I made a fun video of some variations I like to do of the trick Mach 5. Thanks for looking.

Getting to know you...

Getting to know you. Does anyone really take the time to get to know you? Close friends might depending on how close you are. Significant other had better or that ship is gonna sail quicker than you might like. Well if you are reading this post, or anything on this blog, you are getting to know me.

I was on Facebook today and I have been seeing a lot of things that I think qualify as "Who am I?" posts. From Zammy Ickler(pronounced Eye-ckler) sharing his key yo-yo moments to Jensen Kimmitt throwing out personal videos and words that for some are amusing at best and for others are inspiration and answers to their own lives. I want to take  a quick post, which might not prove to be quick at all, to lay out some big things about me that people may or may not know.

Who am I?

Well, for starters my name is Kyle Maxwell, not of the Maxwell House Coffee Maxwell's but even though I think their coffee sucks we can still be civil. My parents are Randy and JoAn Maxwell and even though we have a lot of bridge building to do between us I love them and respect the hell out of them.

I am a Gemini in every way possible. I would go on with this further but my other side is telling me to cut it short and get to the meat.

I have been yo-yoing since 1995, which for those who may not have a good perspective of that date I will let you know that it is over 15 years ago. This whole blog is about my yo-yoing so I will just leave it at this. "YO-YOING SINCE 1995!"

I graduated high school in 2001. I attended Northeast High School in Lincoln, NE. I had 4 really good friends that I treated like crap and a girlfriend that I held above all else. I don't really talk to any of them now which is a bummer but I deserve it.

I joined the Navy right out of High School where I spent close to 10 years of my life doing what I was told so others could do what they wanted. I am proud of those years and what they represent. While I was in the Navy I learned more about "the real world" than any TV show or guest motivational speaker could ever teach. You could call it a school of hard knocks but I really grew up during this time.

I was married for 8 years while I was in the Navy, not to the girl from high school, and we have an absolutely brilliant daughter, Grace, who just turned 7 today. We are now divorced and slowly working our way towards friendship.


Now I am a full time student studying Computer Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I got out of the Navy and found that employers get huge boners(I don't think literally. I didn't do too much looking.) over actual work experience but that piece of paper still keeps doors closed. So now I am a 28 year old freshman with almost 70 credits earned while in the Navy that aren't worth shit, thanks Navy for at least paying for it.

I live with my girl friend and her two children. I love them like my own and worry about their futures. I have the best relationship I have ever had with another individual and I am grateful every day that I get, even the difficult ones.

I have dreams for the future and they grow and change and strengthen all the time. Where will I be tomorrow? Does anyone ever really know. Who do I want to be when I grow up? Definitely me.

Thank you, perfect stranger. Thank you for hearing a very small piece of the story of who I am.

Yo-yo Mods updated...

I finally went through all of the mods I have posted in the Yo-yo Mod section and added descriptions of the mods performed.

YoRama and the Lincoln City Yo-yo Contest...

Tom pretty much took me under his wing right away. He taught me everything he could about yo-yoing. Together we started a weekly yo-yo club in Lincoln, NE. At first we met up at a local park with anyone who was interested in learning how to yo-yo. Later we teamed up with Hobbytown USA and moved into an empty suite they owned. It was pretty awesome for a while. We sent yo-yo players to Hobbytown to buy yo-yoes and accessories and then we taught them how to use them. Tom had a program set up much like a martial art with different levels, which he called string colors(same as belt colors). Each level had 10 tricks for players to learn and practice. Three of us were selected to initially be the instructors and we could sign off trick cards. The idea was that if you completed a string color then you were able to sign off trick cards from lower colors. This way the club members could teach each other and interact rather than just listen to us do everything. We let the club vote on the name for it and they decided on YoRama. I absolutely hated the name but I didn't really care.

Once the club had around 10 members we set up the very first Lincoln City Yo-yo Contest, sponsored by Hobbytown USA. We had a Beginner division and an Advanced division. Each division was like a modern day Sport Ladder. Tom and I were the only two competing in the advanced division. We completed the same number of tricks and it came down to a loop off. Loop-the-loop was by far my favorite trick to practice but I was still nervous because Tom was my teacher. I didn't think there was any chance. We began looping at the same time and we both settled into our comfortable looping positions and put it in auto pilot. I have no idea how many loops we ended up doing but when I saw Tom fumble one I was so scared I threw five to ten more just to make sure when I went to catch it I didn't fumble too. I was floored. I won my first contest. Sure, it wasn't a big contest, nor did it involve freestyles. At the time I didn't even know if freestyle contests existed. Either way it felt great, like all of my practicing paid off.

Why I decided to close Barking Spider Entertainment

No one has asked me to write on this. No one seems to even notice that it happened. Why is that? Well, the answer to that question is one small part to the answer to the whole question.

Back in 2005 I looked at the yo-yo community as a whole and the products that were available to players. I thought to myself, "Holy cow things are really expensive". I got to a point with everything that I thought to myself, " I have spent thousands of dollars on yo-yoes over the year. I bet I can make some of that money back." Then I looked at the yo-yoes I had and thought, "How can I make these play better rather than buying the newest yo-yo available?" I did a little bit of looking online and found the Taig Microlathe on yoyoguy.com. I was excited by the photos that Mo had posted over the years of mods he had been doing for quite some time and so I decided to go for it. I would buy a Taig lathe and become a modder.

You can definitely call me suspect because I spent $500 so I wouldn't have to spend $100.

When it came to the house I was instantly in love. I put the lathe together and mounted it all to the base board it came with and just new that amazing things would be made with this.

I had no formal training nor had I even seen how to mod anything using this particular setup but, fortunately for yoyoguy, they had what I thought I needed when I wanted it and they made some cash off of my whim. I started off by ruining some Spintastic Technics and Tornadoes while I practiced pad and silicone recesses. I tried to mod a Silk and it was so unplayable by the time I quit cutting it that all I can use it for now is a prop for photographing successful mods. Things did not go well at first but I didn't care because every cut I made pushed me closer to being good at it.

 I started by modding my own yo-yoes and trying to sell them at Higby prices. Haha, who did I think I was. No one knew who I was and they weren't going to pay those prices for my work. I slowly dropped prices down to actually below retail price hoping that circulating my mods would gain me some notoriety and I could earn what I thought they were worth based off the work I put into them.

Totally for funsies I made myself a duct tape wallet. I looked all over the internet on how to make one and I found a bunch of instuctions that looked like crap. So this made me think, "I can do way better than this on my own. I developed a pattern that I liked and made myself one. Note: It was only supposed to be one wallet for myself. I carried it everywhere and had quite a few people tell me I they bet I could sell them. All it took was three and I was like, "ok, I will give it a go." Holy smokes, they were well received and are still my best selling product even after I shut things down.

At the same time I looked at some of the common parts and accessories that were available and I refused to pay $1/response pad. That seemed so ridiculous that I researched materials for 6 months and developed what I still call "The everlasting gobstopper of response pads". I developed the Barking Spider Gummies. These response pads took about 45 minutes of solid play to break in and then 9 months later the only reason why I changed them was because I wanted to test my thinner Gummies in the same yo-yo. I even went so far as to set the price point at half the cheapest competitor price to try to create some interest. The problem was that no one knew who I was and I was not/am not a distributor of hype. I have always stood by the principle that I make great products and if only people would try them out they would agree. Well in the world of yo-yo, as small as it is, this way of thinking doesn't sell product.

I sent samples to online stores hoping that if I could get them sold through a reputable store that maybe people would throw in their cart when they bought string or whatever. A couple of stores carried them so I had hope.

Then I ventured down some other products to include cleaned and lubricated bearings, ceramic bearings, and even prototyped a yo-yo that I really hoped to push into production.

The end result was that many years later and people in such a small community still didn't know who I was or what my products were about. I can admit that I am not a businessman, I am a yo-yo maker/modder.

Despite that I had some things lining up that looked very promising and I waited to see what happened. Worlds this year looked like it was going to be a huge help in gaining face time with the yo-yo world. I modded a Vs Newton Yo-yo Concepts Battosai to accept hand made weight rings and it was going to become a huge collab between me and them. In addition the prototype for the RIOT was supposed to be done and at Worlds for all to try, though it was not finished in time. Shortly after the World Yo-yo Contest the yo-yo documentary Strings was going to debut at the New York screening and I thought, wow all of this will make some great hype and we can catapult forward with it. In the end none of it did what I thought.

As a result I looked at the cost of continuing as a company and I just couldn't do it anymore. I continued as long as I did because I made just enough money to cover my costs and keep going but in the past couple of years that stopped. I also went through a bunch of life changes. I got out of the Navy, worked at Walmart and Target, at the same time, unloading trucks then moved cross country back into my parents house.

This didn't last and when the dust finally settled I decided that I would focus on me. I didn't need to run a business or use cute stage names. No one knew who I was either way. So I decided to cut the crap and shed the guises and just be ME.

I still throw, better than ever. I feel like I have finally found my style and I want to push it to the limits. I still modify yo-yoes, better than ever. I don't have the pressure of making a product that will sell and as a result I make better stuff.

So, in a way, I have performed addition through subtraction. By ridding myself of the business and the stage name I have shined through as myself and the more time goes by the more people will see who I am.