Happy New Year!

i'm just inside of 3 hours left. the last 3 hours of a year spent throwing one yo-yo. it's really, REALLY not a big deal, and i have to say i'm ashamed of playing like it is on instagram and facebook and whatever.

at this point, i'm excited to make good on a deal i made myself. to hold up my own end of the bargain (which, of course, was the only end at all). it feels like one last xmas gift; one i saved for and which i get to open a few days late. in the movie 'rob roy', liam neeson calls honor 'the gift a man gives himself'. i don't know how much 'honor' can be attributed to any aspect of this endeavor, but it feels great going into these last few hours.

tonight, i'll kiss my kids goodnight, along with my wife (she's got to work in the morning). i'll probably put the big ball on tv. and i'll throw yo-yo. i'll try to "throw well" and just be grateful for these moments as they falter and expire with all the swiftness of a wood yo-yo dying into stillness... just like they do every night of every year, regardless of whether or not we pay attention.

i figure i've thrown the 'eh' at least 100,000 times this year. that's a lot of throws for one yo-yo. a lot of catches. a lot of missed tricks. a lot of snap-starts. a lot of spent string and frustration and relief and sanding axles and desperately eeking out sleepers and tuning out vibe... it used to look like this:

and now it looks like this:

i wouldn't trade anything in the world for those 100,000 throws. i wouldn't trade anything for this "not a big deal" experience, because it's the "not a big deal" things that you do (or don't do) that end up  defining who you are. they say 'you are what you eat', but really you are all that you do. you are your huge, grandiose successes and your most terrible failures, but mostly you're all of the tiny moments in between. you're 'washing the dishes' and 'making sure the kids wear their seatbelts' and 'sitting around looking at twitter'. you ARE those moments... and if you're reading this blog, then on some level, and in some way, you are what you throw... and how you throw... and WHY you throw.

in truth, as my time on 365yoyotricks.com wound down, i found myself a little disappointed. in the last few weeks, it occurred to me that so many of the ideas i wanted to explore this year, i never got around to building into tricks. in the beginning, a year seemed like SUCH a long time. it seemed like the path stretched forever and twisted so that i couldn't see more than a few yards in front of me. and then in the middle, it DRAGGED some days (especially on those july afternoons that saw my cotton string slip through my skin like razor-wire). i had some traction, and i had some purpose, but the monotony and routine still made it seem like "the end" was just some amorphous idea that couldn't take form. but on new year's eve... it occurs to me: THIS is what i was able to do with a year. THIS, and no more.

i hit some good tricks, i think. i busted some knuckles. i was a pretty good teacher and a pretty good dad and a pretty good husband. and a pretty good yo-yo player, in my way. i think on new year's eve, you always look at yourself and wonder if all your 'pretty good' could have been something more... and you wonder if you've got it in you to live up to that untapped potential tomorrow. i kept my promise... but do you ever really FULFILL it?

but at the end of the day (and at the end of the year), the overwhelming feeling i'm left with is one of gratitude. i'm SO fortunate to be able to give this kind of frivolous pursuit my attention and commitment. i have it SO GOOD to have been able to spend time thinking about what it means to play with a YO-YO... a TOY... and to be able to have shared this experience with my friends and find that some of them care about it, and even want to be part of it... it has been truly surreal.

a lot of people have asked me what i'll use for my first throw of 2013. it'll be that one at the top of the page there. my yo-yo. i owe it that much, at least.

i wish you the very best in 2013, and thank you sincerely for giving my little internal adventure even a moment of your attention.

winding down...

So it’s the end. Pretty much.

I’ve got, what, a couple of weeks left? “Not with a bang, but a whimper”, as Eliot said. I truly can’t express enough gratitude to accommodate what this whole experience (and this whole year) have meant to me.

• To Steve Buffel for enabling it from the start, and for repressing what would have been a very natural desire to say “hey jerk… remember all that stuff I’ve done for you? Just play my metal yo-yo’s, ok,”. Instead, he made me a truly legendary wooden yo-yo, and supported me full-on.
• To Steve Brown, who thought it’d be alright to give me a weekly spot to share the tricks I felt like doing, even though the vast majority of yo-yoers don’t do fixed axle on the regular.
• To Colin Leland, who has pushed the standard of what wooden yo-yo’s can do harder than anyone, and who agreed to help SPYY share the ‘eh’ on a level I never thought I’d get to see.
• To Drew Tetz, with whom I’ve had a running video-text conversation throughout the year, and who is using fixed axle to dictate “the shape of tricks to come”. It seems like not a week goes by that one of us doesn’t text the other “Is this yours? Have you done this?”
• To the other Light Sleeper Society guys who got on stage at Worlds and gave me their shoes, that was certainly the most amazing extrinsic honor I have received in yo-yoing (or COULD receive, more like).
• To my kids at school and at club, who have been so hilariously patient with me as I’ve tried to teach them Kamikaze and White Buddha using fixed axle. After the first few weeks, they realized ‘yeah, he’s gonna keep this up,’ and resigned themselves to learning tricks with the yo-yo dead.
• And, to all the people who sought out my stuff, who sent me messages of support, or who have given wood a more legitimate shot lately. It’s really gratifying and humbling to be part of this movement of renewed appreciation and trick progression.

I’m a little anxious about the prospect of just grabbing a random yo-yo and walking out the door with it. I’m not sure how easy it will be to go back to playing "just anything". I definitely miss playing 2-handed, but aside from that, I kind of doubt that playing with a bearing will be substantially more fun than what I’m doing now. I’m fairly confident that I’ll feel really bad about my “regular 1a” and its degree of deterioration, but we’ll see. I’m so excited about the directions fixed axle is going that I’m sure I’ll still spend a lot of time doing that (certainly more than just on “Fixed Friday”).

I’m not good at tying a bow on things and saying “that experience is over”, but I suppose that’s the natural consequence of beginning a year-long commitment and seeing it through. In terms of what it’s given me… Aside from a very obvious and intimate (gross!) acquaintance with my yo-yo, I definitely feel I have a better sense for what will and won’t work before I throw down. I’ve got a much more intuitive sense for my own throw than I did a year ago. When you can only really do a trick if your throw is up to snuff, it becomes pretty evident when one is off-kilter. I never had a big hang-up about dings or vibe with any yo-yo, but the last few months have taught me that banging a yo-yo (even a wood one) off of all manner of creation and inducing a vibe that would rival a heavily caffeinated Charlie Sheen can still be perfectly manageable in terms of completing tricks. I have no beef with those that like their yo-yo’s clean and pretty, but it’s neat to have experimented with slamming one yo-yo again and again and still being totally in love with it. I've broken into new personal territory with respect to tuning a yo-yo into its best possible level of play, breaking in axles, and eeking out the dying embers of a throw’s energy.

I would absolutely recommend this experience to anyone. I mean, not having a one off wood yo-yo made for you or anything, but dedicating yourself to one throw for an extended period is a pretty cool exercise. It’s pretty crazy, the degree to which I’ve come to associate myself with the ‘eh’, and not at all because of the name. When one thing goes everywhere with you for a really long time, it kind of takes on the flavor of your experience (and vice versa, I guess).

I think regret is a choice, and generally not a very good one, but I do regret losing the first ‘eh’ with which I began the journey. The one I’ve played the past 8 months is just as wonderful, but I wish I weren’t the type of person to lose things (although it IS the first yo-yo I’ve ever lost – go figure). I kind of wish I didn’t get so much attention for the things I do. Obviously, I make videos so that people will watch them and enjoy them. I write blog posts so that people will read them and think about them. It’s neat to get praise, but I also do those things to challenge myself and dissect myself. It’s probably pretty distracting, both for myself and for others, to get credit for stuff that is supposed to be about ‘arriving at truth’ and I wonder if some of the meaning gets lost.

And so the toys go winding down (to quote Primus). My only resolution for 2013 is to try to be a good person and to make every throw count. I have never, ever, ever been more stoked to throw, which at the end of a journey like this, is a great thing to be able to say. I wish all of you a wonderful holiday season, and sincere thanks for reading about my frivolous toy-playing adventures.

... oh, and i apologize for the caps. i don't know what happened.

want an 'eh'?

here's where they'll be:
http://shop.yoyoexpert.com/product/817/EH-%28Ed-Haponik-x-SPYY-x-TMBR-x-YoYoExpert%29

;)

all strung up and ready to go.

in that last shot, you can see one cool anomaly. most of the "eh's" sport a new red oak leaf to indicate that they were made not in canada, but the u.s.a. steve ended up lasering ONE with the original maple leaf. we're developing a plan for what to do with that special one. ;)

11/12 of the way to forever...

i've been playing the 'eh' for just about 11 months.
actually it was right around a year ago that steve and i first hatched our plan to try this little experiment in self-discovery (or self-deprivation).

you may have heard that, contrary to our initial plans, we will be able to release a small number (less than 50) eh's into the wild via our community's greatest bastion of commerce, yoyoexpert.com. the yo-yo's which will be released are, i will grant you, quite a bit different from what i've been playing. of course they're still fixed axle, still 'dimple-response', still lovely, raw red oak, just begging for you to develop a patina. honestly, they're alike in pretty much all of the important ways. however, these eh's were crafted not in canada, but in oregon, by colin leland of tmbr toys.

colin is the 2011 fixed axle "champion of all the world", an awesome player, and a great friend. when i first fielded this idea to steve a year ago, his thought was "maybe we could get colin to make it for us". obviously, i'm glad steve took a stab at it and made me an unbelievable yo-yo, but when we agreed to try to fire off a small run, it was a natural to ring colin up and see what he was up for. tmbr is the pre-eminent maker of fine, progressive wood yo-yo's on the market today. anyone who even THINKS they might want to try wood should own a tmbr.

steve, colin, and i began an email exchange that has hovered around "everyday" for the past month. i got a proto in the mail from colin a few weeks ago, made right from steve's original specs. once again, i cheated on my commitment to play it (though since it's still an 'eh', i don't even feel bad about it). he knocked it out of the park, and after some ridiculously small adjustments to the profile, he cranked out a full run, sending them off to steve for laser-engraving (he needed to revamp his basement exhaust system to accommodate the ash and dust). i should receive the lot of them in a few days, and will set about the task of assembling them, tuning them, hand-twisting some type-10 cotton string for them, and packaging them.

with any luck, they should be available at yoyoexpert by the 1st week of december. my plan is to update this blog with the link as soon as it is live, along with the initial facebook thread i made asking if anyone was interested.

even after the flying v and the ronin, this is the most excited i've ever been about sharing a yo-yo with the larger community. this year will be inextricably linked in my mind with the 'eh'. it's been in my pocket every day. when i think about it, i've spent MUCH more time playing it than any other yo-yo. it's soaked up my sweat, and i've taken a few of its splinters. i struck out on this journey with the intention of transforming a certain yo-yo into an extension of my hand, and there's been no option but to succeed. time will do that. the yo-yo has developed a more obvious patina, it's left its mark on me as well.

a lot of people have asked me 'what's next', but i have no resolutions in the works. i, myself am vexed when i think about NOT carrying the 'eh' around all day. having a ronin or flying v in my pocket again (or that new ranchero calling my name - yum) just seems so foreign a concept, like cheating on a spouse or something. i've had to "practice" not being tempted to play other yo-yo's to the extent that the habit is ingrained. in the end, though, i think i'll manage. while it's great to develop a sense of "relationship" to the instrument you play... attachment is still attachment. and it ain't no good.

regardless of how much time we've shared, i feel that i SHOULD be able to give the 'eh' away to someone come january just like i'd give away any other yo-yo. it would be tough, and i feel like that's an emotional response that needs some exploration down the road.

for now though, i'm happy (and very excited) to be at this stage. i feel simultaneously very connected to the yo-yo i've been throwing and ready to apply what the past year has done for me to my other spinning toys.

here's a new video which deals with my perspective near the end of this adventure.

yo-yo's i can't wait to play

so, as the end of the year begins to loom, and the reality of being able to enter the yo-yo room without being assailed by temptation sets in, i thought i'd look around and see what yo-yo's i'll be itching to play come january.

a lot of people have asked me what i'm going to throw first at 12:00:01 this january. i really don't know. honestly, the stress of trying to make a meaningful decision or something might incline me to avoid the late hours of new years altogether. last year, i had already been playing the 'eh' for a few weeks when 2011 ticked out its last dying seconds.

i have acquired strikingly few yo-yo's this year; certainly fewer than any of the previous 8 or so years, suring which i've been heavily "into" yo-yoing. that said, there are a few throws that i have yet to throw down which i can't wait to try.

first up is this tmbr freemont. when colin sent this little guy to me, it had a "do not open till 2013" label on it, which was at once cute and brutal. colin sent me one of the original freemont protos, which i moved on to my pal drew in advance of the 2012 challenge. i absolutely cannot wait to throw this yo-yo. all i remember of my tmbrs is how utterly shocked i've always been when i throw them down. colin makes an incredible yo-yo, and i'm honestly more impressed with myself for holding myself back from this sucker than any of the others.

it's pretty painful having brought this trio to yo-yo club for the last few months and having watched the kids throw them. all i get is great feedback on them, which i feel disingenuous passing on without viscerally KNOWING how they play. the ranchero, in particular, calls to me with a devilish siren-song. so pretty.

these aren't the only no jives i've picked up this year, but these are the ones which i'm dying to throw. clean machine with some crazy spalting which i received direct from brad countryman, along with a pair of gorgeous late 90's 3-in-1's from my buddy (and legendary wood-chucker), chuck short. yes that's an unfinished no jive on the right (only one i've seen without the "special" stamp), and yes that's a green/yellow, played-to-hell, reverse-stamped no jive which was one of chuck's main players during the boom. yeah, i'll be having some fun with those. i love a yo-yo with stories to tell.

it's hard. you try not to be an egomaniac. you try not to let things like "your own signature model yo-yo" get to your head. honestly though... to have two of them that you don't let yourself play for a year feels almost wasteful. i miss all of my v's (guess i should call them "flying v's" now that mickey has a v, himself - thanks, mick! ;)), but i'm probably more excited by the prospect of throwing the ronin again. 1. i've been throwing responsive stall tricks and flyaway dismounts all flippin' year, and 2. i just love that thick, creamy, bust-through-walls feeling the ronin has. steve knocked that one out of the park, and i'm interested in whether i approach it from the same angle after a year.

drew tetz is one of my best friends in the world. we don't hang out much, but he really does everything i want to be able to do with a yo-yo better than i can imagine myself doing it (i reread that, and it doesn't all-the-way make sense, but i don't care). i feel like we really get each others' approach. beyond that though, he's just got such cool ideas. his 44rpm flatpack craft is out of this world, and while i think the flatpack kendama is further into the realm of utter genius, i'm positively dying to throw this "moon" yo-yo he sent me.

so there you go. that's what i'm excited about throwing come 01/01/13. i'm not in a rush or anything, but it's fun to look at your toys and make a big stack of the ones you're jiving to play with.

... oh, and there's also this one. hmm... looks a little like the one i posted here, doesn't it? weird.

home stretch

 today is a good day; the kind of day that gets me stoked to be a yo-yo player.

it got started right, watching some of my friends' freestyles from saturday's national yo-yo contest. it always feels nice when good people are rewarded. i've known zach, tyler, pat, and bryan for years now, and they're all such good folks who care deeply about performing pushing the game forward. i wish i could have been there, but i definitely feel like a better dad for having hung out at home for my girl's b-day weekend.

i brought both my kids to our local yo-yo club, where the toy store employees and i were the only players over 10. club is so hard these days with respect to playing wood. the kids don't get the challenge and aren't impressed by the difficulties of fixed axle. to them, yo-yoing is yo-yoing, just as it should be. regardless, club was fun. caitie hasn't thrown much lately, but she learned mach 5 after seeing it twice. it's awesome to watch some of the returning kids developing from tentative "power throws" to their first whip tricks and boings.

i also started to compile a little video of my 365yoyotricks.com vids for the end of the year. i generally don't like to watch my old videos, but i guess i thought it would be neat to look at footage from months back. it was. it turns out, i'm really proud of some of the tricks i've come up with this year (and the older ones which i've hit on wood). going back to some of the footage from january, when i was just starting to figure this yo-yo out, was surreal. so many sessions. so many spent strings. some of the videos call to mind exactly what i was thinking or stressing about; background radiation coloring a year of experiences. i've played SO MUCH this year. i can't even figure how many individual throws (or snap-starts, god help me). and clasped within the untold hours of footage on my hard drive are hilarious head-bonking misses, multiple moments where alex walks right through the shot (once even grabbing the camera), string breaks, axle-burns, sudden downpours... that stuff, more than the few takes where you nail the trick perfectly, really shows who you are as a yo-yo player.

my simple, sweat-stained oak yo-yo has been the primary constant in my life this year. the seasons have come and gone. my kids have grown up a ton. there's been upheaval at the school where i work. but the cotton string that's slid over my hemlock axles all year has tied things together nicely. i've had to tune and caress this yo-yo into its best possible state for every session. might sound like a pain, but that's what i signed up for. last fall, i felt myself not caring about the little things, and with the 'eh', the little things make or break you. same with life, really, though we do our best to ignore it.

it's hard to believe that this journey is over 75% complete, and that in about 12 weeks i can go back to 2-minute combos, axles that never wear out, and bearings that will keep spinning through any kind of mutated hold.

today, it kind of sank in. i'm going to make it. i'm going to have played one wooden fixed axle yo-yo for a year, straight. and while aspects of the commitment have been harder than i thought, i was right that this was the best thing in the world for me to do. i've said before that though playing with a yo-yo isn't epic or important, but using a yo-yo (or anything) to discover yourself and dissolve your illusions most certainly is. if 'cones to balls' challenged me to rethink the seemingly-trivial, this year has demanded that i rethink the absolutely-fundamental. and in rethinking the absolutely-fundamental, i've been relieved to discover that i still just really love to yo-yo. it's amazing to me that there IS so much to love about such a simple act, even when you're 35 and essentially out-of-touch. those rare moments in which we experience the pure, unmitigated glee of making good on our challenge to ourselves (which is what all yo-yoing is about, really) put into perspective the pettiness of the drama, bickering, and self-aggrandizement that would sometimes drag us down.

anyway, i hope it was a good day for you, too.

why i play yo-yo

i said i wanted to get back to basics.

so today, i was eating lunch at panera (having a bread-bowl of the french onion soup, if you want to know). i was thinking about some of my recent frustrations and the ongoing temptation to play with a bearing yo-yo after 8+ months with only the 'eh'. in my last entry, i noted that i kind of associate bearings with "ease" (and therefore, on some level, must associate wood or fixed axle with "difficulty"). whilst sipping fresh lemonade under an overcast sky, i asked myself WHY even a part of me would think or feel things in those terms.

i'm not a competitor - i have no contests to win or lose. i'm not aware of any extrinsic goal-sheet i've set up for myself; no list of tricks i'm ticking off. i'm just playing. at least so far as i know, i don't have any real criteria for either success or failure as a yo-yo player. i just play... but if that's the case, what can possibly be "easy" or "hard"... easy or hard to do what?!?!

i thought about the times when i've felt most "successful" as a yo-yo player; when it's felt most "right". i don't have a long list of titles or accolades to reflect upon, but the few things i've won (or not won) don't have any particular resonance for me in terms of when i've felt successful. i've put out some videos, some of which have been watched by a few people (some of whom have said they enjoyed them)... but even with the end-products i've really liked, i don't associate them with "success" as a yo-yo player either. by and large, the times i've felt most "successful" have occurred while i was PLAYING: casually, joyfully, and solitarily (that may or may not be a word, so how about "alone-ly").

there are definitely some specific sessions and tricks that come to mind; things that i've hit (especially on wood) that i tried and tried for before finally breaking through into some tactile understanding. but when i deconstruct those moments a bit, it's not so much "nailing" the tricks that's mattered. it's not the sensation of the yo-yo whacking the flesh of my palm after a clean fly-away... rather, it's an indescribable feeling of "connection" which i've found universally central to every momentary success i feel i've tallied.

there are those moments for which all of the universe seems to focus itself on what you're doing to enable it to work out in a way that feels "right". sometimes, it's just what you think you intended, and other times it's a big surprise. while i'm yo-yoing, i often find myself working on a sticky concept; something i think i can get or make work, but which is really outside the realm of what i fully understand. i've come to know the landscape of those emotions much better this year; the doubt, the effort, the frustration, and above all, the faith. you throw and you throw, and you think "i'm never gonna hit this"... but then suddenly, through in instant of serenity that seemingly willed itself into existence, you somehow know that you will. other times, in the midst of uncertainty, you find opportunity (hi, einstein!), and by the same amazing grace, you bust down the door into new creative territory which had never occurred to you.

i've hit so many tricks like that; discovered so many tricks like that. and i'm sure everyone has. the common thread that knits them all together is that sense of focus and connection with what i'm doing. it's as if i only get to really be 100% "at home" with myself in those moments, which are obviously ancient history as soon as the yo-yo responds.

except that the great thing is, the more you play, the more you realize that the connections aren't really gone at all. you can learn to feel your way into those moments; maybe not by straining and sweating to get there, but by relaxing and appreciating that your REASON for trying to nail the trick and the sense of calm focus which will eventually enable you to do so... are actually one and the same! it's available - it's there all the time... and realizing that makes yo-yoing much more personal, much more meditative, and ultimately way more productive.

i'm a better person because i play yo-yo. i used to doubt that sentiment; used to deflect onlookers' praise by saying stuff like "well, it's not like i'm doing anything great for society." don't get me wrong; you're not curing cancer by playing with your yo-yo, but if you can make yourself into a calmer, happier, more patient person... if you can recognize the signs of others around you who are struggling with the doubt and uncertainty of hitting this or that [metaphorical] trick and help them through that... if you can find yourself in a simple trapeze and just feel it - not just the yo-yo and the string, but the enormity of the cosmos, spinning and vibrating right along with you... i think your yo-yoing is pretty damn useful.

by practicing this stuff, you're not just idly "spending free time" as so many passers-by like to mention. you're breaking down doors within yourself. you're connecting yourself to the laws and forces which shape everything around us, from atoms to galaxies. you're shirking off the material limitations of your being and BECOMING the trick you're throwing down. within that larger framework, there's no reason why wood should be a limitation and no reason why metal should be a convenience. it's clear that the part of me that wanted this journey to be over so i can play with a bearing and hit this or that with "ease" had become a little lost and a lot disconnected from what's most important to me about playing.

whether with metal, plastic, wood, or terra cotta... i know i can find the way to play "like myself", which is the pathway to something greater. the contests are great, the sponsorships are great, the respect is great, the yo-yo's are great, and the friendships are (super) great. but as awesome as all of those things are, in the end, they're not why i keep throwing down. when i'm in the right frame of mind, lost in a trick without a care in the world for what i'm getting out of it, for a moment i don't know where i end and everything else begins. those are the moments i'm chasing, and that's why i play yo-yo.

(... *terra cotta 2013. let's do it, steve.) ;)


*not really

temptation and acceptance

with significantly greater frequency lately, i have caught myself REALLY wanting to throw a bearing yo-yo. the first 7 months or so of this endeavor pretty much passed without notable temptation. the 'eh' is a really good fixed axle yo-yo, and the challenge of figuring out how to set it up was an engaging one.

i've pretty much got the thing dialed now (after 8 months with it). i know just how to prep my axles so i don't burn through them immediately (i still carve a trench through them after a few weeks). i'm adept at sanding out chips and lining up grain to minimize vibe. i can tell how this or that string will respond before i put it on. most of all, i've got a much more deeply entrenched and intuitive sense for what i'm going to be able to hit with relative ease... and what i'm going to have to sweat (and sometimes bleed) for. i have a visceral understanding of its weight and tactile feeling, even when it's nowhere near me (which is virtually never).

while it's awesome to have developed such a deep connection with one yo-yo, it takes a bit of the mystery (and certainly the variety) out of the equation.

i miss the feeling of "ease" in yo-yoing, which is funny, because i've spent so much energy denouncing the idea that it should be easy. i'll be at club and the guys will be talking about this or that mount, and i'll be all "oh! that reminds me of THIS!!!" ... only to remember that i'd only be likely to nail "THIS" on wood after around 100 tries. going back to school has been rough, too. a lot of my kids have yo-yo's (big, mean, unresponsive metal ones)... and it's hard not to be jealous of their spin time! i keep thinking how fun it'll be when i get back from xmas break, able to bring a different yo-yo every day (especially the dynamo, ranchero, and orbitron, which i've only been able to heft and gawk at in awe).

by and large, the kids do NOT get it. "why do you always throw the same old wood yo-yo?" is a question i'm answering every day (often to the same few kids), and i find it's kind of a hard idea to explain to a 10 year-old.

"because it's a challenge."
"because i'm trying to push my yo-yoing in a more holistic direction."
"because although it's frustrating when things are hard, it can also feel deeply satisfying."
"because i feel like a more authentic player when i strip away the modern conveniences."

only the first of those is even momentarily acceptable to a kid who's trying with all their might to get trapeze consistent.

don't get me wrong; i'm not even considering backing out of the deal with 4 months to go. and honestly, i bet throwing metal again will end up feeling a bit anticlimactic after the first 10 minutes. i really do love what i'm doing and feel much more connected to the tricks i'm coming up with. i'm just at the hard part; more than half through the journey i described for myself, but still tens of thousands of throws before i'll let myself be free.

sometimes, you get in a bit of a rut, and you think "if only i could DO THIS or GO THERE", but i really think that reflects a messed-up mindset. my wife sometimes catches me checking the surf report (we live 200 miles from the ocean), and the other day she asked me "how much time per day do you think you wish you were doing something else?" it kind of caught me funny. i don't see myself as being dissatisfied or malcontent, but i do spend a lot of time thinking about things "i used to do" or "would like to do". surfing, skating, practicing aikido, being in hawaii or the tetons, rocking out in a band... i like to think i've had a pretty awesome life. i've been able to do some pretty fun (if not radical) things, and i like to feel connected to them, regardless of where i am now. maybe that diminishes my ability to appreciate here and now. i hope not. you make certain choices, and you live with them as you can.

regardless, i need to back up and really remember what the reasons for this whole year-long challenge were. i've taken a lot from the journey (in ways both expected and otherwise), and that i owe it the full ride is a given. i'm arriving at a simpler version of myself as a yo-yo player, and in a way which i could not have come to through any other means. so while i may say i miss bearings and i may check the surf report in wrightsville... here and now is still just fine.

chop wood, carry water.

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.