National Yo-Yo Contest

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

There are folks “out there” who tell me I do lots of cool things. “Where do you find out about these cool things?” a friend asks me rather frequently.

I don’t really know usually. I go looking for them on different source-sites like Facebook or Festivals.net or listen to friends talking, I suppose.

This time, the fun event found me - by way of my dad’s favorite fun pastime - playing with yo-yos.

I have mentioned my dad before - Stuart F Crump Jr, author, futurist and yo-yoer.

This past December, he was inducted into the Yo-Yo Hall of Fame. You read that correctly. The Yo-Yo Hall of Fame.

One of my (3) brothers, Tim, and I decided to go to receive the award on our late Dad’s behalf. Our mom also went. So did her current husband and a dear friend of my dad’s.

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My brother, Tim Crump, Me holding a picture of my dad - Stuart F Crump Jr., and our Mom, Peggy Crump Ivey. We had just accepted the award inducting my dad into the Yo-Yo Hall of Fame.

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If you’re at all curious about what my dad did to deserve this honor, I would love to tell you.

In the 1950s, yo-yo demonstrators came to the USA from the Philippines to demonstrate the amazing, fun toy - the yo-yo. As a kid, my dad met one of the demonstrators during summer vacation one time and learned everything he could.

Years later, as an adult, he went to see the Smothers Brothers do a stage show in Las Vegas. Tommy Smothers performed as “The Yo-Yo Man” during the show. Dad put on his Press badge and went backstage to interview the brothers after the show.

Dad was determined, after this, to find and meet the Philippino demonstrators who still lived in the USA. Dad tracked down many of them - Pedro Flores, Gus Somera, and several others. Dad started up a newsletter called “Yo-Yo Times.” He printed it on pretty yellow paper. He advertised the newsletter in “The Klutz Book of Juggling,” and in yo-yos sold in boxes in toy stores.

Scores of people signed up for his newsletter. I have heard so many times over the years how much people loved to see that yellow newsletter sitting in their mailbox. They would pull it out and read it first, before anything else.

Dad started keeping track of yo-yo clubs, contests, yo-yo demonstrators, yoyo companies, and yoyo stage names. Dad became “Professor Yo-Yo,” I was “Yo-di,” Tom Kuhn became “Dr. Yo,” Linda Sengpiel was “The First Lady of Yo,” Jennifer Baybrook was “The Yo-Yo Princess.”

Yoyo players called my dad frequently to ask him where contests might be that they could attend, or if there was a club in their area. Yo-yoing went from being an individual hobby to suddenly becoming something people could do in community together.

My dad did that. He was awarded the “Lifetime Achievement Award” in the early 2000s at the “World Yo-Yo Contest” in Orlando, Florida. He said that was the biggest honor he’d ever received. He was so proud of that award. I have that plaque at home, but I am on the road, so I can’t share a photo in this issue of “A Jot from Jodi.”

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Every year, Dad went to a yo-yo contest in Chico, California. How I longed to go to that contest with him. It was run by Bob Malowney.

One year, Dad had invited a bunch of yo-yo players from around the USA to attend the contest, and several of them did attend!

Bob Malowney said, “I guess we could call this the National Yo-Yo Contest!” And the name has stuck ever since. This years’ contest is the one I am writing about in this newsletter, in case that isn’t clear.

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The National Yo-Yo Contest is nothing like I remember contests being like back in the day.

I remember being told about contests in the 1950s. There was a list of tricks: “Sleeper,” “Forward Pass,” “Walk the Dog,” “Rock the Baby,” “Around the World” and many other tricks. I can’t remember if it was 10,15, 20 or more tricks. And if there was a tie at the end of the trick list, the folks would break a tie by having a “Loop Off.” Doing “Lunar Loops” to see who could do the most loops in a row would determine the winner.

The winner of the old school yo-yo contests won a bicycle. that was back in the 1950s.

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The contests I went to were mostly in the late 80s, the 90s, and the early 2000s.

We also had a list of tricks - maybe 200 tricks? The competitor did all the tricks in front of a judge. One after another. You could mess up on 2 tricks, but once you messed up on that third trick, you were out. That’s it.

There was also a “Freestyle” portion where yo-yoers with amazing talent would do tricks to music. It was all pretty cool and definitely enjoyable to watch.

The last contest I went to was the World Yo-Yo Contest in Orlando, Florida. I believe it was 2001.

The yoyoer who ended up winning had recorded himself playing a Super Mario game. And he did his routine to that soundtrack. It was so clever when he bopped his yoyo on his head during the moment in the game when Mario is jumping up to receive coins from over his head.

That one routine, I believe, changed what started happening next. I’ll get to that in a bit.

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This past weekend has been the National Yo-Yo Contest. It was amazing! What a production! There had to be at least 500-600 yoyoers there.

There are now so many divisions. Yo-yoing is full of completely new skillsets!

There is 1-handed yo-yoing. This is a yo-yo attached to a string like normal, and also attached to the finger of the yo-yo player.

The next division is 2-handed yo-yoing. It’s just like the first, but you have a yoyo in each hand, both attached to your finger.

The next division is where the yoyo string is not attached to the axle. 😳 so the yoyo can be flung up in the air and caught on the string only to be flung again and caught in different ways. The only one I can identify is the “Whip Catch.”

The next division is Freehand yo-yoing. The string is attached to the yoyo. But the string is attached to something else, like a die (1 of a pair of dice) or something small but that has some heft to it, to counteract the weight of the yo-yo.

I am missing a division here. I think I will just paste here what is written on YoYoContest.com:

1. Definition of Yoyo Divisions

   • 1A – One long-spinning yoyo, with the string attached to the yoyo and the hand.

   • 2A – Two short-spinning yoyos, with the string attached to each yoyo and each hand of the player.

   • 3A – Two long-spinning yoyos, with the string attached to each yoyo and each hand of the player

   • 4A – One (or more) long spinning yoyos, with the string(s) detached from the yoyo(s) but attached to the player’s hand(s).

   • 5A – One (or more) long spinning yoyos, with the string(s) attached to the yoyo(s) but detached from the player’s hand(s) and instead attached to a counterweight

Is all of that clear? Maybe? Maybe not?

Well, I drove from Ontario, Canada to Virginia to visit my boys last week. Then I drove from Virginia to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to the National Yo-Yo Competition.

Wow. The skills have completely changed in the last 20+ years since I last attended a Yo-Yo Competition.

I can identify about 3-5 tricks when these players are doing their routines to music. I can identify “Eli Hops,” a “Whip Catch,” “Zipper,” “Mach 5,” “Flying Trapeze,” “Double or Nothing,” and if I can identify any other tricks, I have forgotten them as of the writing of this newsletter. By the way, I cannot do any of these tricks. I can do scores of other tricks - possibly 50-100 yo-yo tricks. (I don’t think I have ever counted.)

The way kids play with the yo-yo as a gyroscope, too, is next level, to me. I bought a cool gyroscopic yoyo today. It’s a beautiful turquoise with a glow-in-the-dark outer shell. A person can hold the outer shell and the inside will spin. Or you can put the tip of your finger on the spinning yo-yo’s outside-center and it will spin around your finger like a basketball spins on a good player’s finger.

Competitive yo-yo players these days also throw the yo-yo horizontally. And so many kinds of tricks from that position too! I was in awe, all weekend, watching these players.

I also want to mention the age of the players - one division was full of 8-year-olds. The entire group of players (20-30 kids, easily), were all 8 years old. The next group was full of kids who are 9, and it went up from there. 8 year olds. These kids are GOOD, too. Wow.

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I watched as much of the competition as I was able to. And it was a lot to take in. I was so happy to see more than a handful of females competing. When I used to demonstrate yo-yos, or perform at parties, schools, libraries, toy stores and even at The White House, my goal was always to make the yo-yo appeal to gals. And not just guys. I wore pink as my color, and played with pink yo-yos. I painted my yo-yos with sparkly nail polish, too.

My specialty was doing “picture tricks,” like “The Daisy,” “The Rose,” “Ice Cream Cone,” “Texas Star,” “Little Star,” “British Flag,” “Eiffel Tower,” and other fun tricks that make pictures.

There was a woman at the contest this weekend, named Michelle. Her message to everyone was, “I’m a mom. And I am here to let you know that ANY mom can do this.” And she successfully did a routine. I loved everything about watching her do her routine. She was so enthusiastic and genuinely happy and delightful and full of spark. It was such a joy to watch her perform.

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There was something completely new to this contest that I had never seen before - not on this scale. I think every single contestant had supplied their own music. Over the course of the weekend, I heard Billie Eilish, Ozzy Osbourne, Michael Jackson, Music from Amime movies, Classical music, AG Cook, Samuel Kim, and so many others. I was so impressed by the myriad kinds of music all of these players listen to and enjoy so much they develop a yo-yo routine to it.

The family friend who had accompanied us on this trip is a music teacher in a public school. She remarked several times, “it’s like a dance routine or musical choreography.”

I kept remembering that player from around year 2000 who had recorded himself playing the Super Mario video game and choreographing his routine to that music.

And now pretty much ALL of the players do that now. The skill is breath-taking to me.

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I want to share about one of the last routines I saw at the end of the day - a yo-yo player named Matthew got on stage and started a routine to Darth Vader’s breathing sound. Before we knew it, the music had morphed to be music that a Sith Lord would love to hear.

This player did a flawless routine. He nailed every trick. AND - it was choreographed perfectly to the music. I cannot describe the routine better than that. It wasn’t just doing tricks to music.

His was essentially yo-yo choreography to music. The way a dancer might choreograph their movements to song, he had perfectly choreographed his tricks, landing, throws, catches, flips, behind the back, whip catches - Everything - to the music. He nailed every trick.

At the end of the routine, I found myself crying. It was beautiful. The beauty of his routine had me crying genuine tears down my cheeks. Somehow, he successfully told a story during his performance. It was wondrous.

I got called away by my family to go to dinner right after another performance. So I missed the awards ceremony.

I learned when I went back, though, that Matthew, the Star Wars routine yo-yo player had won the division he competed in - the division that the best of the best had competed in. He earned it.

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My dad loved yo-yoing. He would have loved seeing how much the sport has taken off. The yoyo players are all incredibly skilled. It will be so interesting to see where the yoyo goes in the next 20 years!

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You will be able to watch all of the videos from this contest and others on YouTube here: https://m.youtube.com/@YoYoContestCentral/videos

The videos for this particular contest aren’t up yet, as of this writing.

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I want to share a few things here that my dad loved to say -

“Reach for the Moon. Because even if you miss, you wind up among the stars.”

And

“Just say ‘YO!’”