YoYo Related News From Around The World
Professional YoYo Performer, Super Dad, A+ Husband, and all-around excellent human being John Higby performed on the newest iteration of ABC’s The Gong Show the other night! As usual, John wowed the audience, the judges, and even the host Tommy Maitland.
As is tradition with John, he painted a custom one-of-a-kind yoyo for the host. Tommy loved it!
Guinness World Record holder John Higby appeared on The Today Show to celebrate National YoYo Day, and he knocked a quarter off Al Roker’s ear with a yoyo. Because John Higby is the absolute best!
John will be one of the emcees at the 2016 World YoYo Contest in Cleveland, Ohio this August. The best players from more than 30 countries will gather at the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel to compete for the title of World YoYo Champion, and John Higby will be on stage to cheer them on!
Guinness World Record holder and world renowned yoyo performer John Higby has a new promo reel, and it’s even more awesome that you can possibly imagine. All the greatest hits from his stage and street shows from the past year are here, and it’s literally more fun than you can handle.
Check out John’s website, and then head over to his store to pick up some of his hand-painted yoyos and artwork!
John Higby – YoYoShow.com
Hand-Painted Art & YoYos – BigYoYoArt.com
The Guinness World Record channel on YouTube just posted this “classic” clip, of 4-time World YoYo Champion Hiroyuki Suzuki setting the original Guinness World Record for knocking coins off people’s ears with a yoyo. Nice to see a clip like this archived for posterity!
The first record was set by John & Rebecca Higby in Spain on the Guiness World Record show. This clip shows Hiroyuki beating that time. Then in 2013, John Higby set a new record with TWO yoyos, live on television in Beijing. (Thanks to John Higby for the clarification!)
Veteran yoyo performer John Higby has some pretty amazing stuff in his show, but one of the coolest things is a gigantic yoyo made from a walking globe. He’s been using it in his show for a year now, but he just released a cool video showing how it was made. Really neat!
Ed Haponik and John Higby recently released their new collaborative book, “77 Rules For YoYo Players“, and Ed has released a new video to promote it. Sweet!
Almost 5 years ago, John Higby and Ed Haponik collaborated to create the comic “66 Rules For Yo-Yo Players”. Originating from one of Ed’s blog posts, John illustrated each rule to create a sweet collectible comic book, accompanied by a decorative yo-yo.
For 2014, the idea has been rebooted with entirely new art by John and an additional 11 rules inserted by Ed. The comic comes with a striking Duncan ProFly yo-yo with hand-painted body and caps. The rules themselves, are fun and thought provoking, making for a great collectible for anyone who enjoys John’s distinctive style of art or Ed’s outlook on yo-yoing.
The combo drops tonight at 8pm EST on John’s yo-yo art website: http://bigyoyoart.bigcartel.com/
Just got these images of the new “Hildy Higby Currier” collaboration yoyo from The Hildy Bros. and John Higby…and it’s releasing tonight! Full details below…these are going to sell out FAST, so get ready! The painted version from John Higby will sell for $40 each, and the unpainted versions from Hildy Bros. will be $30 each.
We are super excited to announce the Higby Hildy Currier! This is our collaboration with the International performer, world champion, multiple world record holder, and amazing artist John Higby! This edition is limited to 40 pieces. 20 are natural engraved maple and will be available from Hildybros.com. The other 20 are hand painted by Mr. Higby himself, and will be released on his site bigyoyoart.bigcartel.com.
Release time is tonight (3/9) at 10 pm EST.
The #trickcircle tag on Instagram has become the spot for players to share their latest moves, and we here at @Yoyonews are picking out the best ones to share every week. We’re still about two weeks behind, so we’ve got a huge crop of amazing material to sort through and it might take more than one installment before we’re caught up, but enough talk: let’s get to the tricks!
OK, I know we talked last week about @blablablanchard (Riccardo Fraolini) and that I’m jumping ahead a bit in our queue of tricks, but this was too good not to share. It opens with a fairly understated slack sequence before dropping into an unusual-looking chopsticks mount… and then string starts spitting out the top of the yo-yo into his hand like some kind of weird magic spell. Jaws stay dropped as he moves his hand to charm the string back and forth a few times, accentuating it with a humorous head turn, before propelling it all the way to the other finger and properly finish his mount. Colin Leland (of TMBR Toys) notably made a video in 2007 called “The Magnum Project” exploring this response-centric trick, but few players have been able to crack the concept open as effectively as Riccardo has here. Love it!
@smietanejro (AKA Piotrek Smietana of YoYoJam Poland, Backspin, and organizer of the recent WFC International) compresses a ton of conceptual goodness into a short amount of time with this great 3D bind. It sets up with an undermount tossed into a grind, which is then thrown upwards and outwards which triggers a sidewinder effect on the return. Not only is this creative, flashy, and good for fixing string tension, but in a contest setting it automatically tacks 4 or 5 extra clicks on to the end of your combo. As contest tricks become increasingly dense, it pays to put a little bit of flair into your catches. For a bonus instaclip, check out his “Puff Puff” trick — picture trick tech ahoy!
@daigowerrd (AKA Daigo Komiya of Werrd Japan) brings us this beautiful counterweight combo. Contest judge Boxthor once told me that a hallmark of Japanese combo construction is variations on a theme, and you can definitely see this idea reflected in the redirection sequence at the end of this trick. Daigo’s style, though, crosses all kinds of borders, and he’s known for creative details that make all his tricks feel both cohesive and surprising. The final bind/unwrap sequence is a particular favorite of mine Bonus: check out his bouncy chopsticks 1A repeater.
@johnwrobot (AKA John Bot of CLYW) is the yo-yo player equivalent of a cult classic. While he may not be as well-known as players like Hank or Tyler, they (and many others) will cite him as one of the best dudes to yo-yo with ever, something which is plain to see in the Team Chubby Lovin’ and Tricks Old & New series. Part of his charm is that his tricks are almost narrative-driven: true, they’re fun to watch on video, but the best way to experience them is to watch it performed with accompanying sound effects and a silly story behind the name. This particular trick, Double-on Tondra, is an elaborate double entendre (!) following the creation of a 1.5 zipper he titled the “tondra” while eating burgers in Adam & Seth’s apartment the night before Dave’s wedding. Maybe you had to be there, but the trick is fun no matter what.
@darnell_hairston, the prince of Cleveland, breaks out some unconventional mounts in this trick that blurs the lines between frontstyle and sidestyle tricks. While his body is definitely turned and his motions are informed as though he’s performing a frontstyle trick, the fact that the yo-yo motion occurs outside of his throwhand means that his fingers are pointing the same direction and it could be directly translated into a cross-handed sidestyle trick. It breathes a lot of new life into an otherwise straightforward maneuver.
@yoyopeople (AKA John Higby) proves once again that he is truly a magic man with Magic Sleeper, a befuddling conversion from offstring to 1A. How does he do it? He’s already confirmed that it’s not washing machine… and, frankly, the mystery is part of the fun! Creating a trick that entertains non-yoyoers & hardcore players alike is no easy feat, and John’s sense of fun & endless creativity makes him one of the most watchable yo-yo performers of all time.
CJ Atkinson’s awesome foldy tech trick
Chris Cancino’s… cats. What? Everybody loves cuteness. Bonus cat in Sonny’s videos, too.
Shane Lubecker’s cheery christmas slack attack
David Ung’s great GT combo with an Elephark-inspired ending
Stacks on stacks of slacks from Hulio Baklanos with this clever Reverse fake GT trick
Guinness World Record holder and master performer John Higby has launched a new online store offering up his unique yoyo-themed artwork, Big YoYo Art!
He’s got some great pieces available…hand-painted and dyed yoyos, original paintings, vintage finds, and super excellent wall-mounted control panels filled with handmade bits and blinky lights.
Head over to BigYoYoArt.bigcartel.com and pick up something cool for yourself or as a great holiday gift for a yo-yoing friend.
John Higby created this fantastic yoyo routine, and performed it as part of the Tour De Fat in 2012 and 2013. John is one of the foremost yoyo performers in the world (and a multiple Guinness World Record Holder), and any chance to see one of his routines is well worth your time.
Our favorite yoyo performer, John Higby, recently traveled to Beijing, China for a featured spot on television to attempt a new Guinness World Record…and he did it!
John successfully knocked 14 coins off participant’s ears in 60 seconds using two yoyos. This is John’s fourth Guinness World Record…congratulations!
Legendary yoyo performer John Higby has something new in the works…a 1-minute yoyo obstacle course!
Not sure if this is going to become part of his show or a new world record challenge, but it looks like fun! (For the record, we don’t recommend trying these unless you’re old enough to replace what you’re likely going to destroy in the process.)
John and Rebecca Higby are the YoYo People, world-renowned and award-winning buskers who have performed in dozens of countries. They are super rad people, and if they’re anywhere near you, go see them!
This video was shot at Tour de Fat in Durham, NC 2013.