YoYo Related News From Around The World
If Abe, John-Bot, Drew Tetz, and Seth Peterson aren’t some of your favorite yoyo players ever, you might be doing it wrong. Take a look back at 2010 with this classic video from the most illustrious and mysterious team (yes, more mysterious than Team Mysterious Raccoon, even) in the history of Midwestern yoyoing.
Yoyos used are all out of production, sorry. Life moves fast.
Music is NSFW.
In 2011, a battle of giants was begun. Rafael “Red” Matsunaga and Drew Tetz decided to have a 5A trick video battle. Simple enough premise: each would submit a video, and then the public would vote on their favorite. The winner would claim total dominion over the entire planet and enact a millennium of darkness, the loser would have to wear a t-shirt that said “I suck”. Pretty typical stakes for a yoyo trick battle.
The videos were completed and posted:
Then came a twist that no one could have forseen: the online service they used to set up the voting poll went out of business, and all votes were lost. The last time the votes were visible, the players were tied and so the greatest non-grudge match of the modern era came to a crashing halt with all involved scratching their heads and saying “So, uh, congratulations, I guess?”
For the sake of closure, and because I love to see someone lose, let’s open voting again. Who won this 6-year old trick battle? Cast your vote below!
The 44RPM Blues is the second aluminum release from 44RPM, the start-up company from Drew Tetz and 3x World & National YoYo Champion Hank Freeman. 44RPM launched with a load of “flatpack” toys…yoyos, kendamas, and spin tops that are laser cut from a single sheet of wood and then assembled by the player. The Blues is their signature edition yoyo for co-founder Drew Tetz.
The 44RPM Blues is a huge, ridiculous yoyo that is almost guaranteed to be the most fun and unique throw in your entire collection. The huge diameter juxtaposed with a totally reasonable weight means that without the wooden weight rings, the Blues is huge and floaty, and plays in a way that is best described as “round”. Add the included laser cut wooden rings and the Blues picks up a little extra spin time and the play goes from “round” to “fat”. Trust me…once you actually play with a Blues, this all makes perfect sense. Only a yoyo this strange and wonderful could be suitable as the signature model for 2014 Trick Innovator of the Year Drew Tetz.
Available in solid colors with art created by Rodrigo “Whip” Yokota, the Blues makes use of laser cut wooden rings to give it a truly unique look. The combination of a rich red anodizing with the burnt wood of the rings makes the Blues look classy and interesting…I can’t speak for how the other colors will look with rings, but I suspect they’ll be fantastic as well. The anodizing is solid, without flaws, and the art is bold and cleanly engraved.
The 44RPM Blues retails for $55, which is plenty reasonable for a great playing modern aluminum yoyo, and a total bargain for something that is truly unique in the market. There is no other yoyo available that looks or feels like the Blues, and it’s worth the $$ just to have one handy for the sake of variety.
The 44RPM Blues is available through YoYoExpert.com.
The Rhythm is the first aluminum release from 44RPM, the start-up company from Drew Tetz and 3x World & National YoYo Champion Hank Freeman. 44RPM launched with a load of “flatpack” toys…yoyos, kendamas, and spin tops that are laser cut from a single sheet of wood and then assembled by the player. The Rhythm is their first player-centric release, and was designed with help from World YoYo Champion Rafael Matsunaga.
The 44RPM Rhythm is fat, floaty, and fun! Designed to be equally great for competition and every day play, the Rhythm is a perfect first aluminum release for a company like 44RPM. It’s got the spin time and stability that you expect from modern aluminum yoyos, but it plays fast and light and feels extra comfortable in the hand. It’s hard to describe how this plays in relation to other yoyos…the best way to describe it would be to say that it plays like you’re sitting in a comfortable, overstuffed chair. It feels almost weightless on the string, has crisp and clean binds, and can handle everything from goofy picture tricks to top-level 1A/3A/5A play. The Rhythm is the perfect yoyo to remind you how much fun yoyoing can be.
Available in solid colors with art created by Rodrigo “Whip” Yokota, the Rhythm keeps it simple and fun. Never meant to be a “collectors item”, the Rhythm was designed to be a knock-around yoyo that gets used, so don’t expect much in the way of fancy anodizing and limited editions. The anodizing is solid, without flaws, and the art is bold and cleanly engraved.
The 44RPM Rhythm retails for $42.50, which is plenty reasonable for a great playing modern aluminum yoyo. Priced with 3A players in mind, the Rhythm is a great deal for 3A players looking for a new pair, or a casual player who just wants something new and fun.
The 44RPM Rhythm is available through YoYoExpert.com.
44RPM, the start-up toy company from Drew Tetz and Hank Freeman, just announced their first sponsored player: scene legend Takeshi Kamisato! With Takeshi’s history as a yoyo trick innovator and filmmaker, and his recent (and pretty awe-inspiring) jump into the world of absurdly hard kendama tricks, he’s a perfect fit for 44RPM.
In addition to their line of flatpack yoyos, kendamas, and spin top, 44RPM recently released a budget metal yoyo called the Rhythm, and have started showing photos of it’s companion yoyo, the Blues. The Rhythm, designed by National YoYo Master Rafael Matsunaga with art by Rodrigo Yokota is in stores now. There is no release date set for the Blues.
Congratulations, Takeshi and 44RPM!
44RPM has come out of the gate as easily one of the strangest and most creative new companies in the yoyo/skill toy market. The brainchild of Drew Tetz and Hank Freeman, all of their products are laser cut from a single flat piece of wood and you assemble them yourself. And they really work. It’s kinda nuts, really.
Their latest kendama release, the Penny, is a flatpack kendama that uses pennies to add extra weight, and the difference in play from their standard model kendama as the result of adding 7¢ is crazy!
Check out this video from Takeshi Kamisato, showing off what the 44RPM Penny can do in the hands of a bunch of kendama players.
Fist Salud knows what the deal is! This new trick compilation video features new work from John Ando, Yuuki Spencer, Shu Takada, Drew Tetz, Ayumu Harada, Dee, Igor Galiev, Koichiro Ueta, Hibari, Yoshinori Kawamura, Hajime Miura, Atsushi Yamada, Hank Freeman, Eiji Okuyama, Alex Garcia, Daiki Tanaka, and Petr Kavka. A truly all-star lineup!
Music is NSFW.
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!
Remember that Kendama with a string groove that Takeshi modded? You know, the one that let players mount the Dama on the string and even do partial windups for performing yoyo-inspired tricks. Pretty cool, yeah? Well, I’ve had it for a month now, and I got together two minutes of tricks right here:
Hope that you enjoy it! I’ve been stoked on the cross-pollination of ideas between yo-yoers and kendama players, and I’m grateful to Takeshi for making this mod to help me get some of my ideas out. If you like the music, download it for free right here.
Were you hoping the kendama invasion would be just a fad? Or that it would be safely contained? No sir, not when the mod bug bites kendama and yo-yo people alike, leading to some of the funkiest mashups on Instagram!
Apparently, kendama folks over at Kendama Custom Kreations were the first to have a shot at it, with their “Ken-Yo”, featuring a custom ken, holes on both sides of the yo-yo/tama, but with the string tied to the yo-yo, defeating some of the purpose:
Next, ninja modder and all-around awesome dude Takeshi went ahead and cut a string groove on a Duncan Komodo tama for Drew Tetz, the “Groovedama”!
Here’s Drew shredding that beauty:
Inspired by Takeshi’s work, but not quite hip enough for fixed axle, Red printed a tama hubstack, turning a perfectly fine yo-yo into a bizarre-looking contraption:
Turns out Takeshi is a mind-reader, and had turned his own hubstack from a screwdriver handle, transforming his own yo-yo into a ken!
(Obligatory Terrorgade mount tricks above in honor of Paul Escolar’s birthday!)
And finally, Takeshi — deciding he was cooler than everyone else — came up with the Blitz, an all-wooden version of his previous mod.
And kendama folks also seem to enjoy it quite a bit! (Dominic Calimquim feeling right at home below)
This is just the beginning!
Follow us all on Instagram for more awesome (and sometimes questionable) mashups!
Hello, Fixed Axle Faithful! As you may know, this is the last Friday of 2013. What you might know is that this is also the last installment of regular Fixed Friday content—it sounds dramatic, but I highly doubt you’ve seen the last of us, we’ll just be stepping back from one a week. As Ed noted, it’s been fun, and we’re quite proud of our work; after fifty episodes I hope that we’ve given fixed axle acolytes some material to chew on and maybe taught somebody a trick or two. Thank you all for stickin’ with us through this crazy year and for supporting us in whatever comes next.
As this is the last installment of the year, I thought it might be fitting to do a roundup of my favorite concepts. Consider this the Cliffs Notes version of the Fixed Axle master class, and please by all means check out our back catalog… but more than anything learn these tricks!
Before we start talking about individual tricks, I would urge every new Fixed Axle player to check out Ed’s “Back to Basics” clip & article, which addresses most of the questions about equipment, string tension (important!), and all that good stuff.
LEVEL 1
Job #1 is developing good control over the yo-yo. You’ll be spending a lot of time winding your yo-yo back up, so you might as well learn a couple fun ways to do it! I personally favor the thumb start (demonstrated by André here), a quick pushing down on the yo-yo with your fingers to start it spinning again, but it wouldn’t hurt to learn a couple of different regen techniques. Another favorite is Engineer’s Windup, wherein you set the dead yo-yo on the string and roll it along the trapeze to build friction and start the string winding—while many people write this move off as cheesy beginner stuff, I find looping out of it quite satisfying, and Kyle Nations actually built it into a trick with his “Necro” concepts.
Though I don’t feature it in the video, I would be remiss not to mention the almighty snap start. Ed has a great primer on those.
The next trick, Sidewinder, is an absolute essential, because it is hands-down the fastest way to fix string tension on a responsive yo-yo. You can read my full article on it here for a more in-depth look, but definitely learn it! Lefty loosey, righty tighty, keep that string in shape.
Pocketwatch, created by the brilliant Nate Sutter, is perhaps the simplest new trick in years, and that’s what makes it brilliant. Read Ed’s writeup on it and don’t forget to shake your hips for maximum points.
Trapeze Stall & Trapeze-Bro Stall are not only the building blocks of modern stall play, but also the first tricks featured on Fixed Friday. Neat, right? Complete the circle by reading that original article, trapeze stall was a total gamechanger for me and I consider it a modern essential. Once again, Ed’s knowledge is indispensable, and his “How to Stall” video is perfect for fixing your technique, and his Bro-Stall Repeaters video can show you some more advanced variations. The Double-or-nothing (2or0) stall was not covered in depth in a FF article, but once you feel comfortable with your trapezes you should try going all the way around and practicing your rollouts.
Zipper Stalls is perhaps my favorite stall-based repeater, perfect in its symmetry & simplicity. Ed made it, so naturally he’d be the best to learn from (probably in this article he wrote featuring it) but I love seeing the way players’ individual style affects the aesthetics of this trick. Being able to roll smoothly from one stall to another and learning the way the yo-yo flips depending on spin direction is an essential skill that this trick develops in you pretty quick.
Thumb Mount stalls are another fixed axle standby, the perfect fusion of response-powered tricks and string trick precision. The Lunar Landing, addressed a little bit later, is probably the most famous example, and Ed discusses a number of them in his Lunars clip, but you can also see a few good examples in his one-handed clip. The entrances in the video are some of my favorite, but I’ll admit some are harder than others: forward pass to reverse lunar is definitely the one I would try to learn first.
LEVEL 2
Dumptrucks, alright! I’m proud because it’s an original trick, and one of my favorite modern fixie concepts. I addressed it at length in this video, but the main takeaway is that you can flip the yo-yo halfway on the z-axis to dismount and regenerate, something that is stylish, fun, and useful for finding transitions. I may be biased, but I do consider it a staple of the modern fixed axle canon, so give it a try at least.
Behind the back braintwister is not a move in everybody’s quiver, but it serves as a good way to practice stalls in body tricks… and beat fools in butterfly horse.
2or0 chopsticks stall is one of my favorite stall mounts, because of how technically rich it is for being accessible straight off of a throw. I enjoy just mounting and rolling out as in the video, but you can see it applied to a more complex trick in my Crisis video.
I’ve chosen Makin’ Da Zines to be representative of all planet hop based repeaters, which you can learn more of in my Planet Rock column. Makin’ Da Zines is a favorite because it’s a stylish & satisfying exit from trapeze stall, something you’ll end up in a lot. There’s definitely something to be said for tricks that just feel “right.”
Shoot the Moon is an all-time classic hall of fame trick, and well worth learning even if you don’t usually like looping. Ed’s Lunars clip addresses them briefly, but it’s the sort of trick that you really have to just work at for yourself. My tips: use something light & butterfly-shaped, make sure your string length & response are comfortable, be careful that the yo-yo doesn’t flip between repetitions, and use a much gentler touch than you ordinarily would.
Stop & Go is a classic 1A move covered in many other places, but Ed does such nice things with them on fixed axles that I thought it was worth mentioning. Definitely plenty of unexplored territory there, and a great trick to show non-yoyoers, too. The following clip with the uncredited clip is also a tribute to Ed, specifically his daring “flinch” trick.
LEVEL 3
Bouncehouse is a subtle & fun transition move introduced in my “Huh? Wha?” clip, and when combined with Charles’ 2or0 entrance it has become one of my bread & butter fixed axle combos. LFO is another blending of elements that make a satisfying whole: you can see it in slomo in that sidewinder article, the blending of dumptrucks, sidewinders, and 3D catches feels great.
Kickflips, Heelflips, Shuvits, and the Mach-5 Whip Flip can all be found (along with other flips) in my Flip Tricks column. I think it’s fair to call the kickflip my “signature move” by now, which is exciting, ’cause I’m like not even a superhero or a wrestler so I’m not supposed to have those… but anyways, they’re high risk stall-specific moves that look great and feel fun, so you should at least try to learn one of them. Probably Kickflips, they’re the easiest, but shuvits are satisfying exactly because of how difficult they are.
UFO Recaptures are perhaps the simplest way to get into Horizontal tricks for fixed axle. Read more about them here. It’ll take practice to catch the returning stall on the string, but it feels great being able to switch between planes on a whim. The Double Regen is silly but fun.
Mystics are very technical, z-axis transitions between strings in the middle of a stall. Though the intricacies are often missed by non-fixed players, they do feel really awesome and open up a whole new way of looking at stall string formations. Check the full Mystical clip here.
…and, because it’s nice to go out with something fun, I ended with Venetian Blinds, a trick you should definitely not show your mother-in-law or the police.
Thank you all for tuning in all year, and I hope that we’ll be able to trade Fixie tricks on a contest floor sometime soon. I’ve had a ton of fun and have so much love for Ed, Steve, & André for helping making it happen. Don’t forget to join the Fixed Friday facebook group and the Fixed Axle Megathread on Yoyoexpert to shun bearings with the other cool kids. Music in this video is a freely downloadable remix I made of a song by Duns Broccoli. (P.S. Bonus shoutout & thanks to Louis DiGiuseppe for helping me shoot this, look for another exciting fixie video from us soon…)
Yo-yos used were the Duncan Butterfly, the Duncan Wheel, and the Moon by 44RPM.
BONUS CLIP: I forgot to put these in the video so now they’re instagram exclusives. Whatever. Broadway stall and kwijibo kickflip suicide.
Cast aside your bearings, ye fixed axle faithful, and join us as we take a step into horizontal responsive tricks. This may sound like a daunting challenge, as neither horizontal nor responsive play are particularly easy, but we can use stalls to make response work to our advantage with a maneuver called the UFO Recapture.
When a yo-yo is spinning, it’s going to tend to stay spinning in the orientation you threw it thanks to centripetal force. Stalls are neat, though, because they give us the opportunity to swing or rotate a yo-yo however we want, which lets us change directions mid-sequence.
The UFO Recapture is all about throwing the yo-yo out horizontally to a UFO (aka Sleeping Beauty or Flying Saucer) and then capturing it back in a sidestyle stall mount. In its purest form, this is accomplished with a horizontal throw, popping the UFO’ing yo-yo up so that it starts to respond, and then intercepting the yo-yo with the string so that it falls into a stall. The most difficult part of the trick is getting your string lined up and your timing right, remember to take it slow and hook your finger around the string.
Before you try this, you’re probably going to want to be pretty comfortable with the basics of sideways yo-yoing so you can get a good solid throw, but there aren’t many string hits to be seen, so no worries if you don’t quite have your sideways braintwister combo on lock yet. (hey, I still don’t have one!) The biggest difference between frontstyle & a sidestyle spin for recaptures is that a frontstyle power throw has the yo-yo coming back towards the front of the string and the sidestyle breakaway has it coming behind the string. I personally consider frontstyle easier to learn, but try both.
Oh, also, at 23 seconds in: if you do a horizontal broadway it helps you set up a double-or-nothing, which you can then recapture, but that’s probably a little more on the advanced end of things.
28 seconds in marks my personal favorite way to practice the recapture, which pairs it with a dumptruck-style half-swing from a trapeze stall into a UFO. This technique is one of the easiest ways to get into a horizontal trick with a fixie, because you already have control of the string once you restart, and I’ve used it in a number of tricks (one of which can be seen at the end of Mystical.) When you pair it up with the recapture, it can effectively become a repeater, which means you always know a way into and out of horizontal spin from trapeze stall—score! Adam Brewster did some neat things with this as well.
Immediately after the half-dumptruck/recapture is a silly little trick called “knockbacks” you can learn to mix it up, wherein you just bounce the yo-yo off your palm to reset the regen, tough love style… and after that is an even sillier trick, proving that you can catch it in a thumb mount and broadway out. Or not broadway out! But really, who doesn’t want more spin moves?
At 1:05, we take a break from the UFOs to explore a mount we haven’t talked about much on FF: the fake triangle stall. Pulling the string through the loop on a trapeze stall creates a fake triangle suitable for really big suicide loops, something that I used to my advantage with this weird semi-horizontal offplane monster, based heavily on Paul Yath’s 360 suicide. Ideally it would be even more horizontal, but it sure is nice not having to keep the momentum afterwards. After that, we have another suicide trick that shows you more ways to use horizontal tricks to create pauses: this shifts the plane by intercepting a kickflip suicide halfway through, tossing a whip loop over it, and then continuing into a mach-5 mount.
Finally, we close out the video with a cross-armed 1.5 stall pushed out around the arm into a UFO and recaptured in a double or nothing stall. Going around your arm and keeping the string structure clean isn’t easy with a responsive yo-yo, but the feeling is totally awesome, so I recommend at least giving the entrance a shot.
Thanks for tuning in, and see you next Friday for more bearingless brouhaha. As always, the yo-yos used were Duncan Butterflies & Wheels, and you can download the beat for free from my Soundcloud.
Welcome to Fixed Sunday! Sincerest apologies on the lateness, but we’re back with your weekly dose of fixed axle features. Before we get into the column, I’d like to call a little attention to two great recent entries to the fixie canon, Alex Curfman’s “One-Hand Wonder” clip and Ed Haponik’s “Mystic Dumps” trick. On with the show!
This week has a mix of concepts, but is intended to be a follow-up to my “Mystics” clip for LSFC last week, so you might want to check that out also. Before we get into the tech-y stuff, though… foot start to bucket stall! Preloading a mount and then propelling a dead yo-yo into it with your foot is a fun trick to add to your arsenal, simply because it’s one of the rare moves that’s easier to perform while sitting down.
The second trick in the video is what we’re calling a “mystic”, a gentle cousin to the kickflip transition and the dumptruck. The basic idea behind a mystic is to swing a stalled yo-yo off-plane so that it is turned upside-down and dumped onto another string. It seems like a fairly logical followup to dumptruck dismounts, but planebreaking transitions are still fairly unexplored terrain, so while traces of the trick were floating around there wasn’t really a name for it until Ed put out “Mystic Dumps”. This trick sums up the concept of flipping from one mount to another very succintly while simultaneously paying tribute to Paul Escolar’s classic magic drop trick, and I highly recommend learning it.
Having said that… I personally find mystic dumps a lot harder than the trick in this video, which is a mystic from a double or nothing stall to an inverted trapeze stall, so if you have a hard time sticking the landing on Ed’s try this one out. Throw a double or nothing stall, and then swing the whole formation forward as though you were going to kickflip or dumptruck out of it. As the yo-yo gets to be about horizontal, curl your non-throwhand finger and point both your hands in towards your body to guide the yo-yo onto the back string. This transition takes a little time to get the feeling of, but is a great way to mix up your stall transitions.
If you’ve already advanced past both mystic dumps and 2or0 mystics, trick #3 might amuse you: it uses the same chopsticks truck as my first trick in DCUS Chillin’, but lands on the string instead of dismounting, which somehow sets up a reverse GT stall. Trippy! Ten points to the first person to kickflip a reverse GT…
The trick at 30 seconds is a fun, silly whip. If you’ve been looking to get into stall whips but don’t know where to start, this one features a fairly easy setup and a nice delay before the landing. It opens with a 2or0 stall, followed by a dunk, which sets a ripcord up on the string for the whip. Take your non-throwhand finger out of the loop and whip the string around your throwhand into the gap… which is conveniently held in place with your free hand, because stalls let you do that. I enjoy this trick because it’s based off of the modern 1A grind/whip formula, but the “grind” portion is actually made much easier by stalls.
Next in line is another technical mystic, this time based on an old Jason Lee chopsticks combo (referenced also in Imperialism.) The opening sequence can be a little confusing: mount trapeze stall, and cross the string over your thumb as you dismount, which creates a wrap around your thumb as you mount a trapeze-bro stall. This trick departs from the other combos when you mount back in a stall over your thumb, at which point you swing back to the back string (as in 2or0 mystics) and then perform a second mystic onto the middle string, which puts you in that weird “i’m not actually a bucket” mount. My personal favorite thing to do upon landing a stall in this mount is actually another Jason Lee masterpiece, “wiggly thing”, though my wiggles aren’t as clean as his… but you can also dismount or do whatever.
The final combo is a recent favorite, “Boyfriendcat loves Sea Glass.” It opens with a pinwheel that lets me launch vertically before a 2or0 chopsticks stall, which adds a nice touch of drama. Dismounting to behind the head zines and then cross-armed 1.5 stall is a bread & butter combo for me, but it gets spiced up a bit when it’s swung upwards and pushed out into a horizontal pinwheel, naturally continued into a UFO. The benefit of launching from a 1.5 instead of a trapeze is that the string is naturally set up for a whip, and I put my concentration face on to catch the UFO in a horizontal whip… phew!
Anyways, that’s it for this week. Thanks for letting me be late. Beat’s available to download free on my Soundcloud. Go watch Mystics. Okay.
Drew Tetz throws down a bunch of crazy, plane-bending stall transitions in his newest video clip. Looks like he’s using a Duncan Butterfly and a Duncan Strix.