "caught up" in the whole thing last time, or else i was somehow unintentionally aggrandizing the act of using a single fixed axle yo-yo for a year. but like... big deal? it's now mid-march, and this has been positively EASY.

my cabinet full of unused yo-yo's is nice to look at, replete with shiny aluminum or painted wooden throws, but it hasn't been remotely tempting. i feel like that's a good thing in general, right? surely, it's preferable to feel content with throwing the same woodie every day, as opposed to desperately wishing i could grab one of my precision metals? but part of me is also aware that this could easily be the end of that part of my yo-yo life and it would be totally alright. in that regard, it almost feels like it SHOULD sting more.

part of it is undoubtedly due to the support of other players. when i did this in 2012, there was almost no one else primarily working on responsive throwing, let alone fixed axle. it was a much more lonely road. this year (even having given up instagram), i feel really connected - particularly through the fixed axle discord server. even if those folks aren't throwing fixies every day, there's always a running trick dialog, people asking for help on this or that, people musing over the "state of yo" which is such a big part of throwing fixed... it's a lot easier to go through this process with some group therapy lol. 

fixed axle february came and went, and i was able to throw a fun little contest on the yoyoexpert forum. i set 7 tricks to serve as "gates" and players had to hit them on video in order to enter a random drawing for a deHcade yo-yo. the tricks weren't impossible, but they definitely weren't easy either, so it was rad that 16 people entered. brian datz from canada won the random drawing, and andre will send him pretty much the last deHcade he's got. when the month ended, i was asked if i'd be doing another one for march. i hadn't planned on it, but said "sure", so you've got another chance to try if you're up for it! i can't offer any more deHcades, but i'll find something rad to give as the prize. 

which brings me to a bit of a bummer. 

i got an email from colin a few weeks back. he was in the process of turning the latest run of deHcade, and he realized upon preliminary testing that essentially all of his pieces were bad. apparently the tooling he had made to produce the yo-yo's (and specifically the axle threading) has deteriorated or otherwise failed. fixing that requires re-making the tooling which would be costly, in terms of time, work, material and expense. whether colin is up for that at some point in the future remains to be seen, but in the short term it means that there's probably not another run of deHcade coming. from my perspective, colin/tmbr has done more for fixed axle yo-yoing (and especially manufacture) than anyone since tom kuhn. he most definitely does not owe the world another wooden yo-yo, and i'm 100% only grateful that i got to work with him on the stuff we (he) did. but i also know how much people love tmbr and that the deHcade demand outstripped the supply, so i wanted to be transparent about it.

where you come from & where you go

it's so gratifying to watch something you've cared about grow. 

definitely true of children, and I suppose also cats, guinea pigs, or house plants... and (incredibly) also of yo-yo styles.

i'm running a little giveaway thing this month (it being Fixed Axle February). basically i developed a somewhat arbitrary trick-list and said i'd randomly draw a winner from those who filmed themselves hitting it. people like yo-yo's, so i guess i did assume a few people would try it, but i wasn't actually prepared for the feeling of seeing other players stoked about hitting stuff like varial and bird. in fact, even just people asking for advice about them has been cool.

it's interesting that with the 0a scene having collectively enjoyed a bit of a hiatus from focusing energy on fixed 1a tricks (being hard at work in establishing whatever it is that the 0a style is becoming), stuff like split the atom represents a fairly significant challenge, even for some experienced fixed axle throwers. i remember visiting steve brown one year when he was doing street performances in virginia beach and i was just getting into fixed axle. he made the point that after yomega changed the game with the influx of transaxles, it was hard to find a player who could hit split the atom on an old woodie like the demonstrators of old.

that conversation (along with several with jack ringca about exploring the limits of fixed axle throws) was definitely a catalyst for me. ~17 years later i don't think about it in quite the same way, but at the time it was important to me to somehow retain the stoicism of the players who toiled to master tricks before bearings (or the internet) provided solace. i couldn't fully retain that, of course, but i DID put in  work, and wonderfully pointless though it may be, the canonical skill set i developed in those years feels like something worth maintaining.

in jazz, you need to know the rules in order to break them. in the last decade, 1a has represented "the rules" and 0a has developed as a counterpoint by focusing on trick elements which are better suited to responsive and fixed axle yo-yo's... but i confess the idea of developing skill in 0a WITHOUT jumping through string-trick hoops on fixies is something i never really thought about. like if we were effective in developing a style of yo-yo that people wanted to play, a benchmark of success would be that they start to learn it independent of the context and references it came out of. charlie parker understood the style of lester young, and consciously threw it out to make his own style. ornette coleman did the same with charlie parker. a generation later, you had saxophonists seeking to sound like ornette without having gone through the same process with regard to his stylistic predecessors.

and that's ok - it's inevitable, and it's how style evolves. it's really interesting to think about what i have ignored, as opposed to what's influenced me. watching players hit the tricks for this contest, it's even more interesting to consider where the players watching THEM will take the style next.

it's supposed to be hard

merry fixed axle february, everybody! 

it's funny to realize that "faf" has been a thing for so long now. i remember it's first upstart incarnation and the contests which sprang from it, as well as the original "fixed friday" tags used by nathan martsolf. (while we're on the subject i remember the first time i saw a "trickcircle" on insta... when the term transitioned from an informal contest hangout to ray g and sonny using it to post awesome 15s content. it's weird to have watched elements of our microculture evolve from curious anomalies into foundational pillars of our communication.

2/1 also marks the end of my first month of this little journey. it's almost eerie how little i've missed throwing bearings (or even a diversity of other wood throws), especially given that i walk past my locked display case every day - a strange yo-yo time-capsule in my dining room. 

i make it a point to throw a little every day. i'm not sure if it brings me back to myself or gets me AWAY from myself. maybe either, depending on the day. but it's nice to know which yo-yo is in my pocket and to feel more accustomed to its shape and texture each day, along with the way it spins and responds.

one of my kids at school asked why i always have the same yo-yo lately and i tried to explain it. their response was "right but why, when you have 100's of yo-yos would you only play that one?" the idea of self-imposed restriction in such a frivolous context just doesn't compute. why make it harder on yourself? if you have every kind of surfboard, why would you restrict yourself to just one - and one of the hardest to ride at that? (maybe to make it more about the wave and who you are in relation with it? maybe to settle more deeply into your understanding of what it MEANS to ride a wave?)

i've frequently made the point that fixed axle yo-yos are naturally a bit unpredictable. a bit fickle... sometimes downright difficult. you have to put a lot of attention into them just to execute the simplest string tricks while keeping them from snapping back at you. and i see those aspects of it as a tremendous benefit because they force me to be more PRESENT and they force me to grow. but i'm often guilty of neglecting the fact that some players (most players) play yo-yo to ESCAPE things like difficulty, frustration, and chaos. they have enough of that in their day-to-day lives. if your outlook is that yo-yoing is supposed to be for fun, then the idea of intentionally making it more difficult or intentionally restricting your access to a single difficult yo-yo - at least at first - can seem downright dumb.

meanwhile if your yo-yo is a more of a meditation tool... if tricks are places you go to be honest with yourself... if you're trying to get closer to the forces which govern reality and brush up against failure and frustration, where to hit the trick you have to kind of disappear into it... then a fixie is where it's at and the idea of focusing on a single one might not feel so strange. electric guitars don’t need to pull the strings hard across the instrument’s top to produce an audible sound. so you can set them up to play with almost effortless ease… but if your goal is to HEAR the air inside an instrument explode as the tones are created, then you have to embrace all the mercurial difficulties of an acoustic instrument. nature of the beast.

and the thing is, you CAN start to feel peace in the midst of difficulty, just like (as i mentioned in the last post) you can find space in the limitation. you CAN interpret the signs of progress through the frustration. the failure starts to feel less like something to be afraid of and more an integral part of the process - a teacher. i would never claim it’s more meaningful - it’s just the journey i’m on.

wishing one and all a lovely fixed axle february. 

throw hard and love each other.

and hey if you haven't already seen it, i'm running a little contest all month long on the yoyoexpert.forum. if you can hit the 7 tricks i've listed on video and post them in the thread, you'll be entered into a random drawing to win a DeHcade yo-yo! the tricks aren't super easy, but you've got time. 

(and a little difficulty is ok.)

space to feel free

merry fixed friday, everybody.

every day is fixed friday now, but it still feels special. It's also pizza night at my house, so that helps.

two weeks into the adventure. that's 1/26 of the way for the math folks who like to simplify. so far the idea of "missing" my other yo-yo's feels absurd. i've gone two weeks playing just one woody by accident before. plus this one plays killer. i'm definitely enjoying the break-in process. it's funny because you only take a few weeks to prototype a yo-yo you're going to be using all year. and unlike metal, you know wood is going to CHANGE throughout. So the best you can do is 1) guess using your prior experience, and 2) DECIDE to be ok with however the yo-yo matures.

feels like we guessed right so far. i walked home from dropping Silas off at the bus stop today and decided to shoot the moon. made it the quarter-mile home without even needing to correct - the moon basically shoots itself with this thing.

i was stoked to get to do a little podcast conversation with my good buddy Doctor Popular last week. we chatted about the history of the eH, the point of the year-long commitment, and general reflection on what fixed axle & 0a yo-yoing have become. we agreed that it's incredibly awesome and strange that while it once felt that almost all worthwhile yo-yo tricks were on the verge of having been conceived, NOW it feels as though even with the most "primitive" of yo-yo's, there's an untold universe of creative space out there. what a time to be alive!

the last two weeks have also been interesting because i kinda gave up instagram, which had previously felt like my most significant window of connection with other yo-yo's, and certainly the primary means by which i shared yo-yo tricks. i ditched it (at least for now) for 2 reasons. first, as a medium, i think it's inherently kind of garbage. you look at things, you like things, and it pays close attention to you and feeds you more and more of what you want. sounds innocent, but it amounts to information gluttony designed to prevent you from setting it down and encouraging you to reach for it as often as possible. add to that the fact that we humans find little more addictive than looking at each other and feeling as though we're not "enough".

secondly, i just despised my own reaction to it. i'd post a yo-yo trick, ostensibly because i enjoyed it and thought it was cool, but even if i TRIED to ignore it, i'd catch myself being interested in how it was received by other players. creative DIALOG is important. but me getting a dopamine hit from someone i hardly know commenting "🔥" is not creative dialog. even worse, i'd feel compelled to post a trick every few days, even if i hadn't been working on anything in particular. maybe ANY excuse to play yo-yo is a good excuse, but whatever feeling drives that compulsion to share feels gross and inauthentic.

it's kind of funny to listen to the insecure voice in my head saying stuff like "but almost 5000 people care about what you share" or "this is your only way to stay 'relevant'" or (most nefariously) "the way your style developed and has been received owes a lot to this medium". in truth i anticipated some kind of epic struggle with ditching it, but it was less a bang than a whimper. and i'm not trying to evangelize anybody about it - i just always advocate questioning your own processes and behaviors. only resolve to make changes if the answers you come to are STUPID.

it's been a nice few weeks. and anyway, it's not about being "better" so much as being present. being cognizant of (if not in control of) my own thoughts, actions, tendencies, etc. it's funny because so much of this year could feel like it's about exerting more control, when actually it's meant to tweak the conditions to grant me space to feel free.

anyway, happy weekend. it's supposed to snow sunday, and i just CAN'T resist walking the dog on new snow, so the hydrophobic properties of Colin's all-natural wood finish MAY be tested. :)