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.

Oathbreaking and Other Worldly Adventures

back home.

this has, without question, been the best summer ever. i say that at the end of a lot of summers (though not all of them). but this time for serious. between two trips to disney world, two weeks in hawaii, worlds, and a thousand adorable memories of my kids scraping knees, splashing in pools, and blowing bubbles as they feel their way through existence... 2012 is victorious.

worlds was such a spectacular time. as one of the old guys, it's so special to watch people grow up and grow into themselves while still remaining true to simple happiness (as yo-yoing is wont to cultivate). i will intersperse some pictures from the trip, beginning with this shot of sid, whose rosen-carpet camo shirt made his torso difficult to see.

this was the first time that i've taken only one yo-yo to worlds (technically i brought a backup of the 'eh', but never needed to use it). the complications inherent to my one-yo-yo-for-2012 adventure were immediately apparent as i pulled up to the rosen. tons of people wanted to try it, and everyone seemed to like and appreciate it, which made me happy. when they handed me their yo-yo's, however, all i could do was kind of stare at them and 'heft' them a bit. a couple kids wanted my opinion of this or that metal, and i had nothing to give them beyond 'it has a nice weight' or 'i really like this step here'. it was strange, and an aspect of this challenge i'll not miss.

this was also the first time that i've left the rosen so frequently. for whatever reason, i kept waking up early. since this is a sin and an abomination among most yo-yoers, and the only people in the event hall at 7am are those who haven't gone to sleep yet, i just kept walking and did some mornings at disney world, which, despite my obvious and debilitating addiction, i had never done alone! i've heard people say 'oh it's no fun without the kids,'... which is a complete crock. it's EXACTLY as much fun, just with less whining.

the contest itself is always less interesting to me than the silly little events which surround it. i don't mean to minimize the freestylers - i love the drama and artistry of the finals - but it's always very serious and tense, and that's not why i yo-yo. things like playing butterfly horse while having freestyle rap battles are a pretty solid metaphor for why i yo-yo (it probably shows). butterfly horse was amazing, and i did better than i thought, unseating rick wyatt in the semis. nate sutter was too much for me, however, and i flaked out on miggwave (formerly known as shockwave). had john bot performed his new experimental style (in which you throw through the collar of your sweatshirt with your arms connected), he probably would have won. also, YES, my participation implies that i cheated on my 2012 commitment. I DID PLAY A BUTTERFLY (actually 3 of them) IN BUTTERFLY HORSE. somehow, i feel like it's not cheating if it's something planned rather than impulsive... ok, it still is, but if that's the only asterisk on the year, i'm just fine with it.

anyway, i did better in the fixed axle throwdown (during which i went back to the 'eh'), which is my favorite event at worlds by far. over the years, the players have completely reinvented it to fit their desires, and now, it hardly resembles a traditional yo-yo contest at all (for which i am very thankful). it starts with the 8 best, most creative and dedicated fixed axle players we (or drew) can find. the 'wheel of penalty' decides a trick category (this year included 'unattached', 'repeater', 'pause', 'picturesque', 'big air', etc), and players vote with their shoes for the best trick. whatever its level of official sanctioning, winning it was pretty much the best thing i've ever done in [quasi-] competitive yo-yoing, and the trophies by 44rpm and TMBR Toys are so much better than the actual worlds trophies, it's kind of a disgrace (see below).
 

wheel of penalty is always memorable. i'm not sure how 2 not-chubby asian kids were able to withstand both team chubby lovin' AND the yeti, but i guess it happened! almost as entertaining was takahiro iizuka's accidental nap in the main hall. i don't think he had been asleep 2 minutes before people started building a chair-fort around him and stacking trash on his head. every year, some poor soul crashes at 3am to the delight of all. he was good about it.

the freestyles were fantastic. i wasn't universally able to pick the winners, but i think all of them were deserving (if that makes sense). my personal favorites were maya and tyler's 5a, brian's 4a, hank's 3a, shu's 2a, and harold's 1a. i'm always awed by how much guts and poise it takes to keep control on stage, but still be dynamic. every year, we get treated to freestyles like that, some of which earn trophies, and some of which do not... they deserve more than that, regardless.

kudos to my friend and teammate, sebastian brock, for organizing a exhibition of freestyles from competitors who didn't make it into finals. although i had already bolted and was passed out like a proper 35 year-old in serious sleep-debt, it's the best idea ever and, by was all accounts, a great way to end the event. the representation of team spyy was teeny (me, gary, sebby, and nate), but i think we made up for it with our enthusiasm. i love those guys.

i should mention that there was also a dance party after finals, which i did not understand at all (granted i am old, and cannot be expected to understand such things).

the elephant in the room was (and remains) prague. i'm not associated with the guys who are planning to reboot worlds in europe for next year, and i don't have much to say about that here... other than i think it will be an amazing contest, and that i think it's time for a change. yes, i had a great time at worlds, just like i do every year. yes, i'm very thankful for the work that greg cohen and his volunteers have put in over the years. i have benefited immensely from having worlds so convenient to me. but it's static. it's stagnating, and yo-yoing stagnates with it. now you have some awesome people who know modern yo-yoing and modern yo-yo contests and want to take the best aspects of worlds and make it even better AND provide exciting, potentially rotating venues to make it a truly WORLDwide event.

SPYY 'eh': completion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

steeling myself (so to speak)

haven't played a bearing yo-yo in over a week. been awhile since i could say that (not that... it's anything significant to say).

still really excited and gung-ho about this idea. obviously, throughout the next year, i'll go through peaks and valleys, some more substantial than others. right now it's easy, because to get ready, i'm kind of cycling through my favorite wood yo-yo's (to which i ALSO won't have access in the new year). mainly been throwing my favorite clean machines, tmbrs, yyf legends, and my old #1 no jive. once i'm down to one, the real fun begins.

as for said one, steve and i have been e-mailing back and forth on specifics. true to his own tendencies, he's being more ambitious about building a better wooden yo-yo than i would have even hoped for, but i'm all the more stoked by the ideas coming out. this is not an attempt to sell yo-yo's, and currently, no plans exist to make this yo-yo available.

part of what i'm looking forward to (or at least what's immediately apparent) is the way i'll have to address the idea of playing 'for' other people. a lot of folks know i always have a yo-yo and will ask with no prompting whatsoever to see a trick (or for a whole show). kids are especially uninhibited about this, but grown-ups do it too. the 'pro' in me wants me to ask them to evaluate my stock portfolio or check my blood pressure or do whatever they 'do' on the spot for free... but that guy's kind of a dick. i mostly just smile and put on a rad little show.

doing a rad little show is both easier and harder with a fancy metal/bearing yo-yo. it's easier because you do longer tricks with more hits and weird formations. those things impress the uninitiated, even when you mess up. i'll miss shattering the illusions of people who have never seen progressive yo-yoing by doing a mindless, minute-long combo on my ronin without trying at all. it's fun to drop jaws sans effort. but it's also harder with bearings because i find that the more you rely on your equipment (or tricks enabled by your equipment) to run the show, the less you 'connect'. it's easier to shock people by yo-yoing in a way that, to them, looks nothing like any yo-yoing they've seen... but it's also fun (and in some ways, more rewarding) to enthrall them with play that looks exactly like yo-yoing to them... but somehow 'unquantifiably awesomer'.

it's a different kind of challenge, which is precisely what's fueling this whole endeavor.

2012

for the calendar year of 2012, i've decided to challenge myself to simplify and refocus my approach to yo-yoing.

for awhile now, i feel like all of my best yo-yo tricks have gotten shorter and shorter, and that my longer 1a combos have stagnated or else deteriorated into self-indulgent pointlessness. not that there's anything WRONG with that, but i feel like i need to do something to refresh my perspective and go back to what i love. considering the team spyy has built (and CONTINUES to build), my ability to rep the brand with relevant, progressive 1a tricks is spiraling down to a pinpoint. my value to the team has really only ever been in playing 'against the grain' (so to speak). i don't mean that to sound self-deprecating - i like thin yo-yo's that whack your knuckles.

and so, spyy has agreed to make me a[nother] new yo-yo (similar, but not identical to the one pictured above). i doubt this one will see any kind of widespread production, as that's not its aim.

starting 1/1/12, my goal is to play one all-wood yo-yo for a year.

a year is a long time, and wood is fragile. in the event that i burn through the axle completely or somehow irreparably damage the yo-yo, i'll have a couple of identical backups... but that's it. no bearings for a year, no metal for a year, no unresponsive for a year. to me, it's the equivalent of joining a yo-yo monastery, which when i think about it, is something i should have done awhile ago. in some ways, it's meant to be a kind of 'yo-yo death', but rest assured, while i'm walking away from the aspects of yo-yoing that don't appeal to me at all, i'm walking TOWARD the parts that do... which is unbelievably exciting.

since other yo-yo's will kind of cease to hold a lot of appeal for me during this process (seeing as i won't be playing them), i'll be using this space to document my progress (or regress, as the case may be). i'd like to note that i really appreciate spyy's acceptance of this. when i brought this to steve, he could have given me a hard time for having made me the flying v, having made me the ronin, and having sent me a truckload of awesome spyy's... just to have me give up on all but one wood yo-yo. instead he embraced it, said 'it's where your passion lies', and offered to make it for me.

i don't expect anybody to care about this. i know a few people read this blog, which always surprises me. i don't mean to act like it's a big deal. it really is just where i need to go with my yo-yoing. i really believe that by imposing limits upon your approach to an art, you can come to understand your own unlimited nature.

here's to finding out.