20 years.

Its something I never would have dreamed I would reach. A milestone that I often asked of myself as a young kid growing up whether or not I would still be doing this thing when I was past 20, past 25, and would I really be doing this into my 30’s?

It all started for me back in 1998, a simple walk through the Ala Moana Shopping Center in Honolulu led young 6 year old me to witness the individuals who would become my biggest heroes of my youth. Team High Performance with their teal shirts and flashy tricks brought something totally new to me. My young eyes had only witnessed the “rock the baby” my dad used to do on the fixed axle throws he got as gifts in the dental office. Seeing two handed loops, split the atom, Texas cowboy, I remember telling my Dad “If you get me one of those yoyos, I’ll be just as good as them!” I made a promise and I was gonna keep it. And little 6 year old me struggled along with my pristine Bandai Hyper Russell to learn all the basics.

I remember the first time I figured out how to do forward pass and how amazing it felt to me. “I can throw my yoyo straight out!” I would shout excitedly, and thanks to an old yoyo trick VHS, I worked my way up to learning the coveted rock the baby that my dad had showed me, and it was one of the best feelings ever.

I’ve been through a lot over the last 20 years.  From viewing my first contest (1998 Hawaii States), My first contest (Cal States 2003), my first US nationals (Nationals 2005, where I placed 25^th in a sea of 50 1A preliminaries), My first time ever making finals in a contest (US Nationals 06 3A finals), starting my own yoyo club (2Yo YoYo Club), Placing top 3 in a 1A division (Cal States 07 1A 3^rd),  Competing in my first ever world yoyo contest (Worlds 2011), And finally, my biggest achievement, Winning US Nationals (Nationals 2017 5A). All this ultimately leading me to now starting my own company, which is something I never dreamed I could ever do.

Looking back over the years I’ve been involved in yo-yoing and the yoyo community, I’ve come to learn many things. Not all of it was good, and not all of it was bad.  But everything was a learning experience that shaped me to be not only the yoyo player I am today, but also the person and individual I am today.  There are so many things I could talk about, but these are some of the highlights that I feel are the most significant.  They are things that I hope the newer generation of players can take as advice and insight as they grow in the yoyo world themselves.

1: Never think that there is nothing new under the sun.

Do you know how many times I’ve heard the phrase “Can yoyos really get much better?” or “Will there ever be another new style of play?”. I remember the first year that 3A 4A and 5A became official divisions at worlds and how significant of a change that was. Prior to 03, nobody ever imagined just how big these divisions would grow to be. The last 3 “A” styles were once considered to be “novelty” styles that were sideline play, the styles that people would do for fun or as a joke at times. Look how far we’ve come. Players like Hajime, Rei, Takeshi, all legends in the styles that were once considered “novelty” now the masters of some of the most competitive divisions in the world.

Look at how far 1A was come as a division. Dense slack tricks of today were unheard of before. I remember when some of the first “slack” tricks came out around 2000-2001, and how revolutionary and new they seemed. Those tricks that were once “top notch” are now early tricks some players learn as beginners!

What about yoyos? There was a point when people thought yoyos couldn’t progress any further. Yoyojam had done everything under the sun, and metal yoyos were too expensive to produce and many were awkward or bulky, with the price point being way out of what the average kid could spend. Now we have hundreds of new designs being put out constantly, low walls, combination of materials,  metal yoyos that are under 40 bucks, these were unheard of back in the day and none of us could have ever imagined things would get as far as they have today.

Never think that all the ideas are used up, The next revolution in yo-yoing and styles could be just around the corner. I’d bet that within the next 5 years from today, something big could happen and we will have new divisions, new styles, and totally new and unique yoyo design.

2. Never be afraid to branch out.

I remember in the early 00’s I had a goal to be a real 1A player. The other styles were interesting to me but I just wanted to be a master of 1A. I felt that 1A players were the stars of the contest and I wanted to be a star, but after a while, I found myself getting a bit “stuck” in 1A and unable to move forward. It was then that I decided to experiment in the other main styles to see if anything could click with me. This ended up being the best decision of my life.

I think a large part of why I never gave up yo-yoing besides the community aspects, is that I never got bored as whenever I got bored with 1A, I picked up some 5A, and if I got bored with 5A, I tried some 2A. But beyond keeping me out of boredom, I realized that a lot of influence for my 1A could come from new 5A tricks, or new 4A tricks, heck even 2A. Every style is not entirely its own entity, and there are lots of possibilities for crossover and inspiration. Learning 5 styles led to so many new discoveries for me that I never would have found had I chose to dedicate all my time to solely 1A.

Beyond the spectrum of yo-yoing, I branched out into other performance art and flow toys such as dance, poi, buugeng, juggling, etc, and I found even further inspiration, which leads me to my next bit…

3. Respect other skill toys and flow arts.

This is something that has confused and upset me over the years. I’ve seen many instances of yoyoers who will make claims like “Kendama is so dumb” or “Poi seems kind of pointless” or “At least its not Astrojax!”. To me, this is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen about yoyoers. Here we are, a community of people who found a craft/toy/art form that we dedicate our time to, put countless hours into, delve into the community, and I’m sure we hate hearing hate about our yo-yoing, heck, I see threads about people getting upset over some ill words they receive while throwing their yoyos in public, so why go and sling hate towards people who also found something that works for them as yoyo’s did for us? I’d challenge anyone that every skill and flow toy out there has just as vast a skillset as yo-yoing if not more, and all skill and flow toy enthusiast deserve respect for the hours they dedicate to the craft they love.  I believe that all skills should be willing to come together and share their craft in a place where all can be respected and admired, cause really, no matter what the toy is, there is so much that can be done that will blow your minds.

4. Never ignore the new / lesser known thrower.

I want to tell you a story. I remember browsing youtube long ago around the end of 05 I believe, and I was doing a search under “yoyo”, and sorting the videos by most recently uploaded. I found a video of a young Asian boy doing some simpler tricks on a yoyojam Hitman. I thought while this young guy was definitely newer, I could see some young talent and ended up commenting and subscribing.  I kept track of the kid’s progression and was excited to see him excel and soon become a competitive player. Today, that young boy doing barrel rolls on a hitman is sponsored by a company, and is a well established player who puts out some of the most original content you will ever see, His name is Ryan Gee.

Here’s another one. I remember a young hyper kid who came to our early yoyo club meetings, full of energy, a bit zany, with high ambition, loved to freestyle to Hannah Montana music,  Loved offstring and 2A, and kind of came and went over the years. Ended up getting amazing at 2A and started placing very well thanks to his intense dedication. That young kid ended up starting his own company, and that company is now on of the most well respected and established companies in the yoyo world today. You may know the company as UNPRLD, run by the once young hyper kid, Tyler Hsieh.

What about the time I found a random 5A freestyle from a contest in Japan in 07. It was a young kid doing some 5A. His style was a bit sloppy and unrefined, but I saw something in his style and his competitive nature and I made a comment on that original upload all the way back in 07 that he was going to be something big one day. That young 5A kid was Takuma Inoue.

Finally, I recall browsing youtube and coming across a video of a young kid doing some 1A tricks like eli hops and basic intermediate level 1A. I realized that this young kid was once someone I highly looked up to during the THP days. It was the first I had seen him yoyo in a longgggg time and I didn’t know he had still been yo-yoing. This kid ended up emerging back into the contest scene in 09 and I was so excited to see it. He ended up taking a break for a while and I remember asking him on facebook once “Hey are you gonna compete again?” and his reply was a simple “I don’t know my tricks don’t score.” He ended up coming back to the contest scene some years later, and after some big contest waves, he ended up becoming the US nationals 1A champion this past year. This was Evan Nagao.

The new generation of yoyoers we see rising up are some of the most valuable people we can invest our time and lives into. And people we see today as “beginners” throwing some trapezes off to the sidelines of contest are the future world champions and innovators of the world, we just don’t realize it yet.

This also applies to companies! Any of you remember yoyofactory when they were essentially run out of a garage and had just a few random experimental yoyos that nobody paid much attention to? What about when SPYY emerged on the scene and people hated on their first design? They ended up becoming one of the biggest companies out of Canada for a while before they closed down. The little small company you see emerging on the scene could just be the next big thing!

5. Hold your fellow thrower close as you never know what can happen.

It’s a sad fact that we have lost quite a few yoyoers to untimely deaths over the years. I remember the hurt I felt when I found out about the death of Ryan (Houdini) Monson in 05. It was something nobody ever thought would happen, a player who was active online, chatted with all the time, saw at contest, gone. Its not always death either when it comes to seeing people come and go. So many players who were once super active can vanish off the face of the earth seemingly overnight.

I want to tell you a story of my first real yoyo friend. His name was Jonathan Feldman but many knew him as “Tacoboy”. Jon was from San Jose and was a player I met at a spindox meeting toward the end of 05. He became my closest yoyo friend and we went to a lot of events together, shared a bunch of tricks, etc. He started falling away from yo-yoing around 07 and we ended up losing contact. I remember I had him on facebook and would occasionally talk to him to see what he was up to, but one day everything disappeared. His facebook was gone, his emails inactive, no record of him anywhere. To this day I have no idea what happened to him, last I saw was years ago with him being very involved in skateboarding, but other than that, its as if he almost did not exist.

Jon was someone who was a big push for me to keep yo-yoing and I wish I had a way to keep in contact. But the situation taught me a lot. You never know when someone may just disappear, and cherishing the moments you have with your fellow thrower is one of the most valuable things you can do. People come and go, everyone is valuable, and my hope is that all of us can really appreciate the yoyoers that are around us today.

6. Don’t compare yourself to others.

Its easy to fall into feeling like you’re “behind” or not progressing as fast as other players. But this is not the way to view your yoyo life. Yoyoing is about fun, but even with that phrase being blasted in our faces all the time, it still makes sense that you may feel a bit behind others who are somehow grasping concepts and innovating like there is no tomorrow. But in the end, know that what you are capable of, is LEAGUES better than the vast population of the world, and whatever you do with your yo-yoing that makes you the most happy, is doing things right, no matter the skill or competition level. I say this from experience: My lowest point in yo-yoing was when I was actively comparing myself to others and trying to match what they were doing. I was never satisfied, always frustrated, and pretty much at a road block. When I became happy to do my own thing and go my own way, that is when I found my joy for yo-yoing again and to this day its something I try to live by.

7. Sponsorship isn’t everything.

OH MY GOD was I an annoying little 11 year old back on the forums with my post of “GUYS I NEEEEEEED TO BE SPONSORED BY YOYOJAM WHAT DO I DO?” I mean it makes sense, as so many of the top yoyo heroes of today are proudly sponsored by big companies, getting endorsements, signature yoyos, it all sounds so cool. But from my experience, some of my favorite times of yo-yoing were done when I was actually NOT sponsored. That said, sponsorship certainly has its perks, and for some people, it works really well for their yoyo life. But regardless, getting sponsored should never be your “goal” in yo-yoing, and to be honest, most companies offer sponsorship to players who aren’t actively looking to be sponsored. I know I wasn’t looking for a sponsor when I got all of my offers.

Ultimately, free yoyos are nice, but it’s a lot to think about and something that nobody should ever make some ultimate goal.

 8. Never let go of your first yoyo

 Did you know that I almost sold my first hyper Russell? It was when I was 14 and really was low on cash, I had hopes that my hyper would maybe be worth something and I tried to sell it online. Turns out it wasn’t as rare as I thought it was and It was a worthless attempt, but looking back, I’m so glad I didn’t let it go. Your first yoyo will always have a special place in your heart, and I believe that even if it’s a “bad” yoyo, you’ll really want to give it a fun throw here and there, and remember the times you had. My Hyper Russell sits in a foam circle on my desk, and every once in a while, I pull it out and do a simple rock the baby, or even a forward pass. The memories all come back, and the feelings of happiness when I first landed those tricks come back, and I find im brought back to that little 6 year old kid, the one who thinks he can do everything that the guys in the teal shirts can do, and the promise that I would one day be just as good as them.

As I said, there is a lot more I can say, but these were highlighted in my head as I took time to reflect and ponder upon writing this all out.

Who knows, maybe someone reading this will write their own in 20 years after finding themselves in the same place on their yoyo journey. Only time will tell.

Much love to all, and here’s looking forward to my 30^th year.

J.