Dear readers, let’s take a break from the insanity that is the Olympics (and a breather from our FURY that Natsia Liukin got second in the uneven bars even though she TIED the Chinese child), and focus on the red-headed stepchild of sports: extreme yo-yo.
You heard me right. The wacky little toy that you loved as a child — despite the fact that your tricks were limited to tossing it up and down really fast (or was that just me?) — is back with a vengeance. The 2008 World Yo-Yo Contest was recently held in Orlando, and perhaps because they aren’t owned by NBC, the New York Times was allowed to cover the event. I should warn you that the article on the contest is at times a little too, er, punny, with gems like these:
But any national rivalries are just loose slipknots untangled by the Internet, where tricks are traded and friendships are tied.
“They have the language of the string,” Gregory Cohen, the event’s organizer, said.
They have the language of the string? SERIOUSLY, GREGORY?!
Still, I have to admit that it’s a kind of cool sport (hobby?). There are seven different divisions, and each one is pretty nuts. Just try to imagine this:
In 4A, the off-string division, some competitors cast the string, like a whip or a fishing rod, and wrapped it around the axle of an airborne yo-yo. The string-on-string friction was enough for the string to virtually tie itself and snare the spinning yo-yo. It was like watching a frog’s tongue zap a fly.
At first, my brain honestly could not process that. (An off-string yo-yo competition? Isn’t that an oxymoron?) But this video proves that it is not:
Kid’s got skillz. Who needs Warped Tour and skate parks when you’ve got a yo-yo and hundreds of hours of inspirational YouTube videos?
P.S. If you’re feeling frisky (and by frisky I mean bored), take a look at this Web page about yo-yo trivia.
[Posted by Mallory]
six words to change the world. 