Category: yo-yo

Faye Webster is hosting a yo-yo contest in Berkeley?! https://www.ticketmaster.com/faye-webster-yoyo-invitational-berkeley-california-09-28-2024/event/1C006123F08D67C6

“Longtime yo-yo lover Faye Webster has announced the Faye Webster Yo-Yo Invitational, a one-day extravaganza featuring 12 of North America’s top yo-yo pros. The yo-yo masters will show off their most dazzling tricks in a no-rules exhibition, on September 28, at the Zellerbach Auditorium in Berkeley, California.”.

The event takes place on September 28th in Berkeley, CA. Here is a link. Sadly, I won’t be able to make it.

Here’s some footage of Faye doing yo-yo tricks back in 2020. She even does one of my tricks, The Gondola, in this video.

Paul Escolar was an extremely talented yo-yoer and artist who passed away in 2021. Though I met him through yo-yoing, I was always a huge fan of Paul’s illustrations and line work. The dude was a genius with a sharpie.

I’m excited that the folks at Method Made are putting together a show based on Paul’s work. The show opens tonight, April 20th, at 4:20 pm at 2544 Mission Street in San Francisco.

More details and artwork here https://www.tmmdl.com/collections/paul-escolar-in-memory

I had always hoped to film an interview with Paul about his art and the influence he had on the yo-yo community, but I missed my chance. I regret that, but I was able to find a rare interview with Paul about his art (which is republished here with The Method Makers approval) https://doctorpopular.com/the-method-makers-interview-with-paul-escolar/

And here is a great video about Paul’s influence on yo-yoing:

Ever since Yuta Ogawa debuted Boingy Boing in 1998, the trick became an instant classic. Every yo-yoer tried putting their own spin on the trick, like MarkMont’s “2nd Gen Boing” from 2004 or Rei Iwakara’s “Boingy Boing Switch“. My personal Boingy Boing goal was to be able to invert the Boingy Boing and keep it going. I struggled on this for years because I assumed that I’d need to switch the motion from my throw hand to my non-throw hand. I spent years trying to refine that motion, but finally figured out that I could easily do the trick without switching my dominant hand.

Here is my tutorial for Boingy Boing.:

And here are some other Boingy Boing variations from around the web:

And here is a great tutorial on the basic Boingy Boing:

Our next San Francisco Yo-Yo Club is at 3pm on Saturday, March 16th. We’ll be at Yerba Buena Gardens, but we’ll move it inside the Metreon food court if it ends up raining. Players of all skill levels are invited to join! We hope to see you there and it sounds like the weather is going to be amazing.

If traveling by BART, the Gardens are a short walk from both the Powell + Montgomery Street stations. The CalTrain Station at Fourth and Townsend is served directly by MUNI with stops on Third Street at Howard and at Mission. There is lots of parking downtown, but I encourage taking mass transit if possible for the easiest experience.

I recently went to KitTea Cafe in San Francisco and tried my best to entertain the cats with my yo-yo skills. Here’s what happened:

Thanks to Max (aka Edition Yo-Yos) for filming, Courtney from KitTea for allowing me to hang out and film, and my sponsors on Patreon.com/docpop for making these videos possible.