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.