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. :)

eHrrival

 

it's weird to be back on this blog.

honestly i had no idea how to access it, but of course google makes it all too easy. just the idea of "blogging" feels about a decade old (or more), which is appropriate given the subject matter here.

10 years back, i was gearing up for my first real fixed-axle endurance experiment. one wooden yo-yo for one year. it was a thing. i'll invite you to scroll back to the entries from 2012 at your leisure.

i'm not big on numerology or the importance of anniversaries or anything like that. anytime someone asked me about repeating the 1-fixie-1-year thing, i kind of responded that it was a great experience, but i'd already done it. however, as we approached this year, and as andre, colin and i talked about a possible eH, it became more and more clear that i really did want to go back to the well and throw myself back into a single wooden yo-yo for 2022.

there's lots of "why's".

by nature, i'm someone who is most at home stripping away complexity. i have 300 or so yo-yo's, but deep down, i'd like to be someone with just a handful. (i'm also nostalgic and i attach memories of people, places, and experiences to my yo-yo's, which is why i HAVEN'T gotten rid of them en masse.) fixed axle throwing (and what i've come to think of as 0a) is also the most authentic approach to yo-yoing for me. there's no technology or moving parts to hide behind, you get feedback on clean or sloppy technique IMMEDIATELY, everyone from serious throwers, purists, luddites, cats, and kids understand and appreciate it. and even more - hidden within its limitations is an entire universe of creative space.

i also want to reflect on and remember the first journey and feel the contrast. even before 2012 i was into throwing fixed hardcore. but a lot of it was about the challenge. i'd hit gyro flops or kamikaze, or else invent new 1a tricks on wood and feel accomplished. but playing with fixed axle's strengths (stalls, regens, stop n go's, flips, balances, early grabs...) all felt really nascent and the implications were just starting to hit me as 2013 approached. this year it will be impossible to ignore the context of the past 10 years - to see the arc (as well as the future) of the weird style my friends and i have tried to establish.

there's also an elephant in the room which it would be easy and less awkward to ignore: spirituality.

fixed axle has become almost a religion for me. (i find it obscene to talk about that stuff because it generally distills to our personal life experience, but it's also really tied to why i've stuck with this). the "state of yo" may have started as a punchline on the smothers brothers, but the experience of being utterly present in play - caught in the space between wanting desperately to hit the trick and being blissfully unaware of it - has changed me over the years. i've spent so much time in that quiet space that i can go there immediately, yo-yo or not. when i'm really playing, i fall away and drop a lot of the bullshit to which i often cling. i want to know more about that state and that dichotomy, and i access it easiest with a wood yo-yo in my hand.

i promise i'm not trying to evangelize anyone. if i felt the universe unlock while i was baking artisanal bread or stacking rocks on the edge of a river, then that's what i'd be doing for 2022. so i guess partly i'm doing this to realize (or remember) just WHY i'm a yo-yo player.

the deHcade turned out great. it imbues and synthesizes SO many qualities of the various releases we've done these past 10 years, and yet it's also a brand new thing. new width, new diameter, new crazy response groove... and yet the same old wonderful feeling. All the eH's have had a certain curve on the shoulder which has just felt perfect. i don't know what kinda voodoo colin's got, but i'm pretty sure he could whittle that inner rim to hub from memory by now. it's s a strange and sacred line.

so yeah. 1 year with this yo-yo. starting in like a week.

my dad asked if i was going to try to throw all my other yo-yo's in advance. not really. i'll toss a few. kind of a goodbye. kind of a high five. and then i'll put all of em into my IKEA display rack, lock it, and hand my 13 year-old the key to hide until 12/31/22. it's one day at a time until then. one throw at a time. but newsflash: it's only ever one throw at a time. each throw its own strange eternity.

thanks for reading.

yo-yo #35: red pistolero

how often do you pick up a yo-yo (or anything, really) and just feel struck by an outpouring of tremendous gratitude? not for "possessing" the thing, itself, but for sharing space with it for awhile; simply getting to experience it... how often does a yo-yo make you feel truly fortunate to be -even obliquely- associated with the brilliant craftsman who imagined it; breathed life into it; who took a piece of himself and his world and molded it into a plaything? ... how often do you see a yo-yo that somehow, through its aesthetic or play... just seems to make the world a little better, a little brighter? ... how often do you get to hold a yo-yo and think inwardly, "art", or allow that unspoken understanding to inform the WAY you hold it? ... how often do you pick up a yo-yo that inspires, that DARES you to try to play at a level "worthy" of it?

... how often do you, a jaded curmudgeon who looks ever backward, perceiving a world full of forgotten dignity and attention to detail, get to touch a yo-yo and be warmed by the embers of hope and excitement for the future, and immense pride in being able to witness the present?


in every sense: brilliant.

yo-yo #34: san fran-era no jive

as it happens, this is the oldest yo-yo in my collection (i don't really collect old yo-yo's).

dr. tom kuhn began making his no jive 3-in-1 yo-yo's in 1976. while this one isn't quite that old (early 80's), it does represent the fascinating era during which tom's bay area workshop/store was open. i received it from a good friend, chris hicks, at nc states last year. it's a little beat (not bad for 25+ years), but played great after a bit of tinkering.

i've been rereading "jurassic park" by michael crichton, which was my favorite book in 10th grade. i've always been really into dinosaurs and i wanted to be a paleontologist for the longest time. that said, the character i was always most "taken" with was the mathematician, ian malcolm. when i was in high school, his expansive soliloquies kind of introduced me to the concept of "responsible" science. most of his prolific monologues serve to highlight the failure of technology to control nature, and humanity's incessant compulsion to improve upon the world, not for the sake of "truth" or legitimate gain, but for "accomplishment". discovery for the sake of discovery.

reading one of his later, morphine-induced ramblings, i thought of yo-yo's and the idea of what's really "improved". it's lengthy, but i'm going to type it up anyway:

"You know what's wrong with scientific power?" Malcolm said. "It's a form of inherited wealth. And you know what assholes congenitally rich people are, It never fails."
Hammond said, "What is he talking about?"
Harding made a sign, indicating delirium. Malcolm cocked his eye.
"I'll tell you what I am talking about," he said. "Most kinds of power require a substantial sacrifice by whoever wants the power. There is an apprenticeship, a discipline lasting many years. Whatever kind of power you want. President of the company. Black belt in karate. Spiritual guru. Whatever it is that you seek, you have to put in the time, the practice, the effort. You must give up a lot to get it. It has to be important to you. And once you have attained it, it is your power. It can't be given away: it resides in you. It is literally the result of your discipline.
"Now what is interesting about this process is that, by the time someone has acquired the ability to kill with his bare hands, he has also matured to the point where he won't use it unwisely. So that kind of power has a built-in control. The discipline of getting the power changes you so that you won't abuse it.
"But scientific power is like inherited wealth: attained without discipline. You read what others have done, and you take the next step. You can do it very young. You can make progress very fast. There is no discipline lasting many decades. There is no mastery: old scientists are ignored. There is no humility before nature. There is only the get-rich-quick, make-a-name-for-yourself-fast philosophy. Cheat, lie, falsify - it doesn't matter. Not to you, or to your colleagues. No one will criticize you. No one has any standards. They are all trying to do the same thing: to do something big, and do it fast.
"And because you can stand on the shoulders of giants, you can accomplish something quickly. You don't even know exactly what you have done, but already you have reported it, patented it, and sold it. And the buyer will have even less discipline than you. The buyer simply purchases the power. The buyer doesn't even conceive that any discipline might be necessary."
Hammond said, "Do you know what he is talking about?"
Ellie nodded.
"I haven't a clue," Hammond said.
"I'll make it simple," Malcolm said. "A karate master does not kill people with his bare hands. He does not lose his temper and kill his wife. The person who kills is the person who has no discipline, no restraint, and who purchased his power in the form of a Saturday night special. Ad that is the kind of power that science fosters, and permits. And that is why you think that to build a place like this was simple."
"It was simple," Hammond insisted.
"Then why did it go wrong?"

not "high literature", i'll grant you. but reading that book was probably more important to the development of my world-view than any number of "classics". it's funny to me, because this passage applies to everything (certainly not just "scientific power").

how often do new yo-yoers pop up on the boards asking "which yo-yo should i get?" and from these innocent questions, how often does the debate arise as to whether a "n00b" ought to buy an unresponsive metal? there's always the side saying "get an 888! best yo-yo out there!" and then there's the side that says "get a freehand and a bunch of stickers. response will teach you good habits." neither statement is really "wrong", but the reasoning resonates with the passage above.

i've said any number of times that in the past, if you wanted to be a good yo-yoer (here meaning "if you wanted to do cool tricks well"), you had to pay for it; and not with money, but with time. you had to put in hours, months, years to be able to do anything with a yo-yo that would stop sidewalk traffic. those years naturally weed out the individuals who are of weak discipline, who aren't willing to put in the time, to whom yo-yoing really isn't all that important. it's like the monks who were required to sit outside the temple for a week before gaining entrance. if you can't take it, it's not for you.


now, anyone can learn to bind in a day and throw minute-long combos in a month. they won't "look good", but it remains that at least technically, that which was once the realm of ludicrously-impossible fantasy can now effectively be purchased. like the malcolm passage states, the danger is that the purchaser will be conned into believing that he/she has arrived at true skill without having to work for it at all. you could put a yo-yoer who's been at it 3 months on the street, tell them to do some tricks, and they could get some positive feedback, maybe even draw a crowd if they have any ability to perform. i'm not saying that's "unfair", because when i was young it was "so hard" or something. i'm saying you have to be careful not to be deceived into believing that purchased skill reflects something special about you. it does not.

you still have to put in the time, just as much as you would have if you came up throwing this archaic 3-in-1. the tricks have changed. the style has changed. the degree of skill necessary to "be perceived as good" may even have changed. but the degree of work required to "actually be legitimately good", most assuredly has not.

1932 world champion, harvey lowe just passed away. played yo-yo for around 80 years. do you believe, for a second, that because you can do "rancid milk" and he couldn't that you're a better yo-yoer than he was?

i was surprised to see how few people i've talked to even knew who he was before his death, but then, the yo-yoing community has a brief memory. 2001 is "old school". no one talks much about the old masters who traveled the country literally building the foundations of yo-yoing upon which we [ignorantly] stand today. how much do you know about where yo-yoing comes from? it's not just history. yo-yoing's place in the fabric of american culture (and so our introduction to it) didn't develop of its own accord. it sprung from the WORK of the old demonstrators. from their miles on the road, their cutting kids' strings, their monumental dedication. it's a gift, and though part of our passage has been paid for, it becomes our responsibility to appreciate the "roots" of this art.

when you've dedicated yourself to playing yo-yo for years, even when it's hard (ESPECIALLY when it's hard), your skill starts to become more valuable to you. not that you become an egomaniac, believing you're more skilled than others (in fact probably LESS so). but the discipline you developed in those years truly begins to improve your character, if you'll pardon the cliché. it makes you a better person in a way that simply being able to perform a long trick after a short while will never do. all arts are this way. NOTHING of value is easily obtained. ever.

let's look at another, shorter malcolm quote from the same book:

"What advances? Malcolm said irritably. "The number of hours women devote to housework has not changed since the 1930s, despite all the advances. All the vacuum cleaners, washer-dryers, trash compactors, garbage-disposals, wash-and-wear fabrics... Why does it still take as long to clean the house as it did in 1930?"
Ellie said nothing.
"Because there haven't been any advances," Malcolm said. "Not really. Thirty thousand years ago, when men were doing cave paintings at Lascaux, they worked twenty hours a week to provide themselves with food and shelter and clothing. The rest of the time, they could play, or sleep, or do whatever they wanted. And they lived in a natural world, with clean air, clean water, beautiful trees and sunsets. Think about it. Twenty hours a week. Thirty thousand years ago."
Ellie said, "You want to turn back the clock?"
"No," Malcolm said. "I want people to wake up."

what have the advances been in yo-yoing? sure, we have ball bearings that can spin for minutes by accident. we have recessed silicone response that enables wraps and mutations that once would have just represented effective snag recipes. our tricks are longer and more complicated. but do we really play yo-yo "better" than people did when this yo-yo was still new on the shelf of tom's workshop? has the quality of our play, our approach, or our character truly improved? are we more satisfied than we were 30 years ago? are we happier when we play? there have been advances... but do they matter?

i'm not trying to say that innovation is a bad thing. remember that the no jive 3-in-1 was, itself, tremendously innovative. but innovation has to be responsible, as do we consumers, in remembering that no matter what we are able to do now, or in 20 years, it's only the effort we put into our play that yields anything of value.

i'm also not one of those curmudgeons or jealous-types who gets irritable when they see a ten year-old with a catch-22. it doesn't matter to me what kind of yo-yo you throw at all. but it should matter to YOU. would i be happy starting off with an expensive, unresponsive metal yo-yo? no, i don't think so. i like things to be kind of hard, especially at first. it doesn't make me better than anyone else to feel that way. some people really like to have the "best stuff" out there. if buying a gold skyline as a first yo-yo will compel you to PLAY IT, then that was a better choice than a 2-sticker freehand that you'll put down in a week from frustration and knuckle-bruises. i'll never recommend an unresponsive metal to someone starting out, but if that's what they gravitate to, awesome. i'll keep playing my wood yo-yo's and be happy with that. it truly takes all kinds.

regardless of what you play, i think it's important that you recognize that you're no more of a yo-yoer than whichever kids have handed this old no-jive through the past 3 decades. all of us collectively make up the tapestry of yo-yoing, and no matter what yo-yo you want to buy, whether it's the newest, super-hyped, painted-titanium, ceramic kk'd, tour de force or a relic from a bygone era like we see here, it's still just going to be you throwing it. without you, it's a nice paperweight.

it's you that matters.

yo-yo #33: blood-red 888

this is just the yo-yo i happened to pick up. it's a great yo-yo, and i love the color (which is in some way relevant to the topic i have in mind). i got it from a friend (mike salcito) last week at an nc yo-yo meet. i traded him a green monster skyline, which i will not pretend that i'm not going to miss. this is a blood-red 888. mike said it was only available in europe (but i wouldn't know anyhow). the 888 is cool because, to my mind, it really "takes no prisoners". it was designed to set a new standard for consistent, progressive play, and that's exactly what it did.

i'm also typing this on my wife's laptop, and holy hell... she has a way better keyboard than i do. holy hell.

anyway... this morning, in lieu of my normal zazen ritual, i yanked out my shinken (or katana if you prefer, a japanese sword) for a much needed iaido practice. i'm embarrassed to admit that it had been months. i dusted off my blue keikogi and black hakama (which, it could be argued, makes me look like a bit of a girl - it's not a dress... it's pleated PANTS, dammit!) and i headed out to the spot behind my house where i like to practice. it's a warm day, and the birds are singing again. (for frame of reference, here's an old video me doing some iai in said spot: http://www.vimeo.com/1786917 )

iaido is the ceremonial, ritualistic, japanese martial art associated with handling the long sword. i say "handling" because the more you do it, the more you come to realize that every moment of carrying it is incorporated into the art, even prior to getting on the mat. most people would associate it with "drawing the sword", but that only represents a splinter of its function and true nature. iaido is one of the budo (ways of war), and that "do" character specifies not just a "method", but a true life "path". there's a lot to pay attention to.

in practice, iaido contains a great deal of ritual in terms of taking care of/respecting the sword, wearing the sword in a very specific way, drawing the sword from its saya (scabbard), performing one or more cuts against an opponent (which you have to visualize), and returning the sword to your side.

since it's really just you alone (unless you're in a group practice, which i really never do anymore), your brain is positively inundated by each misstep and mistake. although i've trained in iaido for over a decade (shit, i'm old), i usually feel like a bit of a failure when i practice. unlike aikido, the other japanese art that i practice, there most definitely IS a right and wrong way to do iaido. granted, each instructor may differ on the finer points, but the hallmark of iai is the fact that it's guided by an ideal. since it's not an application-based art (no one carries swords these days), it's all about studying and retaining the traditions of japanese swordsmanship. one might argue "what's the use in that if you can't use it on the street?", but practicing iaido requires a lot of dedication and discipline, both mental and physical. it teaches you how to command your body and mind to a level of attention that many martial arts ignore. though you'll never use the techniques of iaido in a fight, the awareness and understanding of life and death that it espouses help to ensure that you'll be able to avoid or defuse one.

iai is broken into different kata (forms). each school has their own set that have been handed down from teacher to student, in many cases directly from origins in feudal japan. as in all martial arts, there are tons of fakers and phonies, and if you aren't able to separate them from the legitimate sources, then on some level, you deserve what you get. although the style i trained in has a fancy name, "muso-shinden ryu iaido", and i've practiced the kata of that style, i mostly stick with the setei kata now, which are a set of basic techniques that many different schools have agreed on, which utilize and represent aspects of each tradition. learning a kata is a lot like learning a yo-yo trick. you have to break it down into its elements and reference points. you have to repeat it over and over in order to get anything meaningful out of it. you oscillate between periods of being totally exhilerated by it and totally bored with it, but after awhile, it kind of becomes a part of you.

when i practice, i like to do all of the setei kata 3 or 4 times each, and then pick one or two from the muso-shinden ryu catalog to focus on. some of them start standing, some start on your knees in seiza, and some start in the often-excruciating battle-armor-half-knee stance, tate-hiza. after training today, i got to thinking about yo-yoing and how it relates to this martial tradition. yoyoing has its own "kata" in the standardized tricks that we do. the sport ladder trick-list that's a staple of any yo-yo contest gives examples of tricks that have been deemed to be "important". their presence on the list identifies them as tricks that yo-yoers "ought to know". a key difference between the martial arts and yo-yoing is that you don't NEED to conform to any specific trick-ideals to be a good yo-yoer. lots of highly respected yoyoers couldn't find their way through the ladder (certainly not in 2a). as a martial artist in virtually any tradition, you absolutely have to work your way "up" through a set of techniques, and as you progress, you remain duty-bound to retain them. that's the standard format for the dissemination of knowledge. as the budding warrior makes his way through the kata and waza (technique), he develops in two ways. 1.) he learns the full scope of the material that makes up his art and 2.) he builds the discipline to use his art appropriately.

yo-yoing has none of that stuff, really. in the budo, what force "regulates" the students? it's really a 3-pronged attack. the student is regulated by the teacher, by his/her peers, and by the grueling art itself. if you want to study a martial art that's worth anything, those 3 guiding lights will, at some point, need to beat some respect into you. if learning an art just amounted to walking up to some benevolent "master", forking over a thousand bucks and receiving your own teaching license and crisp black belt (sadly there are schools that effectively DO this), what would it be worth, really? it's not just "going through the motions". in truth, "going through the motions" is what ends up building your character as a martial artist and as a person.

is there any regulatory force in yoyoing? awhile ago, if you wanted to freestyle at a big contest, you had to do "compulsories". these were kind of like a ladder on steroids, wherein you had to perform a series of tricks of incremental difficulty, and were judged not just on whether you completed them, but HOW. it was a lot like being judged for a dan exam. the highest compulsory scores moved on to freestyles. now that the days of compulsories are no more (and i'm not arguing that's a bad thing), you never need to demonstrate "canon" as a yo-yoer. the forums have become the primary regulating force of the community, usually dispensing half-baked judgment on videos, new yo-yo's, and players. yo-yoing is a very free and experimental art form, and no standards are perceived to be required. in any case, when you practice yo-yoing, you don't repeat the same sequence of tricks (unless you're practicing for a contest). and i certainly can't imagine an iaido practitioner just jumping around freely through various kata and waza. it would be feel more like a dance or jam session; more like yo-yoing.

also, how many samurai owned 50+ swords? even today, an earnest iaido/kendo/batto-do practitioner would typically own one, or at most, very few swords. they're expensive ($5k+ for the real deal from japan), and of course... how many do you need? sure there are a plenty of sword collectors out there, but in my experience, not many of them are really practitioners. i've known a lot of iaidoka, many of whom are very serious about their art, but i've probably only known a handful that have more than 3 swords, and one of them imports swords for a living. yo-yo's are comparatively cheap, and kids can buy a lot of them. this blog is evidence that i have many myself. but in owning many, do you begin to dillute your approach to any one of them? that is to say, in owning 100 yo-yo's, is it really possible for me to fully invest myself in a single one, and use it to express my clearest self? to a samurai, the shinken was a manifestation of the soul. if i own 100 yo-yo's, has my soul been cut into 100 fragments like something out of harry potter? i only have one japanese sword (well, and another i received as a gift from my sensei, but that one's a "wall-hanger"), and i treat it like its a family member. even when i go through a stretch without practicing with it, i take it out to oil it (or mabe just to look upon it). having just one of something really instills a familiarity and a sense of caring or appreciation for it. not judging at all; just stating a pronounced difference.

the most obvious difference though, lies in the fact that, contrary to SO many ill-informed perpetuators of the urban myth, no one ever killed anybody with a yo-yo. when you pick up a shinken, which is basically a 3-foot razor blade, you can't help but feel a little awed; by its history or by its grim and blatant functionality. swords are for killing people. anyone who says otherwise is twisting (and thus, disrespecting) the "nature of the beast". when you pick up a yo-yo, you pick it up as a toy, or if you're really serious about it, as a tool for self-discovery. who picks up a yo-yo with reverance? who does so with serious presence of mind and with intent? i'm not saying you need to hold your yo-yo like your going to slay samurai with it, but... in a sense... well, maybe you should.

one of the things the martial arts teach us to do is to approach EVERY aspect of our lives with intent; with abandon. there are no useless, trivial moments. so when we pick up the sword, there are rules for picking it up. rules for carrying it, walking with it, bowing to it. how long do i bow? what should the inclination of the head be? where should my hands be when i'm holding it at my side? how should i carry it through a doorway? these rules and details were born of the fact that swordsmanship is about TAKING LIFE. it's a serious deal, and a little bit of disrespect or careless ignorance can be fatal. even now, as a "way", it's about taking your own life to an extent; about extinguishing our own inherently selfish preconceptions. not only are there no standards for things like lifting a yo-yo from its spot in your case or tying the slipknot, but virtually no one even considers those "incidental" moments with any presence.

so how are they similar, if at all? easy.

within each, the ideal remains both wonderfully, beautifully unattainable.

think of a yo-yo trick you can do perfectly. perfect. textbook. every time. if you have an answer to that question, i honestly feel kind of bad for you. where else have you to go with that trick?

one of the most beautiful elements of yo-yoing is the fact that there is ALWAYS a way to refine your own technique. ALWAYS a way to refine your own attitude or performance. the very idea of perfection becomes paradoxical. the only thing that's perfect is the MOMENT... THIS moment. that's absolutely true of iaido as well. in a sense, no one has ever performed an iai kata perfectly. sure there are masters who are far beyond my ability to critique, but perfection? no way. and no thanks.

the greatest martial artists are just like heliotropic flowers that slowly bend toward the light. they are guided by the sun, but never will they reach it. even our "sleepers" should be treated this way. and i'm not saying we go around bitching about how imperfectly awful we are either. it's not about self-deprecation. it's wonderful, because when you realize that there IS no end to the journey; no goal aside from playing fully within the moment, we can really recognize that the PRACTICE is the goal, itself. why am i practicing yo-yo? to gain respect in the community? to win worlds? to get sponsored? no (apologies, and perhaps an uncontrollable surge of pity to those of you who say "yes"). i'm practicing because i'm practicing. it's how i want to experience this moment, which is bigger than the community, more epic than worlds, and more sacred than any sponsorship. and although i'll learn some tricks and invent some others, i'm gratified to know that i'm not truly capable of experiencing the full breadth of any one of them.

yo-yo #'s 31 & 32: extreme spin fhz's

once upon a time, i saw the yo-yo world as existing primarily within 3 big store-owned forums.

the biggest and most popular was certainly yoyoing.com/news, which had been active since 1997 and, despite a single-page format seemed to feature the liveliest debates from the brightest of yo-yoing's luminaries. next in size and scope came the skilltoys forum. run by david hall, and now a historical fact, this multifaceted jewel sported perks like a cool photo gallery, shoutbox, and multiple forums, but always seemed plagued by a plethora of aggro yo-yoers (which is about as natural as an oral bowel movement) who seemed to go out of their way to lower the average IQ of the board by 30 (it wasn't all that bad, and i kinda miss it).

the third was extreme spin.

now before you interject and remind me about theyo or yoyonation, this is about how I saw the yo-yo world... i went to theyo like twice when i was just sorting out the forums, and i just wasn't impressed. it didn't seem like anyone was saying anything interesting, so i ceased to check it. it did not exist in my world-view, and to this day i view the folks who came up exclusively within theyo as a kind of interdimensional anomoly... like bizzaro-superman or something. and yoyonation didn't even exist. it's always funny when the yyn guys get all misty, saying "i remember the good ol' days before all the acid-tounged noobs came with there negativity"... that was like a year ago! the yyn board has really only been fully (or at least mostly) toxic now for a matter of months! the turnover on that board is incredible.

anyway, extreme spin was an actual store when i joined the board (in may 05?), run by rich rains in the chicago area. the forum was positively miniscule in comparison with the others, but with its small size came a pleasant side-effect. it was like a family. a lot of the guys knew each other through the extreme spin team (on of the few teams you could "apply for") or from the store's illinois environs. as a random nc yo-yo player, i kind of felt as though i had wandered into a biker bar where i didn't belong... except since the bikers were all actually yo-yo nerds, big deal.

people were friendly. the posts seemed meaningful. tommy gun, the admin (rich virtually never posted), ran a tight ship with cool mods, but the general population didn't seem to need a lot of censorship. it was just a pleasant place to discuss yo-yoing, and i was always amazed by the degree to which it was overlooked. it had its share of idiots for sure, but most of said idiots ended up leaving because they were policed by the board's more sensible population, as opposed to being banned.

around this time, rich commissioned two subsequent "extreme spin edition" duncan freehand zeros. the zero was (and arguably still is) one of the coolest, most popular yo-yo's on the planet. the es zeros were nifty because they sported a "bionic" silver body. i'm not an expert (and correct me if i'm wrong), but i'm pretty sure these were the only bionic zeros (es i know there were bionic fh1's).

anyway, i hated them. so although i kept the cool black-on-silver caps, i traded the stock silver body for a recessed black one at va states 06, and i was happy... till i tried to put said caps on a red zero and i blasted the axle straight through one. it was too bad, too, because although one of the caps said "extreme spin", the other one just had a silver "duncan" logo, which was unique... and that of course was the one i busted. i may have actually broken the other one in rage.

anyway, a few years passed, and yyn came on the scene in a HUGE way. everyone who was anyone was taking their conversations there, and pat really made it feel like something special was happening; like a revolution without the inconvenience of an actual revolution. rich and the es store took a giant hit (as did skilltoys and i assume, yoyoguy). rich ended up closing the store indefinitely, without any explanation to the board (or from what i understand, the team). i assumed that es was dead and buried right there, but tommy decided to keep the board open on his own. it had become tight-knit; a dedicated core of friends surrounded by a small envelope of the standard evolving come-and-go crowd that typifies any yo-yo board.

the es board is cool, in part because it sports a few features most yo-yo boards don't possess. for one, there's a highly evolved "rep" system that allows you to congratulate members on insightful or constructive posts and chastise them for dumbassery. you're not supposed to sign your rep (it's supposed to be anonymous), but a lot of people do.

additionally, es features "categories" that members can be filed into. when steve brown posts there (hasn't in like a ear i'm sure), he does so as an "industry pro" with a cute little orange banner under his name. guys like seth peterson or nate weddle get a little "company rep" banner. it's neat because it offers one more way for new folks to get a sense for who they're talking to. the first time i ever saw the green "trusted" banner, it was takeshi. everyone loves takeshi, and why shouldn't they? there are plenty of national yo-yo masters now, but takeshi's the one dude i think could get elected "national yo-yo saint". the first time i saw him post on es, it was to give away a recessed mosquito to the 1st person to correctly guess his hair length in inches (36'). sometime in 07, the mods decided to give a ton of the old posters the "trusted" banner. it was meaningless really, but it was kinda cool, too. and i liked the color green.

at some point, i was approached about being a "supermod". although i didn't really have a sense for what this entailed, i kind of rejected it out of hand. one of my aikido sensei's used to tell me that his highest ambition in aikido was to reach blue belt (a low-middle rank you get after a few years). when i asked him why, he said "you know enough to have fun, but not so much that anyone really expects anything out of you. you can still surprise people with your skill). he's a good instructor, so i'm glad that didn't work out for him (he's a 4th degree black belt now). i sort of felt like that about being a mod. i liked being trusted, because it seemed to give people the sense that i wasn't a total waste, but i had no pesky responsibility. so i refused.

and they made me one anyway, which was strange.


i know a lot of people probably felt like i shouldn't have been made a mod; that there were better choices, and i don't really disagree. on the other side of it though, i kind of dig it, and not for the expected "power-tripping" reasons. since i've had some responsibility for the es community thrust upon me (albeit unwanted), i actually feel more invested in it than ever. i don't want it to go away. over the past few weeks, i actually sought out and acquired a pair of es zeros (well one es zero and one set of caps). due to nostalgia, i don't find the bionic all that atrocious anymore. and it plays pretty well stock, which is how i think i'll keep it. from my pal mike, i also scored one of the worlds 07 transitional zeros (dual sticker-recessed). i was super-amped because it's one of the "sword of destiny" ones that sports a fiery "blade" at one of the injection sites in the plastic. i snapped my spare es caps in there and have been rocking it daily.

i think i've probably only used my newfound supermod powers a handful of times at this point, but it's pretty irrelevant (and indicative of how well-balanced the group is anyway). it's made me appreciate how kind, bizarre, and fascinating the core group at that forum has always been. because it's so small and friendly, it's easy to forget that pretty much none of these people have anything much in common... but for the little "retro-winding double-knob toy" that we all seem to love...

and that's quite enough.

yo-yo #'s 29 & 30: s.o.s. f.a.s.t. 201's

so these will be quick (which is appropriate).

i love yyf f.a.s.t. 201's. since the 1st one i bought on clearance at a target circa 2005 (for $1.88!), i've found them to be totally surprising in their near-unlimited potential. stock, they represent (imo), the most perfectly conceived/executed "absolute beginner yo-yo", and with a 5-minute mod, i don't know any tricks that they can't perform with ease and grace. nice shape, nice weight, totally take-apart, and the old stock can still be found for under $5 at some stores.

for years, i taught school kids how to yo-yo. in planning which yo-yo's to distribute and use, i amassed something of an "arsenal" of beginner throws, allowing kids plenty of options while starting out. aside from 201's, my school case contained big bens, lyn furys, freehand 2's, mosquitos, raiders, and eventually the yyf precedents. as the kids and became more invested in the class, a daily race to be the first in the class (and so have first pick of the yo-yo's) developed. inevitably, all of the 201's went first, and since the class only had four, the fifth person in line was inevitably the most disappointed. it was funny to me, but it kind of made sense. the 201's didn't sleep as well as their big-bearing yyj peers, but their response was much more consistent, and when you're just starting, an unresponsive yo-yo can be downright frustrating. they weren't as smooth as the duncans, with their machine-gun-loud "active response", but they didn't snag randomly either, as newbies frequently experience with aggressive stickers. the 201's offered the steepest learning curve, and were justifiably sought after.

i liked them too. playing them stock is a great exercise for improving smoothness, and although they're noisy, they have unexpectedly impressive potential, even unmodded. that said, i do prefer to perform a ridiculously short mod on the ones i play regularly. these two 201's feature a super-quick mod i use to take a stock 201 into the realm that an experienced played will appreciate. if you're actually good at yo-yo, i'm sorry... but you SHOULD be able to rock the hell out of a totally stock, out of the package 201. (just throwing that out there.) but i do find that this mod makes them eaven more fun.

the red one appears stock, but i've actually integrated another of yoyofactory's recent innovations, which works just as well on a 201 for 1a as it does on the popular loop 720's. essentially, all i've done is popped the caps, removed all of plastic the "active-response" nubs (they twist off with a light pinch). through the eight holes that accommodate said nubs, i've woven some poly string through, resulting in a raised "string-on-string" response area. since i've never been a fan of the unwieldy 201 bearing/spacer setup (or of adjustable gap), i replace it with the standard duncan mosquito/bumblebee guts, which fits perfectly and creates a nice gap. put it all back together with a poly string, and you;re good to go. total mod time here: 04:37


pretty much the same deal on the black one, only here i used a dremel to do a super-rushed "ghetto-recess" (literally carving the recess out). this is not the ideal way to do a recess, but with string-on-string, there's really no need to do it super clean, and i was kind of going for speed. i did spin the yo-yo on the dremel for a sec though, just to apply a light 440 satin. the same cap-popping, response-removal applied, and i repeated the string-on-string bit in the newly recessed area. easy. i actually had some minutes left on the stopwatch, so i cut out a pair of playing card inserts and replaced the stock pogs (which do have their own appeal, i guess). could a more elegant mod be done to a 201? of course! they're probably the most easily modified yo-yo on the market. but my total time with this one is nothing to sneeze at: 08:48

obviously, a sticker-mod would speed things up even more, since it does take a minute or so to thread in the string, but i've actually come to prefer the way s.o.s. plays. both of these mods handled rancid milk and pure 143 on the first 2 throws. (i'll grant you i had to relearn the former in order to test them.)

these are great yo-yo's, and a lot of times people seem to look at them as though they're somehow below-standard, either due to their modest price-point or their beginner-friendly stock setup. the fact is that they can be taken from novice-friendly to the stratosphere in virtually no time at all (much less work than it would take to silicone a zero, for example). i feel that they remain among the best things that yyf has done, especially given their wide availability. i'd LOVE to see them back in toy stores again. maybe they'd need to be redressed a bit to gain more popularit in the community. how cool would it be if yyf asked its contest team to collaborate in a series of "customized" 201 mods? who wouldn't buy a 201 set up to miggy's specs? or yuuki's? or augie's? they'd sell like baseball cards.

anyway, great little plastic yo-yo. too often overlooked.

yo-yo #28: eric wolff "wood & evil"

i picked my friend samm up in danville on the way to va states. he had just been involved in a major auto accident, totaling his focus, and he needed a ride. samm's forged himself into an extremely successful competitor, and was seeking his 1st state championship (which he was destined to win). i was going up to judge freestyles. we were headed up to richmond, where we were to stay with the contest organizer, tony basch, a lanky and brilliant lawyer/runner/yo-yoer whose name is a perennial fixture in the list of most beloved community members. tony and i are pals, but, being of comparable age (read: older than dirt, at least relative to most yo-yoers) as well as skill, we also have a bit of friendly competition over the "old guy ladder".

at any given contest, the sport ladder is generally viewed nowawdays as the territory of the newbies. the great players freestyle, and the weak or recently initiated do ladder, so that they can still participate and not feel totally embarassed. (i don't like this outlook, but it certainly prevails.) when it comes to the elderly, however, it's another matter. the old guys take the ladder seriously (some of them even PRACTICE it, for god's sake!) and the "senior division" is therefore frequently awarded a substantial prize for 1st place. tony, himself has been instrumental in this trend, admittedly because he wants to take home the goods.

when we pulled up to tony's house, it was cold; like antarctica cold. however, having been cramped in the element on the banal drive up (punctuated by the steady stream of non sequiters that any drive with samm implies), we wanted to stretch our legs and throw yo-yo. we froze for a few minutes until t showed up. he produced a distraught andré boulay from his car (he's got an element, too). andré had just arrived and the airline had lost his luggage. local 2a player, kyle maxwell was also with them. we warmed up in tony's impressive yo-yo room and engaged in the jovial small talk typical of yo-yo friends getting to hang out and throw after a long lapse. just before heading out to what would be a phenomenal vietnamese dinner, tony revealed the revered "old guy" prize to me.

last year, he had secured a custom eric wolff yo-yo. knowing my penchant for fine wood, he actually called me out on the boards saying i had to come up and meet the challenge. however, i had just been up to delaware for ecc, and my wife was at that point 8.5 months pregnant, so no dice. i had to watch online as the beautiful yo-yo was won by andy brant. THIS year though, it was even better. since eric had been unable to complete a custom yo-yo in time, the prize was a note from him guaranteeing the winner a TRULY customized wood yo-yo to be collaboratively planned, following the contest. wood, response, weight, bearing, details... every aspect of the yo-yo was up for discussion, and anyone who knows eric knows that he's up to virtually any challenge.

tony ran sport ladder in a weird way. you still had just two misses... but you were allowed to jump around through the tricks and hit the ones you want in your own order. most contests rigidly follow the trick list in descending order. doing it tony's way [hypothetically] allows participants to showcase more of what they know. i mostly did the list in order. i think i delayed iron whip until after spirit bomb (which proved to be my last trick). in retrospect i really should have put throwhand grind (the easiest trick on the back half) earlier. on the 2a list, i sucked it up and only made 11 tricks, so i was sweating a bit. tom connolly was also there, and i knew that he had consistent 2a. in the end, it worked out for me, and i won, and though a number of the freestylers earned some gorgeous clyw jawbreaker peaks, i knew that i had lucked into the best prize possible (at least for me).

later that week i was contacted by eric (we spoke while i was at the zoo with my kids). over a surprisingly short phone call, we went through every aspect of what i wanted. because i wanted something more rounded, eric suggested the hspin "good & evil" shape (or "wood & evil" in this case). i was thrilled that he had a nice stock of cocobolo, which is my favorite wood for yo-yo's. at first i considered asking for a fixed axle... but this is eric wolff. his bread and butter is making incredibly progressive-playing bearing yo-yo's out of elegant wood. i wanted to use his gifts to their maximum potential, so i decided to ask for a bearing yo-yo; large konkave. at the end of our conversation, eric said "ok. give me a few weeks, and then watch your mailbox."

i literally did that for the last week.


the yo-yo came today, and it surpasses any expectations or hopes i may have secretly harbored. it worked out to be the single most beautiful yo-yo that i think i have ever seen (shinobu's "nostalgia" and "revolver" are right up there, but hey, i'm a wood guy.) the perfectly symmetrical grain just POPS when the yo-yo is brought outside, in a way that cannot be captured by my photographic ineptitude. every ray of sunlight seems at once embraced and reflected by the dark wood, and it shimmers like it's composed of a million smoldering embers. you can't look at it and imagine the color gray. this yo-yo kills winter.

it weighs in at about 69g, a hair heavier than i asked for, but it plays with agility and ease. now that i have 3 eric wolff's (how many people can even say that), i can safely say that his yo-yo's have a signature "feel". although they hum, being made of wood, they are so expertly turned and tuned that they're far smoother in spin than many of my metal yo-yo's. the "wood & evil" came with extra fine 100% poly string in a bright purple (though generally i just prefer the organic feel of cotton with wood yo-yo's; even bearing ones). eric installed one silicone sticker in the deep recess, and left the other side blank. as such, it's brilliantly unresponsive in play.

during our conversation, i told eric that i really wanted a great player. with a pair of his "art yo-yo's" to my name already, i wanted something that i'd feel i could use (if not "beat") every day. he did NOT entirely follow this instruction. oh sure, it's a player. i don't have any tricks that this thing can't handle. but the grain is so ridiculously perfect and positively glowing that yet again, i have an eric wolff masterpiece that i will be nervous to throw. i try to be above materialism, and i frequently chastise kids who are nervous about dinging their bvm's. i genuinely feel that yo-yo's are meant to be played; that they WANT to be played, and with abandon.

but i won't pretend there isn't a part of me that looks at this yo-yo and thinks "could i live with myself if i defaced this piece of art by snapping a string?" ... out of sincere respect for eric, and his ability to bring to life the most precious AND functional yo-yo's i've seen... i hope the answer's yes. because i'm taking it out to play in the dying sunlight right now.

i'm slightly dismayed by the fact that i simply do not deserve to have a yo-yo this excellent... but simultaneously encouraged because... who the hell DOES?

yo-yo #27: born crucial milk

my memories and experiences with this yo-yo are as pure and clear as its aesthetic.

i bought the born crucial milk the day it came out. a creation of the multi-faceted 3a demigod paul yath, there was considerable buzz surrounding its release. my friend josh had procured a pre-production model, and both he and steve brown had given me their reviews in the weeks prior to the drop. both of said reviews were brief, along the lines of "get one!"

i did, and immediately understood. before the milk, the divide between the perceived quality of metal and of plastic yo-yo's was substantial. the idea of a plastic yo-yo outplaying a metal was generally not accepted. when i first played yath's milk though, it was immediately clear to me that this yo-yo played as true and as well as any i had played, of any material. i didn't regret shelling out for my magnesium freehand afterwards, but neither would i try to argue that it was naturally a "better" yo-yo than the milk.

the milk is unique in its construction. yath had aluminum versions of the older brass "spr kits" machined to fit into a recess in the delrin body. these discs held the aluminum bearing seats, but unlike the old, flat spr disc though, these were deep enough to accomodate a groove of flowable silicone. at this time, recessed silicone response was still gaining a groundswell of support, and was not yet "the rule" as it would become in a year or so (due in part to the success of yo-yo's like the milk). the yo-yo also featured a cleverly hidden rubber o-ring to dampen vibrations, a simplified take on the brilliantly conceived oxy iv yo-yo (perhaps STILL the most technologically-advanced yo-yo).

the yo-yo's body was made of machined delrin (very similar to the popular, near-indestructable celcon). one of the advantages offered by its being machined rather than molded (like most plastic yo-yo's) was the lip. the milk's lip was fully undercut, providing a better rim-weight ratio, and allowing for inner-ring grind tricks which were still very popular at the time. the delrin body is also described as "self-lubricating", providing a smooth, low-friction surface, excellent for palm and finger grinds. add to this one of the most massive playable gaps ever, and it makes for a pretty popular offering. i'm not sure how long it was on sale, but i was lucky to snag one for sure.

this was the main yo-yo i brought with me to worlds 07.

i recall my solo drive down to orlando with the utmost fondness. i left my in-laws in nc at around 4am (unable to sleep). i watched "l.a. story" and "the princess bride" on my ipod on the road. i ate at the GREASIEST burger king i have ever confronted (near jacksonville). i think i remember it so vividly because i had so much to be excited for. not only was i going to worlds (which would obviously be epic)... i was going to DISNEY WORLD, too! if you read three blogs ago, you know i'm all about some disney. on paper, worlds followed by a week at the vacation kingdom looks like a solid 10-day trip. i think it worked out to be about the best i've ever taken.

when i got to the rosen, i was gratified to find out the milk was the ONLY yo-yo that my aforementioned pal josh brought down. (i always think it's cool when someone brings one yo-yo to a yo-yo contest. it kind of underscores how the whole thing is about the people and the experience, as opposed to the material shwag.) i actually used it to win the old-guy ladder (or semi-old-guy, as there is actually an "ancient" divisiont at worlds). i found it pretty hilarious, but they actually called me out on stage and gave me a medal... for ladder. cool! i had the legendary dennis mcbride as my judge, and i remember wondering whether he could do (or recognize) "black hops". i had the distinct impression that when i missed one of the late tricks, i could have carried it off if i hadn't looked totally dejected. anyway, i think i made it through kamikaze (i was not then the unstoppable old-guy-ladder force that i am now).


after the 4-day tour de force that is the world yo-yo contest, i was pretty tired of yo-yo's. the milk was the only yo-yo i even wanted to look at. i left the contest shortly after watching yuuki get hoisted up on the shoulders of the finalists having unseated mickey as 1a champ, and i fought traffic until that happiest of roads, world pkwy, and made my way to the port orleans resort complex. i woke up next to my wife and we hit the parks in her typically unrelenting (but pleasant) style. our daughter was 4 and up to doing it all. my milk was on a fresh f.a.s.t. leash ben mcphee had graciously tossed me. it was all roses.

at some point that first morning, i was walking to get a fastpass for some ride (maybe splash mountain), and i was idly yo-yoing. one of the cast members in libert square spotted me and said "that's pretty cool". although i was on a mission (and stacy might have killed me if i failed), my ego won out. i turned on the spot, got into a conversation, and demonstrated a few tricks (everyone has a story like this, right?). the cast member was thrilled, and to my surprise and delight, happened to be one of disney's secret "dream team" agents. after she was satisfied with my performance, she presented me with "dream fastpasses" for me and the fam, which we could use all day on all of the attractions! score! this may be the best compensation i've ever received for yo-yoing.

the trip turned bittersweet at this point, as my grandfather passed away (my father's father), and i had to leave disney briefly to fly up to massachusetts for the funeral. he had been sick a long time, and we had all been prepared. he had lived a full, wonderful life, and touched many people, so his passing was more a cause for rejoicing his life than lamenting his death. i played with my milk in the airport and thought of him fondly. it was in my pocket while i helped carry his casket, and when we laid him to rest. and when i returned to the magic kingdom, i remember playing it as i walked to frontierland, where i met my wife and daughter at the electric light parade.

i used that yo-yo throughout the week, and though i've played it tons since then, i'll always primarily associate it with the painful and wonderful experiences that composed that epic trip.

yo-yo #26: the yo-yo with a brain

i am only going to discuss this yo-yo obliquely. i hope that's ok.

i used to like jazz. i used to like it so much, i'd think to myself "i wish i were born in 1928... in harlem... i wish i could have had that perspective."

there are all sorts of jazz muscians... but really there are only two. the ones who die young and the ones who grow old. of all of the great icons, my favorite was the alto-sax player, charlie parker (or "bird"). so intricate were his melodies, they literally danced circles around the song's harmonic sturcture; always acknowleging its existence without needing to pander or conform to it. he reset all the bars and rewrote all the rules, and in his wake, a sea of imitators groped for some fragment of his image to be reclothed in themselves. i'm sure it revolted him.

he was a god, but he was dying.

he did so much damage to his body that when he died, the coroner estimated his age between 50 and 60 years old... when in fact, he was 35. he was estranged from his family and loved ones because he was so unpredictable. his addictions to substance (and to stardom) were an inextricable aspect of his persona. it is impossible to separate charlie parker from them and examine who he would have been as an artist "in a vacuum" (it's so with all artists, right?). were the aspects of his personality that drove him to self-destruction and those that made him so incredibly gifted, in fact the same?

meanwhile, one of his few friends, dizzy gillespie was no less gifted as a trumpeter... but was somehow built to withstand the temptations of those years and live to 76. he was never perceived in the same way as his counterpart, but he didn't need to be. he seemed to be comfortable "as a mortal" in a way that bird just never was.

there are artists who are consumed... by their art, by themselves, by the world that holds them up. they burn white-hot for a brief moment and reveal the potential of their passion, and then are gone (and reveal, in relief, the darkness of a world without them)... who, just as icarus, fly too close to that great source of heat and light. and so must fall.

there are artists who temper their passion, who take measured steps toward iconic greatness, who in time build toward a slow crescendo and take their places in the same pantheon as their peers... but were they ever "on fire"?

as a yo-yoer, are you so consumed with your art or with the way you're perceived that it kills you (metaphorically, if not literally). are you burning out? are you still doing it for yourself? are you escaping to it... or from it? do you take joy and meaning from it? do you want to put it down? and could you?

we're not jazz musicians, but we deify creativity just the same. we're not all smack-addicts, but playing obsessively becomes a sort of narcotic. we become addicted, and the nature of addiction is inherently destructive...

yo-yo's remind me of youth. all yo-yo's do. they're things... kids play with, right? i'm not a kid now, but i remember being one. i can still feel the fireflies banging together inside the jar. i can still smell the ballpark the way it was when the world was new and huge and terrifying.

i used to play this yo-yo when i was still a "kid". i had this yo-yo in my pocket as i took the steps from adolescence into adulthood. this is the yo-yo (or one of them) that i threw as i "became a man".

i have made choices NOT to be consumed by myself. in music and art, in budo... and in yo-yoing. i can remember situations in which i chose consciously NOT to burn too brightly, NOT to take it too seriously, to withhold some ember of myself. i have taken measured steps as an artist, and i have considered things with care. maybe holding art at a distance makes is poor form. maybe the fact that my passion is held ever in check diminishes me as an artist... but then, perhaps living so hard as to destroy the aspects of myself that are compelled to make art... would do just the same.

i'm in no position to chastise the people who live their lives hard, or who are compelled to see life through the prism of their art at every moment. i have no right to direct anyone to take themselves more or (or less) seriously. when i listen to charlie parker now, 50+ years after his death, i'm still amazed by his prodigious skill... but i also grieve for the promise he left unfulfilled. yo-yoing is art, as surely as is jazz. but yo-yoing is also playing with toys. it's something we do as we're growing up.

and we hang so very much on it sometimes.

yo-yo #25: beefcaked custom mag

i bought this yo-yo from one of the yo-yo "mall carts" that were ubiquitous at the end of the great boom of the 90's. i'm not sure if the cart was actually called "yo momma", but i like to remember it that way. this was my first metal yo-yo.

actually that's not accurate.

my first metal yo-yo predated this one by about 16 hours.

the year was 1999. the great pendulum of the yo-yo craze had almost completed its momentous swing, and was preparing to recede into oblivion. i was a ymca camp director, and preparing to enter my first year as a 6th grade teacher. yo-yoing definitely possessed a childlike energy that i felt i could harness and manipulate to gain the trust or interest of my future students. however, it would take me years to learn how to do that effectively.


around this time, i remember rediscovering the punk bands to which my friend hilary had exposed me during college. i was living alone in a gutter of an apartment called "the arbors", where i courted my fiancée (living with her parents), and my most constant companion was a psycho-kitty named emiko. my parents had just moved to baltimore, where my dad would occupy a prestigious-but-frustrating position at johns hopkins, leaving me alone in winston-salem (the city of my birth). i was in my final (and most serious) year of studying korean tae kwon do, and on the many days that i was too injured to go to class, i'd frequent hanes mall for an orange julius or to blow the money i didn't have at the food court, being at the time a thoroughly worthless cook. directly adjacent to the food court was the ever-lively yo-yo cart.

on one particular late summer day, the denizens of the mall-cart scene seemed more than ever to sense that the boom was waning, and though the little mall courtyard was abuzz as ever with yo-yo players debating the mount for hydrogen bomb, there was a palpable air of anxious energy. a number of the more popular players in town had already abdicated their thrones for other up-and-coming trends (like soap shoes... wow). the owners had already started to slash prices, in part because everyone who frequented the cart had already acquired product that was more than capable of the highest standard of play, and sales had begun to taper. as such, the cold fusions and silver bullets that normally cost over $100 were now available for [a still ridiculous $75]. (a month later, sb2's would be available at "hobby lobby" for $27. it was not entirely unlike the present economic downturn.)


at the time, paying so much for a yo-yo just seemed ludicrous. how perspectives change. the one metal yo-yo brand that seemed at once reasonably priced without sacrificing much in the way of quality was the custom line. custom yo-yo was a brand from mesa, arizona. their most popular model was the undersized "reactor". although this had previously been a rare aluminum/wood axle yo-yo (a la the silver bullet 1), it had recently been upgraded with a ball bearing axle, making it competitive with the other popular "throws du jour". later, they would become embroiled in a well-known lawsuit with playmaxx for patent infringement (due to their use of "performance rings" friction stickers. this would come to effectively bankrupt custom, which fully ceased their yoyo production.

at the suggestion of the lanky clerk i most trusted, i bought the reactor.

i drove back to the mall later that evening because i HATED the feeling of the white plastic "performance rings". talking to another guy who worked the cart, he brought my attention to another of custom's flagships; the mag series. these yo-yo's were carefully machined to resemble fancy car-wheels, and they had all sorts of styles. although some of them were, imo, totally overdone and gaudy, my eyes fell upon one incredible model that i still feel comes off as one of the best looking yo-yo's ever made: the custom mag predator.

the predator had 4 rotationally symmetric cuts into it giving it a deep, swirling motif. so much of the aluminum was removed that it felt amazingly light, and as it spun, the cuts moved so much air that a graceful "whoosh" was produced. the thing looked fast just sitting on the shelf in the box, and best of all, it had no "performance rings", whatsoever. rather, the response was simply a tapered gap, allowing the friction of the string on the wall of the yo-yo halves to cause the yo-yo to bind and return. back then, tug-response was still ideal, so i was thrilled to have a hassle-free option that wouldn't degenerate over time. this would be my pocket yo-yo... for the next 3 years.

sometime after buying the mag and starting work... i effectively gave up learning tricks. i had learned a lot of the stuff on ken's world (the only online trick website i knew of at the time), and that was more than enough to impress everyone i knew. i thought i was pretty progressive, but with the scene basically drying up (and i guess, my own passion for it doing so, as well), it never occurred to me to learn otherwise. i became complacent, and the degree to which this stunted my growth as a player represents my biggest - my ONLY - regret in yo-yoing.

a couple years later, i would discover the superyo renegade, and my passion would be momentarily rekindled, but i'm still plagued by the question of what my yo-yoing would be like now if i had not given up the ghost in y2k. it's easy enough to take respite in the knowlege that during this interim, i got married, took up aikido, learned to surf, immersed myself in ditch and hill skating, and was blessed with my first-born. it's not as though those were wasted years.

nowadays, the mag resides in my metal collection. needless to say, i'll never trade it. sometime around 2004, i beefcaked it to make it unresponsive. it sports a dif pad and a carbon fiber sticker to accomodate the ridiculous gap. i satined out the rims which were riddled with jagged dings. though it's a "modified" shape, and can't compete with its modern wide-butterfly counterparts in terms of ease-of-use... there's no 1a trick i know that i can't hit on it. amazingly, it's still among the smoothest yo-yo's i've ever played.

the "whoosh" sound it makes is only ever satisfying, and instantly transports me to a time when yo-yoing (and my adult life) still felt new, unknowably vast, and thoroughly exciting.