My report from Nationals:
Overall, what a great event. There was less attendance then in past years. (for yo-yo players as well as spintop players).....but still fun!
The yo-yo players were/are excepting of the spintop crowd, and when we were doing battle, some players actually seemed interested in learning to throw a top. (Unfortunately we did not have time to teach, or extra tops to share.) I think the battletop is a great way to interest someone new into learning how to throw tops, because it is not overly complicated and there is something inherently fun in that type of challenge!
We should set up, and promote, the battletop even more at future events to get more players into this skill toy. Perhaps have an extra cool prize and hype it up in the weeks before the contest. (If we want to draw yo-yo players, it could be a cool new yo-yo?) Also at the event itself we could have a practice battle on the first day or early in the day, and have the official battle toward the end?
Hang out time:Unfortunately the lobby at the event was quite small, with a hard surface, so it was not a great place to hang out and work on challenging tricks. We also did not have enough top players to constantly have a set area for us. I would come out from judging yo-yos, and hope to find a group of top players....but that only happened a couple of times. Beau and Jose and Tom were predominately the guys I would find. Dennis Shatter also was throwing time to time. I just wish we would have had about 5 more players to mix together! Usually at contests I am teaching someone new to get started....but non of the venders even had tops to sell.
Beau is very good, and should have given competition a try...I am sure at the next event he will do it!
Spintop Freestyle contest:The freestyles on stage were fun. Jose showed some great skill in regeneration and hitting the hard tricks. Tom was solid, and really impressed me with the trick run using the large yellow top. And Chris had such unique play and stage presence. The crowd loved the body wrap stuff he was doing....and the serving platter stuff was fun!
BattletopWith the ever changing yo-yo schedule, we had a tough time working in WHEN the top battle would happen. In the end we set it up immediately after the awards. But we were also pressed for time as it was getting kind of late.
Instead of the standard "Battletop Champion of the Universe" battles we have done in the past, we made this years battle a "Dartboard" battle.
We had 8 players all throwing at once toward the dartboard. If you landed in one of the small cups, you earned a set number of points written on the cup. If you ended up on the board outside of the cup you got 1 point. And whoever spun the longest got a bonus 5 points.
The challenge was to get on the board without being smashed into by another top and thrown clear! We decided to go with 8 rounds to match the number of spinners.
Good time....and John Bozung ended up victorious!
Here is his "Come on Dave.....you did not expect to beat me face!"
I was happy to be part of this event, and want to thank Jorge for thinking of me as a head judge and organizer, and Dennis Shatter and Hans VanDanElzen who judged with me.
Just FYI
2018 US Yo-Yo Nationals is June 29-July 1 in Chicago.
