Welcome back to another weekly yoyo update, I’m Adam Bottiglia.
This week, we take a look at the results of the 2017 US National Yoyo Championship, preview
some new products coming soon to the YoYoTricks.com store, and later we’ll get some feedback
from World Champion Gentry Stein on your tricks submitted in the Instagram contest.
But first, congratulations to US National Champion Connor Scholten, who triumphed in
the 2A Division over Mid-East regional bad boy, Dennis Shatter.
These two players at the top of their game demonstrate that the strongest state for two
handed play, is the state of Michigan, home of yoyotricks.com.
In other news, Yoyo Legend Evan Nagao used his signature yoyo The Edge to come out on
top of the 1A Finals division, claiming a Championship title 20 years in the making
with another unforgettable routine.
Congratulations, Evan.
In the 3A finals, recent addition to the YoYoFactory Team, Alex Hattori was successful in defending
his title for the 5th consecutive year.
Excellent performance from Alex as always, as well as highly impressive routines from
runner ups Donald Hodgkinson and Elijah Tan, easily the best performances we’ve seen
from both of them and we look forward to see what they have in store for the future.
Three time Offstring Champion Philip White again reigned over the 4A division, using
the JetSet EG, now available at YoYoTricks.com, to pull off one of the most technically impressive
Offstring routines we’ve ever seen.
Some crazy tricks in there if you haven’t already checked it out.
Duncan Sponsored players Zac Rubino and Sean Perez also delivered fantastic routines using
the Duncan Pandamonium.
Learn tricks from both Sean and Zack in their tutorial video series’ right here on at
YoYoTricks.com The 5A division this year crowned a new champion,
Bay Area native Josh Yee took the gold, besting his 2nd place finish from the previous year.
And Michigan native Owen Ekblad also wowed the judges and crowd with extreme counterweight
play, earning a 2nd place spot in his first ever performance at the US Nationals.
And the weekend wouldn’t be complete without demonstrations from up-and-coming yoyo superstar
Haddi Millican, in addition to a classic performance from National Grand Master Dale Myrberg, and
an invigorating push-up competition between contest MC Graeme Steller and World Champion
Gentry Stein, who we’ll be talking to right here, live, in just a few moments.
Congratulations to all who took part in this year’s National Yoyo Contest.
In other news, it’s time for this week’s yoyo forecast.
Jake?
Thanks Adam.
This week it looks like we’re in for another cold winter, because That’s Right!
We have the all new offstring powerhouse from iYoyo, the iCEBREAKER.
It is made of machined polycarbonate just like the really popular iCEBERG yoyo, has
the same fingerspin dimple and axle construction, which works really on this offstring yoyo.
Since it’s machined polycarbonate it plays smooth and is great for grinds, especially
finger grinds, and we can’t seem to put it down.
On the other side of the map, by Friday this week we’re expecting we will have a restock
of the Blue YoYoFactory Flight Spacers, Which means the Flight Pro Pack is coming back in
stock!
I know you guys have been waiting for that.
We are also restocking the Aurora and Galaxy marble Replay Pros, as well as the Galaxy
Flight, the most popular colors for both of those models.
Coming in on the radar from outside of our solar system, the awesome new Galaxy version
of the DV888 yoyo.
It is simply stunning that such an affordable metal yoyo can have such an attractive anodization
design.
That’s all we’ve got on the forecast this week, back to you Adam.
Thanks, Jake.
And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for - we are pleased to welcome back to the
program, once again, World Champion Gentry Stein.
We really enjoyed your push up performance against Graeme Steller.
How’s it going Gentry?
Thanks, Adam.
I am here at the airport getting ready to fly to China, and I had a great opportunity
to check out all of the videos that came in.
The first video that stood out to me was by @salchnation.
Thanks for the trick, dude.
A few things stood out to me on this trick.
First of all, it had a lot of really great, distinct elements.
So, the judges will notice that, and the will not think the elements are being repeated.
So keep that up.
The one thing that I would say to improve this trick though is the movement of the yoyo.
So there was not too much movement of the yoyo, a lot of it was just moving the string
to the yoyo, which you could say that this is involving the string and the yoyo, but
it is always easier for judges to analyze and interpret the tricks if there is a little
bit more movement with the yoyo.
So it makes it easy for them to see that both the string and the yoyo are involved.
So, keep these two things in mind, and you can keep improving this trick.
The second trick that stood out to me was by @c_veselovsky.
This trick had a lot of elements, which is always a great thing.
But a few things that I want to point out are there were a few elements that looked
a little bit similar.
So, if you could try to do a few things to kind of change what the tricks look like,
what each little movement looks like, that is going to help the judges differentiate
each element.
As well as, a couple of the movements were unnecessary.
So there is some big swings that are going on and those are wasting a little bit of time.
So it is great that you are packing in that many elements into each trick, but try to
keep in mind the repeats and the unnecessary movements as much as you can, and you should
be well on your way to making tricks that score even higher.
So the third trick that stood out to me was by @lucas_wy16.
This trick starts with a pretty hard element which is always great.
That sets you up nicely for the rest of the trick.
Two things that I would mention now, there is two elements in the middle where you repeat
the same thing.
So, Lucas, I would say just take those two elements out where you repeat those hops,
and your trick will score a great amount of points in a short amount of time, so keep
it up.
Thanks, Gentry.
And Congratulations to the randomly selected winner of last week’s contest, @samuelmichalski,
be sure to check your Instagram DMs to collect your prize.
For next week’s contest, we want you to post a video of your favorite combo.
Any combination of two yoyo tricks will do, even if it’s just going from a trapeze to
a double trapeze and back, that’s enough of a combo for us, but of course, more complex
combos will score more points.
Be sure to use the hashtag #YoTricksCombo when you post your trick on Instagram.
For the full list of official rules go to YoYoTricks.com/InstaContest.
This weeks contest winner will receive a $25 gift card to YoYoTricks.com, and remember,
the winner will be randomly selected, so even if your trick isn’t the best, you still
have a shot at winning.
But don’t forget, we will be featuring some of our favorite entries at the end of our
next weekly yoyo update in two weeks.
This is Adam Bottiglia signing off, reminding you:
“When life gives you lemons, make sure to check your string tension.”
We’ll see you next time.