Becko celebrates his 2-year anniversary on the UNPRLD team with a video that reminds us all what a total badass he is.
Yoyo used is the UNPRLD ReCognition.
In The News: YoYoExpert
Friends Quentin Godet, left, of Conflans, France, and former Massachusetts state yo-yo champion Tylor McCallumore of Northampton look through the collection of yo-yos at the YoYoExpert.com headquarters and warehouse in Easthampton on Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2019. Godet was on a return trip home from his fifth-place finish in the 4A (offstring) Division of the 2019 World YoYo Contest in Cleveland the previous weekend.
The Daily Hampshire Gazette ran a great piece on YoYoExpert, highlighting owner André Boulay’s long-standing commitment to and involvement in the yoyo community. Always great to see members of the community getting some good press!
Hit this link to read the article: YoYoExpert in the Daily Hampshire Gazette
YoYofficer Opens Flagship Store in Shenzhen City
It’s official….our friends at YoYofficer have opened their own flagship retail location in Shenzhen, China!
According to YoYofficer co-owner Hong, the store will not just be a focal point for their retail line of yoyos and accessories, but their goal is mainly for the shop to be a source of training, instruction, and information for the next generation of players. With a heavy focus on teaching, YoYofficer wants to help groom the next generation of champions…awesome! Congratulations to YoYofficer, and be sure to visit the shop if you’re in Shenzhen.
YoYosZone – YoYofficer Flagship Store
Ground floor 112-B, HaiYue HuaTing Unit 1
HaiYue Road, Nanshan District
Shenzhen, China
11:00am-8:00pm
YoYos Featured On Vice Sports
Last week we got an amazing surprise when a thoughtful and well-written article on modern yoyoing showed up in the mainstream media. Vice Sports sent someone out to the 2015 US National YoYo Contest to talk about the struggle for modern yoyo contests to turn from amateur events into something more polished and professional.
The modern yoyo industry is still very young, very amateurish, and very resistant to change and progress. Against a backdrop of contest organizers who change rules in the middle of events, small companies struggling to become self-sustaining, and players with such low expectations that they will accept literally anything and praise it as being the “best ever”, a new generation of contest organizers struggle to raise the bar and create events that will not only serve the needs of the die-hard players that contests have always catered to, but will also provide a smoother and more accessible point of entry for new players to join.
This article is one of the best outside views of modern yoyoing I’ve ever read. Huge thanks to Tyler Severance and Patrick Borgerding not just for their work in helping organize the 2015 US National YoYo Contest, but also for working with Vice Sports to give the outside word an honest view of our strange, tiny little industry.
Head over to Sports.Vice.com to read the full article.
YoYoNews Presents: Innovation Movement
We’re excited to announce that Innovation Movement has officially joined the YoYoNews family of websites!
In addition to their stellar video content, expect to start seeing plenty of unique video contests, trick theory discussions, trick challenges, giveaways, and more. We’re really excited to welcome Innovation Movement to our ever-growing family of websites, bringing you the best quality information about modern yoyoing.
In The News – Zafran Aqil (Malaysia)
Malaysian yoyo player Zafran Aqil got a nice write-up in The Star Online, a Malaysian newspaper. Article excerpt below!
Get personal with Zafran Aqil, one of Malaysia’s top yo-yo players.
THE yo-yo craze might already be dead, but someone clearly forgot to tell art student Zafran Aqil, 19. And it’s a good thing no one did either, because the guy is now one of the best yo-yo players in the country!
Zafran has been successful not just in local yo-yo competitions, but in overseas ones as well. He placed third in the Central Malaysian Yo-yo Contest 2012, and was once invited to the Philippines as a guest performer at a competition!
He’s now sponsored by Singaporean yo-yo brand Diamont Noir, as well as clothing label Menagé.
He specialises in the 1A category, where the player performs string tricks with a single “sleeping” yo-yo. A sleeping yo-yo is one that continues spinning even after it has reached the end of the string.
Zafran admits that he was one of those who got caught up in the trend as a kid. He bought his first yo-yo when he was 14, and it cost him RM40. Now he has over 15 yo-yos, collectively worth at least RM3,000!
Click through for the rest of the article.
Harrison Lee In The News
CLYW wunderkind Harrison Lee got some great press from BurnabyNewsLeader.com as he gears up to compete in the 2013 Western Canadian Regional YoYo Competition.
Check out the excerpt below, and follow the link for the full article.
Harrison Lee had just been practicing the yo-yo for four months when he entered his first competition, the Western Canadian Regionals. He finished second. He was 11 years old.
Two years later, the Burnaby boy is ranked fourth in Canada, he’s sponsored by a yo-yo manufacturer and he has his own line of specially coloured yo-yos.
Lee’s slender fingers dance through the neon-coloured string, weaving it in intricate patters as the grey and blue-splattered yo-yo spins perpetually at its end. He’s putting in two to three hours a day designing and perfecting new tricks that will bedazzle the four judges during his two-minute session at Saturday’s third Western Canadian Regionals, to be held at the National Nikkei Museum and Heritage Centre.
“Whenever I’m not eating or sleeping, I’m yo-yoing,” says Lee, who owns 40 yo-yos, many of them prizes from competitions he’s won since taking up the hobby.
Click through for the full article.
YoYo News From Around The Web
Yoyo player Jacob Cross got some nice press from the Sonoma Press Democrat this weekend, mentioning his trip to the California State YoYo Contest. Really nice article…congratulations, Jacob!
The 15-year-old yoyo aficionado can send an Arctic Circle spinning or an Eight8Eight flying with gravity-defying ease.
He’s the leader of a small but dedicated group of Sonoma Valley High School students who pull out yo-yos during lunchtime and breaks to perfect their tricks and maneuvers.
They have yoyos sleeping (spinning rapidly at the end of the string) and whirling with such nonchalance that yo-yoing appears almost easy.
Don’t expect them to yank on the string of a clunky old-fashioned Duncan yoyo, though. Cross and his pals prefer contemporary models – like the Arctic Circle or Eight8Eight – that command prices exceeding $100.
“Including the ones I’ve lost, I have 15 in total,” says Cross, a sophomore who picked up his first yoyo as a fifth-grader “just as another toy.”
Click through for the full article.
Julian Semenza got a nice write-up in the Manteca Bulletin, along with some embedded video of him showing off his skills. Julian will be competing at the 2013 Bay Area Classic soon…good luck, Julian!
Last weekend Semenza took first place in his age group at the California State YoYo Competition in Sacramento for what he calls “the ladder” – the escalation of up to 25 tricks that are called out on-the-spot by a judge that determines whether or not they qualify to move up to the next on the list.
He’ll compete in the Regional Competition in San Francisco in May before taking his skills to Chico later this year for Nationals, squaring off against some of the best in the world in the city that houses the National YoYo Museum.
“It gets really crowded when you’re there,” Semenza said. “They blast music and a lot of the people do their tricks to music. There are professionals from around the world that are there. I go to each one – they’re a lot of fun.”
Click through for the rest of the article.
And in the UK, David Braden Holmes got a nice mention (and picture of himself with Hiroyuki Suzuki) in the Derbyshire Times. Congrats on your 2nd Place Sport Ladder finish, David!
YoYo News From Around The Web
We’ve gathered up some great yoyo news from around the web…check out some great press coverage for PNWR, Palli, and Black!
More press for PNWR from SeattlePI.com!
Some awesome hometown press for Palli from News of Iceland.
And BLACK is getting some great press for this TED talk, including from Boing Boing and PC Mag.