YoYo Related News From Around The World
What happens when you get a group of girls from all over the world to take part in a kendama edit? A lot of smiles, tons of rad tricks, a file formatting nightmare, and a great sense of collectivism. We’re girls, and we’re not only out there playing kendama, we’re shredding.
Featuring Alissa Decoteau, Carolina Herrerra, Daniela Von Rohr, Addie Moss, Stephanie Lussier, Haley Bishoff, Kristin Olinyk, and Rochelle Trepanier.
2013 Singapore National Champion Sean Hung shows off some solid offstring play in this new video.
Yoyo used is the Eagle Eye by Japan Technology.
Electric fans are one of the first tricks that any 5a players. However, beginners end up doing the exact same e fan tricks. This video will show you some new concepts that will give you enough ideas to come up with your own unique variations.
The biggest request I’ve had for 5A May thusfar is for some more fixed axle freehand, which is unfortunately really freakin’ hard. Fortunately, I felt so pumped from watching Japan Nationals that I got off my butt and came up with these two tricks. Trick number one is a kickflip suicide juggle, and the second is a kickflip inside of an e-fan caught in a 2or0. Enjoy!
The 2014 Pan American YoYo Contest has been cancelled. We’re going to reach out soon to the IYYF and see if this means the Las Vegas Open Yoyo Championship will remain a seeding event, or if it will continue on as a stand-alone contest.
To clarify, the organizers have confirmed the Las Vegas Open WILL proceed, whether it is an IYYF seeding event or not. The Asia Pacific and European multi-national events serve more than a dozen national events each, while the Pan American contest predominately serves the US, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil; there are national events in Chile, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia but none of these have risen to the level of the rest of the contests in this region, and their champions are rarely able to attend events held outside of their respective countries. There have been rumors of the Bay Area Classic serving as the 2014 Pan American seeding event, but nothing confirmed from the IYYF.
We’d like to take this opportunity to thank organizer Greg Cohen for his many years of service to the yoyo community and industry. He held the World YoYo Contest together for many years, when no one else had the resources or wherewithal to do it. While it appears his tenure as a major contest organizer has come to a close, we all owe Greg a huge debt of gratitude for his efforts. It’s now on the rest of us to build on the foundation that he laid and create a better, stronger international contest system moving forward.
Please read Cohen’s official statement below.
I have tried very hard to create a new major contest with a new mission for the yo-yo community. Unfortunately this may not have been the time to do it. Before I announced this event, we had verbal agreements of support from many sponsors and volunteers, but as the event has approached thing have changed that we appreciate that have prevented this support from coming through. Without having the sponsorship we need to make this event a success and due to the fact we have had almost no hotel registrations to this point, I regret we are forced to cancel the Pan American International Yo-Yo Contest.
I had amazing hopes for this event to grow over the years, and to do some amazing things, and I am sad that this will not come to pass. One of my joys of running yo-yo contests has been to essentially build a clock with a fine movement, wind it up and see it run. Some years this has happened smoother than others, but until now it has always worked.
I am are sad to say that I have had to cancel this event, and I want to apologize to everyone who has give us their support, trust and time to help try create it over the past year.
It has been a pleasure to work with you all.
I look forward to the next Multi-National IYYF seeded contest that will be hosted by Steve Brown called the 2014 Las Vegas Open YoYo Championship, that will happen on December 29th and 30th.
Thank you all for letting me do what I love all these years, and I hope you will let me try again at some point in the future.
-GRegory Cohen
If you missed the live stream from Japan Nationals yesterday, you missed the most professionally produced yo-yo contest broadcast in history!
Live comments from some of the best players in Japan, and clips from each players’ preliminary round and previous contests freestyles made this a very enjoyable contest to watch, even if NicoNico’s video quality was not quite on par with Ustream.
On to the results, where we had heated battles between the World’s greatest players!
In 1A, in a somewhat unexpected — but not at all surprising — outcome, 5A World Champion Takeshi Matsuura beat last year’s champion Akitoshi Tokubuchi to claim the title! This makes him the unbelievable winner of three different divisions in the history of Japan Nationals, including five 5A titles and the 2010 3A title! Third place in 1A went to Yusuke Otsuka, who had a great freestyle at the EYYC Open division earlier this year.
World Champion Takuma Yamamoto won the incredibly strong 2A division this year, with a smooth freestyle, finishing over 10 points ahead of Shu Takada. Third place went to Ryo Yamashita, and just to give you a glimpse of how strong the division was, it also had Hiraku Fujii, Yasushi Furukawa, and history’s biggest World Title winner Shinji Saito in the final round. Shinji had a strong preliminary round, but was unable to go as cleanly in his final routine.
In 3A, Hajime Miura showed solid improvement over last year’s 8th place, and took the title with unquestionable confidence and skill. In the words of Drew Tetz: someone should tell this kid that 3A is supposed to be hard!
Rei Iwakura won 4A with a jaw-dropping routine, finishing 15 points ahead of Kazuaki Sugimura. Rei once again showed us what makes a great stage performance without sacrificing technique! Like at Worlds last year, some of the favorites had some yo-yo changes and ended up with low scores, like Futoshi Maruyama (3 drops, -9) and Naoto Okada (4 drops, -12).
The fiercest and most expected battle was in 5A, where Takuma Inoue and Takeshi Matsuura once again made us wonder if there’s any limit to their skills, with both players finishing over twenty points ahead of the third place. This time, an unfortunate yo-yo change by Takeshi meant Takuma Inoue finished ahead to claim his third National Title!
On to the results and winner videos, courtesy of C3yoyodesign!