Congrats to both winners Jose and Eli, Eli and Jose!! Wow!! I hope Jose is understanding. This is all very exciting. Eli I am looking very forward to (eventually) seeing your World Championship Routine.
We all did gain however by having 1-more minute of Jose's freestyle for us to watch, if I may say so.
In fact I was going to write a reply about my freestyle, more because it is what I feel I can comment on more freely LOL.
But first, that photo from 2007 is amazing. I see the 'usual suspects' + Dave Bazan, and Titifreak?! Manééééé. So awesome. Sorry he jumped in front of you Earl, we can see you are there!
-I miss Jose's two children. They brought a lot of life to our lives in Cleveland and they are good top spinners, too!
Agreed, me too!
I still am smiling about the accidental finding of the words "made in Canada" on a wooden yoyo and the pleasant look it brought Mark when I gave it to him.
Thanks for the collector piece, I did some research on the trademark of 'yo-yo' in Canada, and I cannot find any info past the Cheerios trial of 1965 in both USA and Canada, which was the turning point for 'yo-yo' to be a generic word for a generic toy. It apparently was also lifted in Canada, but I cannot find followup info now, and I know our return top companies in Canada are all 'return top' name-based (returntopshop.com which no longer exists, A-RT (A Return Top)). Also Cheerios apparently outsourced production to Sweden for these wooden 'ProYo Canada Games' in the 80s-90s, which is why it is stamped 'Sweden' and is not a bootleg model. Cool!
-Wilson reminded me, once again, about the power of our spinning activity. As we looked through his cell phone pictures I was stunned with how his trompo opened so many doors. From meeting famous athletes to getting better seats at sporting events to spinning scenes around his many journeys.....it was impressive.
Yeah that was really awesome and surprising.
-It is always fun to fall "on purpose" and see the reaction. As I start to push 70 I notice that my fake falls are getting bigger reactions. Thanks for the fun to all who were in the top room when I threw my little bike into a bunch of chairs and laid on the ground groaning.
Well, you got me, that's for sure... I don't think that room was quieter the whole contest. Is this a southcentral Ohio thing?? Reminds me of another southern Ohio person that films public intentional falls, pretty good at that too (Andy Schrock on youtube).
About my routine (spoiler alert)... I am now learning the importance of 'time' as has been discussed by Dale Oliver, Jorge Alcoz, Chris Neff, Team Cuper, etc. I spent 1 minute and 6 seconds of my freestyle getting new tops spinning, balancing them and getting them onto my string! That's over 1/3 of my freestyle taken up there, way too much time. Seems like a major advantage of fixed tip is to maximize time use and reduce redundancy in setup time. Now that the cat (freestyle) is out of the bag, I am starting to play more fixed-tip and will try to do so moving forward as well, as it is also a ton of fun.
About the ender, spin top players know my ender was not an NBD, and in fact it was done right in front of judges that have seen it before and used it before to win National and World Championships. My intention was to do the best performance I could do, and that included that trick, but after doing it I realized I was imitating champions instead of setting a new trend for one. Kind of hard to understand that before you reach that point. I'm also just glad that that big metal Spintastics top didn't go flying into the audience (or at the judges!), with that big metal tip. I would love to know what Dale said to Jorge when he leaned in to say a word to him after my freestyle
I'm still learning spin top rules, and I have learned a lot from the thread discussion on the topic, so I am glad the questions were posed. I especially learned a lot from Valerie Oliver's reply.
I was very happy with the show spintops provided. You all did great. Thanks a lot!
That means a lot to hear that from you Jorge. It was a true honour to say I was judged by you, Dale Oliver and Chris Neff. Saying otherwise would be a lie!