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.

yo-yo #'s 23 & 24 (and #1 again): the ones i'm taking to disney world

WALT DISNEY WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

as steve martin said (in reference to anaheim, ca's disneyLAND), "disneyland was my versailles."

well, i'm not going to california. i'm going to orlando (i always go to orlando; maybe one day i'll try "the other one"). i've been a lot of times... i think this trip will make 17 (really), and i've never lived less than 700 miles from it. this will be the 6th disney vacation for my 6-year-old daughter (REALLY). and yet, my wife's worse. not only has she gone more than i have, she's a total disney world addict. she visits disney touring websites and forums daily. she's up on all the new openings, closings, remodelings, and menu-changes. 99 days before any given trip, we have to do the "double-digit dance". she puts WAY more time into planning the trip than the trip ever actually takes up. but she likes it that way, and i won't lie; she's a pro. we never wait in line. she has a positively superhuman ability to organize a trip based on crowd patterns and havy/light days at each park, and though we do it all, the longest we've waited in line in the past 7 years has been about 20 minutes.

among my most indelible memories are these:
• being cathartically soaked by a torrential downpour after the illuminations laser/fireworks show at epcot when i was 14.
• getting totally barftastically sick when i was 12, and staying in the hotel most of the week. ugh.
• the first time i took my daughter (then age 3) to the princess breakfast in the castle. (certainly among my most joyful days ever).
• breaking the peter pan ride with my wife when we were 18 and still in high school by pulling too hard on the exposed conveyor belt attached to the ride's drive mechanism.
• almost getting thrown out of epcot for faking a series of fistfights with my brother on the imagination ride at the moment it snaps and projects the picture of the car.
• taking the picture below during the pirates & princesses party fireworks in 06.


since i see so much of life through the lovel prism of yoyoing, i tend to remember trips based on what yo-yo i bring with me. on recent disney trips, i've brought a luke vader zero, a milk (more on that one someday soon), and a pair of fh2's. this is my first trip in 18 months (18 WHOLE MONTHS!!!), and i've been seriously deliberating on which yo-yo's should make the trip. i've decided on 3:

• my "number 1" no jive 3-in-1 yo-yo (see the blog for "yo-yo #1"): this was a no brainer. it goes virtually everywhere with me. obvious.



• a red schmooved/silicone-recessed freehand zero with cut-to-flush throw down weight rings (that was a mouthful): originally, when i intended to bring a bearing yo-yo in case i feel like playing with a bearing (unlikely, but possible), i assumed i'd bring one of my throw down ronin prototypes (more on those someday soon). however, much like its cousin the luchador, the ronin is bare aluminum and looks like it could (and would like to) kill someone. it's one of a very few yo-yo's i'm honestly not sure i could talk past airport security. the uninitiated would give it a glance and, if they previously did NOT believe the myth about yo-yo's originating as weapons (they did NOT), they would upon meeting the ronin.
since i didn't feel like mailing it home in one of those airport baggy-mailers they give you (which they did me on the time that i waltzed into security wearing a butterfly knife - dumbass), i picked another yo-yo. i settled on one of my eric wolff wooden yo-yo's (see the blog for yo-yo #'s 2 & 3). i was going to bring the small bearing one and have a lovely all-wooden time of it, but talking to my pal brandon, i was advised NOT to do so. although i have 2 (and another on the way), eric wolff yo-yo's are rare, valuable, and not to be blithely paraded down main street, u.s.a., as anything could happen to it, and i would be most sad. he suggested i take a zero instead (big surprise there).
so i am. the zero i'm taking i got from a guy i don't know well at all, but it plays like the absolute dickens, and i'm reasonably sure that it looks "yo-yo" enough to not be mistaken for any kind of obect of destruction (like, for example, gel insoles or a bottle of water). i know that, in the event that i choose to rock a bearing, i'm covered.

• a "clean machine" no jive 3-in-1 yo-yo that i received from 1997 world champion jason tracy: this is the yo-yo that i've been playing more than any other in recent weeks. although my #1 is still my "#1", this one has made it into my pocket more and more on account of its dazzling play. i received this yo-yo from jason (out of the goodness of his heart) in late 2007.
i had never played a clean machine (an uncoated no jive), and i was shocked at how well it performed. at that time i was even more of a purist and wouldn't have dreamed of flipping it butterfly, but nowadays, that's how i rock it. it was on this yo-yo that i discovered i was able to hit kamikaze and pure 143 a few weeks ago (2 tricks i thought i'd never land on a no jive), and it's occupied a more special place in my heart since. this is also the yo-yo that my young friend (and another world champion) tyler severence dinged the ever-loving crap out of when he snapped a string and sent it caroming off of his house's outer wall at last year's east coast classic.
although i have no idea what gives it such incredible qualities, it is a truly special player, and seems to take into consideration the desires of the person throwing it more than any yo-yo i've played.
the nice thing about playing uncoated wood, too, is the response. this clean machine can go from dead unresponsive, requiring a bind to finger-smashing, loop-happy tug-response solely by adjusting string tension. it's actually really annoying until you get the hang of it, but once you do, it's incredibly cool to have a yo-yo that can handle kamikaze (albeit barely) and then vertical punches on the next throw. this is the yo-yo that i plan on playing most on this trip, and the one that i imagine i'll come to associate with it when i reflect on it afterwards.

apologies for the awful photo booth pictures. my camera is packed away, and i'm out the door!!!

yo-yo #22: duncan midnight special

sweet nostalgia.


in 1987 (as far as i can reckon, that is), my dad came home from a trip to fall river with a special gift. he's a doctor, and growing up, he would regularly bring me presents after being away. he was away a considerable amount, which accounts for my impressive (but well-played) star wars collection. the gift was a yo-yo. i had never yo-yoed before (i may have had a few junky ones from party favors or something). the yo-yo came in an impressive clear plastic box saying something like "yomega - the yo-yo with a brain". the yo-yo within was also transparent, but for a weird pair of yellow plastic parts that each seemed to enclose a ball-bearing. i remember being impressed by its heft, but i actually kind of thought it was ugly.

i threw it down with my sorry little-kid throw, and it stayed down. i yanked, and it stayed down. then, apparently spontaneously, it snagged and climbed back up the string. although i thought this was pretty neat, i got tired of it quickly. gravity pull was my best yo-yo trick, and i couldn't perform it well with this "intelligent" yo-yo. i preferred my "dumb" yo-yo's that i was able to make bounce on the string and occasionally sleep (usually by accident). sure i could "rock the baby" with the brain just by letting it go, but that didn't really sit well with me. i think that i didn't like knowing that this "sharper image" yo-yo was giving me new abilities to which i felt i had no right.

i took the brain to school with me and my classmates were all WAY more impressed with it than i was. few of them could throw much of a sleeper at all, and i was getting a solid 15 seconds out of this thing! by accident! one kid, darrell i think, offered me a deal. he had a new, black duncan midnight special (he showed it to me with a nervous, clandestine posture as if he were revealing some contraband). he would trade me for the brain straight up. i didn't know yo-yo's then, but i knew duncan. it was the only brand i knew.

what struck me though - the dealbreaker - were the stars. the midnight special was just a duncan imperial, but it sported beautiful shiny silver stars which shone in relief with the yo-yo's black body. i just thought it looked so striking and classic. i asked to toss it a few times to make sure he wasn't tring to stick me with a lemon or anything. showing off the brain had improved my "power throw", and i remember being impressed that i was able to make the yo-yo sleep (albeit for not as long as the brain), but i could also content myself with the typical up and down i associated with yo-yoing.

i made the deal, and i went home with a smile on my face, wondering how i could have gotten so lucky. the yo-yo broke a week later. i smashed it to pieces on a hard sleeper trying to walk the dog. it positively came apart, all 4 plastic pieces removing themselves from the axle, which dutifully clung to the string (which i found hilarious). needless to say, i was disappointed whenever i saw darrell with his brain throughout the remainder of the year (if memory serves, it was stolen from him by a bully in late spring, and i'm guilty of having felt somewhat vindicated by this at the time).

the yo-yo's destruction did nothing to embitter me toward buying duncan, in fact, during the next few years, whenever i saw a midnight special at a toy store, i bought it. i'd play it for a week or a month on and off, and then break it or lose it and buy another. i was a "midnight special player". if someone asked me what kind of yo-yo i played, i'd answer "duncan. duncan midnight special." it wasn't until the boom that i gave yomega another chance and i realized their considerable potential.

in some ways, i look back on this, and i recognize that, in trading the brain for the m.s., i probably hindered my development in some ways. it took me forever to learn breakaway, and later trapeze on it. i "invented" something like braintwister (or really just an undermount and dismount) with it over a period of months in the early 90's, but referred to it as "whirligig" (god help me) until i was disappointed by the revalation that braintwister was actually an old trick during the late 90's boom. since imperials really aren't good for looping, i could never manage more than a single loop-the-loop with it.

if i had stuck with the brain, it might have made me a better player by some standards, but the fact that i didn't kind of speaks to some important truths about me:

1.) i'm less interested by the prospect of improvement than i am by "shiny things".
2.) i've always wanted to "yo-yo simply" and "simply yo-yo". the midnight special allowed me to do that.
3.) since the 80's, i've been aware of the idea of "cheating" in yo-yoing. part of the reason i rejected the brain was the fact that its transaxle clutch made it feel "unnatural". i don't speak out against bearings now or anything, but i've always preferred the feeling of a fixed axle yo-yo.

i WISH i still had the pieces of that original midnight special, but alas, they're scattered to the 4 winds. i've procured some from good friends, and i actually enjoy playing them. few things are more satisfying than nailing behind the head eli hops on a yo-yo like this. filtering the modest skill i've developed with "better" yo-yo's through the one i started on is a joy, which to me remains what yo-yoing is all about.

yo-yo #20: the flying camel

i bought this yo-yo from the tom kuhn website a few years ago. obviously, it's just an ordinary maple no jive yo-yo, but this version comes in butterfly configuration and features a pretty intricate engraving on the sides. the legend is that while backpacking in the 70's, tom looked up and saw a cloud and thought it looked like a big camel... so he decided to put it on a yo-yo. i can totally believe that, [sorta] knowing tom. he's a very whimsical guy, and is pretty in tune with the outdoors. one time he emailed me a picture he took of a hawk and a blackbird with the sole caption "quit jivin' me, blackbird!"

a thread on yoyonation got me thinking about yoyoing "and the world" (as if they're two separate entities).

so much of yoyoing takes place in peoples rooms, or in tiny places. so many freestyles and videos are essentially compressed to fit into a miniscule, imaginary box. people regularly say that they don't like to yo-yo in public, for fear of embarrassment or persecution for such a "nerdy" pastime.

i find it kind of depressing, because to me, one of the most remarkable qualities of yoyoing is its inherent portability. growing up, i played piano. when i got a little older, the lure of a rock band (meaning an actual one, and not a video game) made me gravitate to the electric bass, followed by the big, honkin' upright. i always kind of wished that i played harmonica, pocket trumpet, or something comparably tiny, because i want to be able to make art and express myself on a whim, and in any situation. if i'm in line at the grocery store, or in the forest, i can take out a yo-yo, and just "dial in". for some people, it seems like a tool used to distance one's self from others; something i do in my room that no one can touch or interfere with. for me, yoyoing is one more art i can use to interact with the larger world.

i took this yo-yo to the beach around this time last winter. i love nature, and the outdoors, and playing wood just seems so natural and "right". i hesitate to use the word "organic", which has been sequestered by every supermarket trying to "go green", but there's something about playing wood that resonates well with being out under the sky. anyway, i'm also a surfer (though i've been less dedicated in recent years, i'm sad to say), and i got to thinking about the similarities and differences between playing yo-yo, and riding waves.

whether you've ever dropped in or not, surfing is fascinating because it involves the manipulation of a natural, primal energy source to propel you into what's essentially a controlled fall. i've never seen an activity more imbued with inherent grace. like yo-yoing, it's the simplest idea possible, which we've gradually refined and processed into a multifaceted and saleable "sport". (notice i didn't say "ruined", because i don't think it's in our power to do so to either.)

let's look at the respects in which surfing and yoyoing are similar:

• in surfing, the wave is the energy source, and it moves you and your board through space in the way that you want. in yoyoing, the roles are changed. YOU are the energy source, and you manipulate the toy in the way you want. though the differences are many, it's still just playing with finite energy. a wave only has so much juice before it dissipates on the shore. your throw only has so much juice before the force is dissipated by friction. maybe i like throwing wood because this is so much more palpable and obvious (in n.c., i'm used to short rides anyway).

• both occur in a similar time frame, and involve a similar breakdown of parts. yoyoing involves the throw, the trick, and the return. surfing breaks down to the paddle, the ride, and the kickout (or the glorious wipeout-beating that happens plenty, too).

• both are subject to fanatic, factious, tribal niches which generally perceive themselves to be more important to the greater world than they actually are. surfers and yoyoers are similar in their fierce devotion to their friends, and their general willingness to speak ill of their "enemies", as well as the uninitiated. a quick glance at any surfing or yoyoing forum proves as much.

although surfing and yoyoing are only similar in the most academic respects, the primary difference between them relates to "fear". when you're out there in the water (especially alone, or on a huge day), it can get scary. there are a thousand ways to kill yourself surfing in the ocean. i've been surprised by a half-dozen sharks sharing the same space in the lineup as me. i've been pulled from behind "over the falls" during hurricane swells. i've been faced with the terror of having no idea which direction is up while underwater. (and i'm only a relatively casual surfer on the east coast!). EVERY paddleout requires a bit of a gut-check.

in yoyoing, there's no immediate fear of death, and maybe there should be. who puts on the slipknot and wonders to themselves "will this be the last time?" who considers for a moment that they might pay for a "high risk" trick by eating a serious beatdown? yeah, i've got stringburn, and i've bonked myself on the head plenty with a yo-yo. i never fail to laugh though, when i read the myriad threads asking "how bad have you hurt yourself with a yo-yo?"

but we SHOULD yo-yo like that. we should LIVE like that. we should maintain within ourselves the ember of the understanding that every session and every throw may be our last. tomorrow is promised to no man. surfing causes its exponents to really value what they do because of the inherent danger, but even without the omnipresent risk of death, we should recognize that our lives are fragile, and that the pursuits to which we dedicate time and effort are truly worthwhile. our yoyoing should matter to us more than just a throwaway that we use to kill time. you can't "kill time", but you can surely waste it. this comparison with surfing (and so this yo-yo) reminds me to throw and live with a little more "intent".

though i live 100+ miles from the beach now, it's a beautiful day.
so, i'm picking up my camel, and taking it for a walk. ;)