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Thursday, June 20, 2013

Episode 61: The Philosophy of A Yo-Yo Wrangler

It's such a simple toy. String wrapped around one short steel axle flanked by two walls of wheel-shaped colored plastic, wood or even aircraft-grade aluminum if that's your thing. They come in two shapes. Imperial and Butterfly. Done right and it rolls down the string, reaches the end and then rolls back up the other.

But it's more than that isn't it? There's a grace and fluidity to it. There's a style, a sophistication. There are people who hang their preferred from their hips like they're carrying their favorite sidearm. Fitting seeing as how it started out as a weapon at one time. It took skill to wield it only now it takes more to do the many precision tricks that there are involving both on and off-string play. Anyone can own many but there's always the one.

The One is the yo-yo you pick...or does it choose you. You love the feel of it, when it glides down the string and it makes you feel like a superhero or a rock star when you catch it in your hand when it comes flying back to you. It doesn't frustrate you or make you say things you normally wouldn't. It makes your tricks flow in ways that other yo-yos just won't cut it. It's your signature style and the price can be anything from $3.50 all the way up to that $150 one you saved up for for months of just putting a little here and a little there away. Sure everyone else picked on you but only you understand it. Only you really truly get it. You're at peace when those magic moments happen. When it all comes together and every trick is flawlessly executed  and every movement is perfect. That's yours. Let them laugh...they wish they had your skill. They wish they had your relationship with that one...perfect...yo-yo.

Everyone is different. The guy that is sitting there throwing the old wooden Duncan Imperial talking about Yo-Yo Man Smothers...that's his era and that old wooden beater is one that he will never let go of. There is something organic to it. It speaks to a simpler time and place when the yo-yo was something that made you the swellest on your block. To be the first in your neighborhood to own a Duncan Imperial yo-yo was a high honor. Then there's that thirty something there throwing a Duncan Butterfly he snagged at WalMart or some other retailer. Brings back memories of earning his butterfly on the playground at school. He started with a plastic Imperial much like the wooden beater the old man uses and he learned through the yo-yo hitting him in the face and everywhere but where it needed to go but when he got the movements down, damn right that Butterfly was well earned and damned right if he was going to let those memories slip away. All the youngsters with the Drifters, Raptors, X-Brains and the many other Sleeper devices including the novelty Pulses that light up brilliantly...they're learning that the yo-yo is as individual as a car is. Each owner may have a thousand of them but there's only one they trust in tournaments. There's only one they trust when they show off their skill set. There Can Be Only One...

The One is you and you own it. I look at mine and I can pick it out. I see my Yo-Tility Holster holding onto my favorite. It's a Duncan, much like every yo-yo I own. I had a Yomega once with the X-Brain. Unfortunately I lost it before I moved and I'd give anything to have it back. Come to think of it, I had two but the one with the X-Brain was my favorite. Still, all throughout my childhood, I was a Duncan guy. Now I own six. Imperials in blue, red and green, a red Butterfly, A Metal Drifter and a Pro Z with Mod Spacers. When I have one in my hand, I throw it and catch it like normal but one day, I will be "up to my old tricks" again. After I've mastered those, I'll become a ninja with these things. Am I aiming for the pros? No. I'm just aiming for that sense of normalcy and reason. That place of calm. That one piece of satisfaction when I execute each move flawlessly with style and a fluid sense of grace. To feel that flow of movement again would brighten each day and to be able to show some kid that a simple toy of physics could be a magical gateway into another world, one that all the XBoxes and Playstations and Nintendos, Tablets and cellphones can't touch.

A simple toy of physics and momentum...Perhaps. I still think it's much more than that.