YoYo Related News From Around The World
We just got something really fantastic from Chris at CLYW…process pictures of the box and engraving art for the Summit! The super talented Jason Week rocked this artwork out in record time, to match the amazing pace that One Drop and CLYW set with the development, design, and production of this new collaborative design. We always love getting to see the process behind something like this, and thought you’d enjoy it, too.
Ladies and gentlemen: Ernest Kahn!
CLYW scored big when they picked up this guy….great tricks, helluva skater, and one of the most enthusiastic brand ambassadors a company could possibly hope for. Great work, Ernest!
CLYW x One Drop The Summit Artwork by Jason Week
Here it is…your first look at the box art for the new CLYW x One Drop collaboration yoyo, the Summit!
This yoyo has gone from concept to prototype in just days, and now we have box art from the always amazing Jason Week. This has got to be a land speed record for yoyo development…congrats to CLYW and One Drop on what is shaping up to be one of the most impressive yoyo drops in years!
(via TED)
“When I was 14 years old, I had low self-esteem,” yo-yo champion BLACK begins his talk during session 4 of TED2013. “Then one day, I bought a yo-yo.” The first trick he tried — well, it didn’t work. But after a week of practice, he started to get somewhere. He remembers, “I thought, ‘The yo-yo is something for me to be good at. For the first time in my life, I found my passion.’”
But practicing for hours a day and winning the World Yo-Yo Contest four years later in 2001 didn’t take him on the path he hoped. “I thought I’d become a hero! I will get many sponsors. Money. Many interviews! I will be on the TV,” says Black. But fame and fortune never came. Instead, BLACK went back to school and became a systems engineer.
Eventually, though, he had to return to his passion. “I wanted to show how spectacular the yo-yo could be. I wanted to change the public image of the yo-yo,” says BLACK. “So I quit my company and started a career as a professional performer.” He won the World Yo-Yo Contest again in 2007, and even passed an audition for Cirque du Soleil.
On the TED stage, BLACK gives a performance set to dramatic music, a yo-yo spinning quickly and maseterfully around him like a ribbon around a rhythmic gymnast. Soon, he picked up a second yo-yo, spinning them wildly, as if juggling. Bending backwards to the floor, he keeps the yo-yos orbiting just millimeters from his face. The performance is both graceful and thrilling.
This video is a great glimpse into the Mexican yoyo scene, and showcases the very best of yoyoing…talent, creativity, and people having a lot of fun. Featuring Paul Kerbel, Brandon (Benji) Parra, Luis Enrique Villaseñor, Roberto Juarez, Axel Siri, Carlos Magaña, Daniel Licona, and Andrés Harfush.
Drew Tetz teases us with this proof-of-concept video for kickflip transitions…expect to see a full breakdown of the theory and possibilities here for an upcoming Fixed Friday post.
Kohta Watanabe and Ethan Wong Wing Hang give us what is undoubtedly the YoYo Trick of the Year. AWESOME!
This week’s Cabin Tutorial shows us how to do Mark Allen‘s “Evacuation”. Cabin Tutorials are brought to you by CLYW, Charles Haycock, and the letter 17.
I still have absolutely no idea why kendama players refer to their videos as “edits” but I’m starting to find it endearing. Swiss kendama player Daniela von Rohr throws down some solid bangers in her new video/edit/clip/whatever thingy.
CLYW and One Drop have announced their second collaboration yoyo (the first being the hilariously named and supremely awesome Wooly MarkMont). No details yet, but since Side Effects are pretty much “the” recognizable feature of One Drop yoyos, we’re pretty sure it’s going to have those. Plus the picture above bears that out. Looks like an Avalanche body? I dropped Chris Mikulin a line to see if I could get any more details, and he had this to say:
“…”
Probably because he’s on the West Coast right now and I texted him when it was about 5:30 AM, local time. Maybe when he wakes up we’ll get some more news, but in the meantime just take a look at that picture and then head over to the YoYoExpert forum to join the speculation festival.
**UPDATE**
Direct from Chris Mikulin, the yoyo will be a cross between the CLYW Avalanche and the One Drop Cascade, and will be called The Summit.
Diameter: 55.5mm
Width: 46.0mm
Weight: 66.75g (with Ultralight Side Effects)
Response: Snow Tires
Bearing: 10 Ball
Artwork by: Jason Week (coming soon …)
**UPDATE 2: PICS***
Kendama player David Gault shows off some remarkably clean tricks and some absolutely beautiful locations in his new kendama video. Beautiful!
Every contest has winners, losers, upsets, underdogs, surprises, victories, and defeats. But my favorite part of a yoyo contest doesn’t actually happen that often…it’s when someone gets on stage and does something that is so far off the norm that their placement becomes irrelevant. I’ve always personally been drawn to the more esoteric aspects of yoyo play. And while I love a good competition-crushing freestyle as much as the next guy, it’s the people who push boundaries that get me up out of my seat and reaching for a yoyo.
The 2013 European YoYo Championships was a mind-blowing event. I watched as much of the live stream as I could and there were so many fantastic performances….the winners very much deserved their titles and it’s almost a shame there weren’t more awards to give out. But one freestyle in particular had me jumping up and flipping out completely, and it was from a player I’ve only recently even heard about.
So, I’m officially giving my own personal Honorable Mention to Ethan Wong Wing Hang of C3YoYoDesign for his mind-blowing freestyle that was about 90% horizontal finger-spin tricks. It was absurdly bold and risky, and he nailed a lot of it. I have no idea if he really thought it would score high enough to get him the win, but he had to have known just how badly it could have gone…and he went for it anyway.
Absolutely amazing. Congrats to Ethan on becoming part of C3YoYoDesign, and on his new signature model, the MO-vitation. Check out his freestyle below!
Time for the 365yoyotricks.com Weekly Roundup! I swear, I’m going to get better about posting these. Honest. Be sure to check out the newly redesigned website for 365yoyotricks.com, and follow along on Twitter and Facebook for daily uploads.
Brandon Jackson from Duncan Toys gives us a guest trick inspired by his love of theme parks.
Rafael Matsunaga gives us a rejection repeater that is ridiculously awesome.
Jake Bullock shows off one of the burliest 5A wraps imaginable.
Spencer Berry smiles real big and teaches us another repeater inspired by Yuuki Spencer.
This is what happens when I watch videos of Nate Sutter and start playing with Seasicks.
Blake Freeman from Square Wheels makes Rock The Baby new again with this neat variation on an old trick.
Ernest Kahn reminds us that there are still MORE ways to bind an unresponsive yoyo.
And last, I give up a simple variation on 360, with 62% more Wes Anderson-ness.
Here’s a compilation of yoyo news around the web that we found…enjoy!
TechCrunch gives us an absolutely painful listing of every single yoyo-related pun imaginable in their non-coverage of two Kickstarter projects involving yoyos, and one involving a fire flying disc of some kind that they lumped in with yoyos for no discernible reason.
Korean pop fansite AllKPop.com gives us some great coverage of Hiroyuki Suzuki’s recent appearance on Star King with members of k-pop group KARA.
KomoNews.com published a great photo gallery from the Pacific NorthWest Regional YoYo Contest.