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Archives for February 8, 2013

BREAKING NEWS: World YoYo Contest Merges With IYYF

February 8, 2013 By Steve Brown

IYYF International YoYo FederationHere is the official statement from the International YoYo Federation:

We are proud to announce that the World Yo-Yo Contest and the newly formed International Yo-Yo Federation (IYYF) are going to merge into one organization, with the IYYF taking over the running of the World Yo-Yo Contest.

IYYF is a nonprofit organization that unites national associations and is designed to become the governing body for yo-yoing as a sport. Starting in 2014 the IYYF will be responsible for hosting the World Yo-Yo Contest. After 14 years as chairman of the contest, Gregory Cohen is passing the torch to the IYYF so that, together with national yo-yo associations, the IYYF will host the WYYC in countries around the world. The planned schedule for the next four years is:

* 2013 United States of America (Orlando, Florida)

* 2014 Czech Republic (Prague)

* 2015 Japan (Tokyo)

* 2016 United States of America

The exact locations and dates of these events will be announced when they become available.

We will do our best to help the yo-yo community grow, support contests and national associations around the world and much more. You can find more information at http://iyyf.org and at http://worldyoyocontest.com

Ondrej Sedivy (CYA), Hironori Mii (JYYF), Rafael Matsunaga (ABI), Thad Winzenz (NYYL), Gregory Cohen (WYYC)

 

I spoke with Greg Cohen, who has been running the World YoYo Contest since 2000. “There have been a lot of discussions, and this has taken a long time. I’m not going to lie, it hasn’t been a fun or easy transition.” says Cohen. “But I’m supporting this move because I think it’s best for the community, and for the event. I’m excited to see the World YoYo Contest in Prague in 2014…handing it off to the Czech crew is going to be a huge moment for me at Worlds 2013 in Orlando.”

Rafael Matsunaga, president and founder of the Brazilian YoYo Association, says “I’m quite relieved we never got to a split and I’m grateful Greg approached us to talk, even if it took an unfriendly and aggressive move from IYYF to make him realize we were willing to sacrifice continuity in order to promote change.”

The World YoYo Contest has been under-fire for several years now due to the general stagnation of the event. But while plenty of people agree that it was time for the contest to evolve and change hands, others disagreed about how the change started happening.

“Personally I’m stoked to see the formation of the IYYF as both a player and sponsor of many events including the World Yo-Yo Contest,” said Brandon Jackson, National Sales & Marketing Coordinator for Duncan Toys. “Many players have expressed their dissatisfaction with the current state of the World Yo-Yo Contest and this was especially true during the 2012 event as rumors began to fly of a competing world championship to be held in Prague. The rumors created both confusion and excitement amongst players, but the consensus was that of excitement and hope of a bigger, better world championship to be held in a new location. It’s very exciting to see an uprising, especially in the yo-yo community. But it’s even more exciting to see these two organizations come together for the betterment of competition yo-yo play.”

Seth Peterson, Communications and Team Manager for YoYoFactory was a bit more reserved. “It’s interesting to hear this finally come together. It’s cool that Greg’s part of it…surprising, but good. Greg has been instrumental in a lot of different aspects of the community for a very long time. He’s been a figurehead for a lot of people in their growth in the yoyo community, and I’m glad to see that his accomplishments and gifts aren’t being thrown to the wayside by the IYYF. I think last years “Worlds13” announcement came as a surprise to a lot of people, including people who were involved in the goal of moving the contest. I don’t think the way it was presented was to anyone’s benefit, but I’m glad that its been resolved in a way that is clearly moving the event forward. It was hard for me to see the way that Greg was being treated, in spite of my own hopes of moving the contest. I have a lot of respect for Greg and what he’s done, even if we didn’t always agree on aspects of the event.”

There’s certainly still a lot of work to be done, and lots more detail that we’re waiting to see before anyone can really determine if this move will help the event. But I’ve been assured that the IYYF will be an open and transparent organization, with elected board members and representatives from all countries with national organizations given room to speak and contribute.

We’ll continue reporting on this as more information becomes available but in the meantime we offer our congratulations to the IYYF and all involved in this huge step forward for the World YoYo Contest and hopefully all other major contests worldwide.

Filed Under: Contests Tagged With: featured, greg cohen, hironori mii, international yoyo federation, iyyf, ondrej sedivy, rafael matsunaga, thad winzenz, world yoyo contest, wyyc

YoYoFactory 2013 Catalog

February 8, 2013 By Steve Brown

YoYoFactory Catalog Cover 2013 for YoYoNews

YoYoFactory‘s 2013 catalog folds out into a giant poster of Paul Han. OMG HE’S SO DREAMY!

Check out YoYoFactory’s new models and packaging at the International Toy Fair in NYC, Booth #4845, Feb. 10 – 13. The show is only open to the trade, but we’ll have photos of their new releases as soon as the show opens!

 

Filed Under: Manufacturer Tagged With: 2013, catalog, international toy fair, new york, paul han, toy fair, yoyofactory

C3YoYoDesign Present Dávid Molnár in Moscow

February 8, 2013 By Steve Brown

Hungarian superhero Dávid Molnár fully earns his spot on the C3YoYoDesign team in this fantastic video, shot on a trip to Moscow. Dávid’s style is daring, with lots of small but high-risk moves thrown almost recklessly into combos. His trick density is pretty impressive, but not as much as the fluidity of his style.

Filed Under: Manufacturer, Video Tagged With: c3yoyodesign, david molnar, hungary, moscow, Russia, video

Fixed Friday: Sidewinders

February 8, 2013 By Drew Tetz

Ahh, the sidewinder, the most elusive and beautiful bird in the animal kingdom. Did you know that the average sidewinder has a twelve-foot vertical leap and can swallow a Volkswagen Bus whole?

Just kidding, I made that up. Wouldn’t it be crazy, though? Man, snakes are weird. Anyways, this Fixed Friday is all about sidewinder, a classic string adjustment technique with a place in every well-rounded player’s trick vocabulary that’s had a surprising resurgence in modern 1A . Let’s check it out:

First up we got the garden variety sidewinder. You throw down the yo-yo, move your hand to the side as the yo-yo returns, the string makes a pretty lil’ fluttery motion, and you catch it. If you’re having trouble getting the flutter, try throwing a little bit softer. When the yo-yo hits the bottom of the string, tug a little bit harder than usual to return it so that it pops in the air a little bit – only a little bit! Don’t hit yourself in the face, now. As the yo-yo travels up the string, quickly move your hand to the side. If you do everything correctly, you’ll notice that you’re pulling the string against the side of the yo-yo, which causes the fluttering as the yo-yo winds up. After you get comfortable getting one or two flutters, try it on the other side of the yo-yo. Sweet! You did it! Yeah!

…so, a trick that flaps the string. No big deal, right? Well, I personally happen to think it’s beautiful, but more importantly, you’ll probably remember that I mentioned string adjustment. You can use sidewinder to fix your tension! Every time you move your hand to the right side of the yo-yo on a sidewinder, it tightens the string, and every time you move it to the left it loosens it. This is hugely important when playing with fixed axle yo-yos, because string tension actually affects your response. If your fixie is too responsive, trying loosening the string, and vice-versa if it’s not responsive enough. This is definitely one of the fastest ways to fix your string tension, and a valuable tool in any player’s arsenal.

Now that we’ve got the basic one down, let’s talk about some weird stuff. First off, the double sidewinder: you may argue that this trick is pointless, because sidewinding on both sides undoes whatever good it would’ve done… but hey, what’s the point of any yo-yo trick? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Smartypants. What were we talking abou- oh, yeah. Double sidewinder may not fix your tension or get you any points in a contest, but it can be a surprise burner in games of Butterfly Horse, and a surefire way to impress old school players. (Former THP members, of course, won’t be impressed unless you can pull off a triple – what’s up Joseph Harris?)

Next up in the silly trick parade is Vertical Sidewinder. Long considered impossible, still considered a joke by many, and an absolute killer in Butterfly Horse, this one requires high ceilings and a lot of patience – but if you can get used to the timing and have a little luck with gravity, it’s not too bad. (Bonus Points: Show this to anybody on the Werrd team and call it “Sidewinder Down Under.” Trust me, they love it.)

Moving into the modern, string-based tricks, we got sidewinder to thumb stall. This may be the simplest of sidewinder-to-stall tricks, because it can all be handled with one hand: perform a sidewinder, stick your thumb out to intercept the string, and stick the landing on the string instead of catching it like normal. This principle can be applied to pretty much any stall you can think of, and I strongly encouraging trying to land a trapeze or braintwister stall once you get the thumb mount down, you’ll probably just have to move a little faster.

Let’s finish this week off with a short tech stall combo, which is an original that I’m calling LFO. It could basically be described as a Trap Stall > Dumptruck > Sidewinder > Trap Stall sequence, and it should give a little example of how sidewinders can be executed into and out of string trick combos. Pairing sidewinders with dumptrucks is nice, because the flip effectively sets you up with a straight throw that can be regenerated and sidewinder’ed into a stall. These are especially exciting in the field of responsive play, because stalls/loops/etc. allow you to mix in sidewinders on any regeneration, which would be the flutteriest freestyle of all time.

While sidewinder undoubtedly began in the world of response, it does have a place in modern unresponsive play. Palli’s got an amazing trick called grindwinder (see :20 in this fantastic video for the original), and then there’s Vu’s awesome “Hangtime” and it’s not at all uncommon to see players performing sidewinders from binds in competition.

Also, if you do a sidewinder against baggy pants it makes a weird flapping noise, and the trick is called – wait for it – “Rattlesnake.” Need I say any more? I hope not. Go learn this trick and talk about it with other fixed axle fiends on the facebook group. (and hey, why don’t you like YoYoNews while you’re at it?)

Filed Under: Fixed Friday, Trick Theory Tagged With: butterfly, drew tetz, duncan toys, exclusive, featured, fixed friday, sidewinder, video, yoyonews exclusive

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