DOB: June 4, 1983
Started Yo-yoing: June, 1995
Styles of Play: 1A, 2A (my jam)
Favorite Yo-yo and Set Up: Yongjun Uranus with Twisted Strings LuminousX for 1A. Duncan Pulse/Speed Beetles with 100% Polyester string for 2A.
Accomplishments:
I have done demonstrations for the Lincoln City Children's Museum, Laser Vaudeville, Camp Quality, a summer camp for children with cancer, Crossroads Mall demo for The Book of Yo book signing. I helped run YoRama, a weekly yo-yo club in Lincoln, NE from 1995-1999. I have competed and organized multiple yo-yo contests.
1995 Lincoln City Yo-yo Contest - Advanced Division - 1st
1996 Nebraska State Yo-yo Contest - Advanced Division - 4th
2008 Virginia State Yo-yo Contest - Sport Ladder 20-29 - 2nd
2009 Virginia State Yo-yo Contest - Sport Ladder 20-29 - 1st
2009 Maryland State Yo-yo Contest - Sport Ladder 20+ - 3rd
2009 North Carolina State Yo-yo Contest - Open Sport Ladder - 2nd
2009 North Carolina State Yo-yo Contest - Open Division - 3rd
May 8 2010 - Winner of the Chaos Yo-yo String Giveaway
2010 Virginia State Yo-yo Contest - Sport Ladder 20-29 - 2nd
2010 Virginia State Yo-yo Contest - Open Division - 4th
2010 Virginia State Yo-yo Contest - 1A Division - 24th
June 16 2010 - Sept 2010 The Royal Order of the Tethered Gyroscope Yo-yo Club
2010 North Carolina Yo-yo Contest - Open Division - 3rd
2010 North Carolina Yo-yo Contest - Fixed Axle Division - 5th
2010 Mid Atlantic Region Yo-yo Championships - 2A Division - 1st
2010 Asian Festival Demontration - The Evolution of the Yo-yo
2010 Tennessee State Yo-yo Contest - 2A/3A Division - 2nd
2010 Tennessee State Yo-yo Contest - 1A Division - 17th
2011 Virginia State Yo-yo Contest - 1A Division - 23rd
2011 Virginia State Yo-yo Contest - Open Division - 6th
2011 Strings Yo-yo Documentary (Later changed to World on a String)
2015 Bom Circo?
_________________________________________________________________________________
Bio:
In 1995 I had just turned 12. It was summer vacation and my best friend and I were doing our usual thing, running around and getting into trouble. He asks me one day if I want to go to his neighbor's house and see some yo-yo tricks, like out of nowhere.At first I was skeptical because I had never met his neighbor, or even seen him outside for that matter. Even at 12 years old I was scared of being abducted and this seemed like a trap. I told him no at first but that meant we were definitely doing it. So, he ran over to his neighbor's house and I reluctantly followed. He rang to door bell and gave the door a hard knock. After a couple of minutes the door opens and standing in front of us was an older man with a huge beard. I thought oh my gosh this was a terrible idea. My friend asks him if he can show us some yo-yo tricks and he says sure, in a really kind sounding voice, we just needed to meet him in the garage. In the garage?! We were dead for sure, I thought. I walked around to the front of the garage and as the door opens I step back. Then the guy tells us the yo-yoes are in the trunk of his car. What?! You have got to be kidding me. This guys seemed more likely to have a trash bag to put us in in the trunk of his car than yo-yoes. He opens his trunk and sure enough...full of yo-yoes.
I was instantly relieved when I saw the yo-yoes. I felt silly for being so paranoid, but then I have always been that way.So then came the question "What is this guy gonna do with a yo-yo?". Well before I could really even finish the question in my head he shakes my hand, introduces himself as Tom Gates, and puts a yo-yo in my hand. "What am I gonna do with a yo-yo?"
That day he taught us how to wind the yo-yo, push-pull(gravity pull for you noobs), throw it down, make it sleep, rock the baby, walk the dog, creeper, and forward pass. Not bad for the first day. When it came time for Tom to go back inside I tried to return the yo-yo and he told me to hang on to it, practice, and come back and learn more if we like.
In the next few days I had mastered all of the tricks Tom had taught me and I wanted to learn more. My friend was still working on those and we went back. This time Tom had taught me how to throw a breakaway, man on the flying trapeze, around the world and loop the loop. I had mastered these before we even left. I was hooked, soaking up tricks like a sponge.Eventually my friend had lost interest and quit yo-yoing, but I couldn't. I wanted to learn as many tricks as I could.
Tom and I became great friends. He was like a second dad to me. He showed me opportunities that would have been otherwise out of reach. But those are other stories...
Yo-Rama 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.
How 3A shortened my strings...
Earlier this year, probably in mid March 2011, I got an itch to give 3A a try.
For those that don't know what 3A is listen up: Two long spinning yo-yoes, one attached to each hand, are thrown about and woven into complex mounts and moves whereby the string of each yo-yo are crossed and potentially knotted together on almost every trick. Then once the complicated combination is complete the yo-yoes are separated from each other and returned to the hands. This is not a formal definition of the style but if you ever see any tricks you will understand fully.
From what I am told, and from experience now, the strings of 3A yo-yoes should be right around 6 inches shorter than a player would usually play 1A. This will give quite a bit more control over the two yo-yoes at the same time.
Now, I hadn't given it too much of myself until recently. A friend and teammate of mine, Alex Curfman, taught me how to do a kink mount and I was happy with that little sample of the 3A style of play. I have given a lot more effort into learning the 3A style of play since the beginning of this month and I feel like I will stick with the style for as long as I can. I have a couple of different mounts down as well as some other fun tricks and my desire to learn more is growing.
This is not the story of my 3A experience, I will tell that story at a later time. This is the story of how 3A has possibly shortened my strings forever.
I was practicing my 3A tricks I have been working on and I decided to throw some 1A with the shortened strings. To my surprise I had a lot more fluidity with my movements. The same tricks I would do with a normal string, cut to my belly button, were almost seamless and smooth and I was told that if I took away the yo-yo I looked like I had perfected some Tai Chi routine. Was it coincidence? I have been practicing different moves a lot lately. So, does it really make a difference?
The short answer is I don't know. Sorry, if you thought I had discovered some principle of physics where a shortened string can allow a player to do more than one who uses a full length string. For me though, it seems to work wonders. I will stick with it for now, capture it in action on video and share it with you.
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.
_________________________________________________________________________________
2015 - 20 Years of Flow and Introduction to the Circus Life
This June marked 20 years of yo-yoing for me. I celebrated by going to the Flatland Juggling Festival in Lincoln, NE. There I met with a lot of skill toy players and flow artists, some I have known for a while and some I was meeting for the first time. Over the course of the 3 day event I felt my heart swell with excitement for all of the things I was seeing around me and the old tricks came back to my hands like I had never taken a break. I was a novelty in the room as the only person yo-yoing all weekend and I played til I had blisters. Then, I played some more. It hurt so good.
After the event I felt something awaken in me. At first, I thought it was that old competitive spirit that wanted to travel to competitions and try to prove myself as one of the best in the sport. I very quickly realized that wasn't it at all. As a competitor, I felt like I was limiting myself on what I could actually do. The rule set for yo-yo contests did not allow for many of the things I was interested in pursuing unless I wanted to wait and compete in the Artistic Performance (AP) category at the World Yo-Yo Contest. Nope. Not interested in that at all. Competing is stressful and eventually makes the hobby less fun. I wanted to move past that and just entertain people. I was meeting regularly with performers of various disciplines from Juggling, to Poi, to Hula Hoops, and so on. These great people opened my eyes to a world of creativity that felt much richer than playing for points.
Since the Festival, I have been dabbling in other flow arts, taking patterns and moves from them that I can incorporate into my yo-yo show. I have also been spending a lot of time engineering small acts to perform in front of a crowd. Some are feats of skill, like knocking a quarter off a nervous volunteer's ear, while others are choreographed routines similar to yo-yo freestyles but with more creative elements than technical elements. It is for the entertainment of the poor folks that have to watch me.
I learned that there are local circus groups in and around Lincoln that either already exist or are getting started soon that hold performances all over the place. I did not even know this was a thing. I have done so much in the way of performing on my own over the years. Oh, what it would be to be a part of a performing group? As soon as I started doing some digging I knew this was my next turn in the path of my life. I have learned a great deal about what a modern circus is (and what it isn't) and I want it.
For those that don't know what 3A is listen up: Two long spinning yo-yoes, one attached to each hand, are thrown about and woven into complex mounts and moves whereby the string of each yo-yo are crossed and potentially knotted together on almost every trick. Then once the complicated combination is complete the yo-yoes are separated from each other and returned to the hands. This is not a formal definition of the style but if you ever see any tricks you will understand fully.
From what I am told, and from experience now, the strings of 3A yo-yoes should be right around 6 inches shorter than a player would usually play 1A. This will give quite a bit more control over the two yo-yoes at the same time.
Now, I hadn't given it too much of myself until recently. A friend and teammate of mine, Alex Curfman, taught me how to do a kink mount and I was happy with that little sample of the 3A style of play. I have given a lot more effort into learning the 3A style of play since the beginning of this month and I feel like I will stick with the style for as long as I can. I have a couple of different mounts down as well as some other fun tricks and my desire to learn more is growing.
This is not the story of my 3A experience, I will tell that story at a later time. This is the story of how 3A has possibly shortened my strings forever.
I was practicing my 3A tricks I have been working on and I decided to throw some 1A with the shortened strings. To my surprise I had a lot more fluidity with my movements. The same tricks I would do with a normal string, cut to my belly button, were almost seamless and smooth and I was told that if I took away the yo-yo I looked like I had perfected some Tai Chi routine. Was it coincidence? I have been practicing different moves a lot lately. So, does it really make a difference?
The short answer is I don't know. Sorry, if you thought I had discovered some principle of physics where a shortened string can allow a player to do more than one who uses a full length string. For me though, it seems to work wonders. I will stick with it for now, capture it in action on video and share it with you.
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.
_________________________________________________________________________________
2015 - 20 Years of Flow and Introduction to the Circus Life
This June marked 20 years of yo-yoing for me. I celebrated by going to the Flatland Juggling Festival in Lincoln, NE. There I met with a lot of skill toy players and flow artists, some I have known for a while and some I was meeting for the first time. Over the course of the 3 day event I felt my heart swell with excitement for all of the things I was seeing around me and the old tricks came back to my hands like I had never taken a break. I was a novelty in the room as the only person yo-yoing all weekend and I played til I had blisters. Then, I played some more. It hurt so good.
After the event I felt something awaken in me. At first, I thought it was that old competitive spirit that wanted to travel to competitions and try to prove myself as one of the best in the sport. I very quickly realized that wasn't it at all. As a competitor, I felt like I was limiting myself on what I could actually do. The rule set for yo-yo contests did not allow for many of the things I was interested in pursuing unless I wanted to wait and compete in the Artistic Performance (AP) category at the World Yo-Yo Contest. Nope. Not interested in that at all. Competing is stressful and eventually makes the hobby less fun. I wanted to move past that and just entertain people. I was meeting regularly with performers of various disciplines from Juggling, to Poi, to Hula Hoops, and so on. These great people opened my eyes to a world of creativity that felt much richer than playing for points.
Since the Festival, I have been dabbling in other flow arts, taking patterns and moves from them that I can incorporate into my yo-yo show. I have also been spending a lot of time engineering small acts to perform in front of a crowd. Some are feats of skill, like knocking a quarter off a nervous volunteer's ear, while others are choreographed routines similar to yo-yo freestyles but with more creative elements than technical elements. It is for the entertainment of the poor folks that have to watch me.
I learned that there are local circus groups in and around Lincoln that either already exist or are getting started soon that hold performances all over the place. I did not even know this was a thing. I have done so much in the way of performing on my own over the years. Oh, what it would be to be a part of a performing group? As soon as I started doing some digging I knew this was my next turn in the path of my life. I have learned a great deal about what a modern circus is (and what it isn't) and I want it.
