San Francisco friends. Let’s get together and yo-yo next week!
I’m organizing a yo-yo meetup in Golden Gate Park on Saturday May 20th at 1pm.
We’ll be outdoors, by the giant water fountain in front of the bandshell. This is a free event and it’s open to everyone!
“Slow Streets” is a brand new yo-yo video that was shot on Sanchez Street in San Francisco. It was edited by Edition Yo-Yos and features one of my original songs.
Unlike my other clip videos, this one focuses entirely on “responsive counterweight” tricks. This style combines elements of freehand yo-yoing with modern responsive play. For this video, I’m exclusively using a Doc Pop Edition Thing, by Toybania and myself.
If you enjoyed Slow Streets, then you should also check out this episode of PopCast Yo-Yo Vlog for behind the scenes footage with Edition Yo-Yos and trick tutorial for Floops.
The Thing is now available on my store too:
Inspired by #FixedAxleFebruary and some of the questions I got during our last YoIP! Virtual Yo-Yo Club, I put together an episode about the Ariel Yo-Yo by Doblé. This is one of my favorite yo-yos in my collection, up there with the Doblé Titania, which I hope to do an episode about in the future.
In this video we also have a clip from Nate Martsolf about his Fixed Axle February Contest.
For the yo-yo history nerds, I’m attaching a few more images of the Ariel, along with website screenshots, archived links, and patent drawings. Enjoy.
Moon Rock White is a unique anodizing that my manufacturer offers. This special finish gives the yo-yo a velvety feel and looks a bit like porcelain. It’s a really unique look and I’m excited to be offering two of my favorite yo-yos, the Icarus and the Shawn Exploder in this Moon Rock White edition.
As an extra note, this MRW edition Shawn Exploder is manufactured in 7068 aluminum (instead of 7075) and is a few grams lighter than the standard edition. So this is a special treat for folks who like lighter yo-yos, or if you are just a huge fan of the SE and want to see how different weights can effect its play.
This special edition comes with a special edition yo-yo bag and a ten pack of my PopString in a special all white and gold color. I’ve also restocked other items on my store, including a few gold plated Executive yo-yos, which make an excellent gift for the CEO in your life who also happens to yo-yo.
This episode of the PopCast yo-yo vlog teaches how to do the Matrix with style and flow. This trick is a little over 20 years old, and it’s one of my more popular tricks. I feel like most yo-yoers know how to do the Matrix, but they might not know how to put it together in a way that flows.
So I talk about how to link “alpha” style moves together smoothly, and I also tell the crazy story of a yo-yo that “melts too easily”. I hope you enjoy this episode!
The Mini-Panzer is the smallest unresponsive yo-yo in history. It’s machined in brass, but available with gold or silver plating. It is .7″ tall, weighs 21.5 grams, and has the smallest bearing you’ve ever seen.
This video isn’t sponsored content, I just thought it was a cool yo-yo. I bought mine from YoYoExpert, but I think Yo-Yo Store Rewind has some too. Available on some sites here:
It’s worth noting that B!ST made an EVEN SMALLER yo-yo back in 2012, but his appears to be responsive. I don’t think it ever made it to the market either, but it looks amazing.
Parts of the audio in this video came from a Hainbach soundpack.
I recently found some rad yo-yo-themed illustrations by Titifreak from the early 2000s. These feature Black, Glasseye, Steve Brown, and myself.
Titifreak is an amazing artist and a fantastic yo-yoer. He’s been a big inspiration to me in many ways.
I remember being excited about the 2004 World Yo-Yo Contest because Titi and his brother, Whip, would be there. When I walked through the doors of the WYYC, I spotted Titi’s table and I ran over. He had this amazing shirt design of a yo-yo with flying wings on it. I said “this would make an amazing yo-yo”.
Someone behind me replied “I have a tattoo gun in my hotel room” and ten minutes later I was getting my first tattoo.
You can see more of that tattoo footage on this “Worlds Documentary” video I just shared:
Last week I went digging through some old CDs and trying to rip any old videos/albums I might not have seen in a while. I came across a bunch of videos from Daniel R. which I couldn’t find online anywhere else. With Dan’s permission, I’ve uploaded them to youtube.
“Worlds” is a clip video documenting the 2004 World Yo-Yo Contest in Orlando, Florida. It also documents my first tattoo experience!
“Midwest Invasion” is a monster of a clip video featuring several of my favorite players from back in the day. Seth Peterson, Dave Poyzer, Abe “The Gravedigga”, John Russeth, Paul Yath, Schalicto, Alex Berengeul, and many more. This was probably shot around 2004 in Minneapolis.
I don’t know much about “Yo-Yo Clips 2″, but Schalicto says it was shot on real film. Neat! It features several Minneapolis players including Schalicto, Alex Ulrich, and Matt Schmidt.
“Juggs” is a parody of Cops. It imagines oppressive jugglers outlawing anything non-juggling related, including yo-yos. It’s a bit weird, so I’m sharing it here, but it’s not listed publicly on my youtube.
The Save Deth videos, by Dave Poyzer and Seth Peterson, are fantastic time-capsules of yo-yo culture. Inspired by skate videos, Save Deth wanted to make high quality videos that captured the style of each yo-yo player. I really was excited about recording my segment for Save Deth Volume 2, but when the day came to record the segment in SF, everything was running later than expected and I had a hard stop that I had to get to. So I think my clip looks a little more rushed and sloppy than many of the other pros…. but I guess that I’m also known as being a little more sloppy in style too, so maybe this captures the day just right?
Here it is:
If you view the on Youtube, you can see a timeline showing what trick is playing for each part of the video. A few highlights for me are the “Gerbil Wheel” at :23 in, which might be the first time that counterweight move was documented. You can also see a bunch of my favorite moves documented here, like the Overhand 1.5 Whip, The Sabering Dismount, the Bicycle Kick Rejection, and some Astro-Style counterweight tricks.
At 1:03 I grab a coffee and start doing some one-handed tricks. This may seem kind of random, but I’ve been wanting to do a one-handed Artistic Performance routine in the World Yo-Yo Contest for many years. The idea would be I’d bring a cup of coffee on stage with me and do tricks with the non-coffee hand. I never fleshed it out much further than what you see though.
Artist: So Many Wizards
Song: "My Friends Are Nice"
Website: somanywizards.com
Myspace: www.myspace.com/somanywizards
Notes: The concept of this video was to show what goes into making a Save Deth video. Behind the scenes shots, bloopers and really good yo-yoing. Yo-yos used are the Yes, Absolutely The End and YoYo Jam + Doc Pop Bolt. Shot in San Francisco California, May 2009.
If you want to see the rest of the videos from Save Deth Volume II, you can go to http://www.savedeth.com/volumeii/
In this episode, I’m joined by Josh Yee and Connor Scholten to discuss the history of yo-yo binds. Our goal is to reveal the first time a yo-yo bind was documented, who was the first player to use one in a contest, and what was the first “bind return only” yo-yo.
This episode was a ton of fun to research, and I learned a lot. If you enjoyed it, be sure to watch our other video; The History of Slack Tricks.Links mentioned in this episode:
Music at the end of this video performed by Emily Hopkins
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