BlueEyedZoo.com

For my yo-yo buddy Devin (and anyone else interested in super cool yo-yo videos),

Well, I guess it’s time I come out and admit that I’m a wannabe yo-yo geek. You may think it’s lame or you may recognize the sheer coolness of the yo and those who wield it. No matter where you stand though, you gotta be impressed with the kids in these videos.

The world of yo-yo competitions are divided up into 5 major categories. That’s right, there really are yo-yo competitions. Here are some basic descriptions of the categories and some sample videos of each.

1A – what most people envision when they think of yo-yoing. This style lends itself to a single yo-yo that sleeps well and is good for string tricks.
2005 World Yo-yo Champion 1a Takayasu Tanaka

2A – A two handed yo-yo style with one yo-yo tied to each hand. The yo-yos are then used to do looping tricks.
2005 World Yo-yo Contest 2a 1st Place Shinji Saito

3A – A two handed yo-yoing (one yo-yo tied to each hand) where the yo-yos do not loop, instead they do two handed string tricks.
2005 World Yo-yo Competition 3a 1st Place

4A – also known as off string play. A style where the string is tied to the finger but not to the yo-yo. Special rubber edged yo-yos are used for 4A. Yes, the yo-yo really is NOT tied on to the string at all.
2005 Asia Pacific Yoyo championships 4a

5A – also known as freehand play. A style where the yo-yo is connected to the string, but the yo-yo is tied to a weight instead of your finger.
I couldn’t easily find a video for this category that was of reasonable download size. I may have to take one that I’ve downloaded and resize it myself. I’ll update this post when I get one. You gotta see this category as well. Very impressive.

Filed under: Geek Talk on December 22nd, 2005