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[JODA9395]

I’ve been wanting to post this story here for a while and when I saw this thread started, I decided it was time to sit down and write it.

In spring of 2014 I took a ten year wedding anniversary trip with my wife to Spain for two weeks. One of our stops was in Sevilla to visit some friends, Diana and Victor, who moved there a few years before. They had two sons. While there, I was trying to think of a gift to bring back to my Nine-year-old son and I didn’t just want to bring him back a T-shirt, so I asked Victor what would be a good idea, he replied a”peonza”, To which I replied “what is that?”. A Trompo he said. He went on to tell me about the Trompo Space and how all the kids were into it in Spain. I of course knew about Trompos as they are a very traditional toy in Puerto Rico, but I never really played with them much as a kid. I also had no idea about the existence of bearing plastic tops. So I looked around and bought him a bearing Trompo Space, black with an orange cap.

To teach him how to play with it, I started watching videos online to learn how to throw the top and came up on all sorts of trick videos from Cometa and other brands.

As you may suspect,my kid showed very little interest, but his father got hooked. All of a sudden I was throwing tops while cooking, watching TV, and just hanging out around the house. First I wanted to just get to do a boomerang, then regenerate, then the 24 Spintastic patch, etc... For the better part of two years I was probably spinning tops  every day.

I was a Cubbing leader so I started to teach groups of kids how to throw tops to try to get them out to play outside. All this time I was learning through videos as I still to this day haven’t had the opportunity to find another trick player to play in person. Six years later I still do play, but not as often, I’m a little rusty. For work reasons I don’t have as much time as before, but I always keep up with this forum and what is going on in the top world.

Soon after I started playing I found this forum and it really changed everything, not only was there a ton of information about throwing tops and it’s history, a sense of community, but more importantly I started to see all the amazing wooden tops of all sizes that were being made by the members/artists here that were kind enough to share their knowledge and process and that really caught my attention. I wanted some of those and it definitely was not easy getting your hands on them, especially being a newbie.  Naturally, being a city dweller, I had no idea  of what a lathe was and how to work it, but now I found myself wanting one. So for about a year I started reading and watching every video I could about woodturning and turning tops, until I finally bought a small Nova Lathe by the end of 2015.

A couple of months before I got the lathe, I was trying to find somebody to teach me or at least let me use a lathe with no success. Until one day I came across a woodworking shop/school whose owner, a furniture designer and all around woodworker,  agreed to give me a couple of classes.  As luck would have it, after two weeks of classes the profesor told me that Carmen de la Paz, a woodworker/turner from Puerto Rican descent was coming to the island on behalf of the AAW ( American Association of Woodturners) to give some classes and establish a woodturning chapter in Puerto Rico.  So by pure chance I ended up being a part of that great group of people that came together to form the Asociación de Torneros de Madera de Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico Woodturners Association) and ended up making what I consider life long friends.

Although I still play, make and collect tops, the woodturning aspect has become my real life passion. Through it I have had the opportunity to meat great artists, artisans, friends and learn about all the beautiful and exotic species of wood that grow wild in my island. As B. Dylan would say, by a “Simple Twist of Fate” of merely asking a friend in a faraway land for ideas on a gift for my son, an unsuspecting door to a whole world of possibilities and a new reality of what my life is right now opened up and slowly revealed itself. It has been awesome.

So I can truly say that Spin Tops and just as much this Forum, changed my life in a very positive way and I will always be grateful for that.

You can see some of my tops and other works on my Instagram page.      contorno_pr

Thanks and keep spinning,
Juanma

Wow. That is incredible. And the lengths you went to make a top. That's determination. Thanks for sharing Sabaspin. Truly, adventure is out there!

[ta0]

Great story Juanma! You are not the first person who discovers wood turning and gets hooked after becoming a top player: there are several examples on this forum. But you are probably the first one to be a founding member of a "national" turning association 

[Texture]

Wonderful story! I'll have to say that I was the reverse, started turning, then got into tops.

[Watts' Tops]

The--How did you get introduced to spinning tops?
  In 1948, I went to Camp Oak Hills where Jim Schreiber directed and spun tops.  He had a bunch of strings and tops laid out under the "Oak" tree for kids to spin.  Did a bit.  Each year I returned and did it again.  Bought a tin top for 15 cents (which I still have) but still not really interested.
  As a student at Oak Hills Bible College, Jim S. was now involved with the school and brought his tops.  Duncan hired 3 of the students, Dwight Paulson, Don Winters and Fred Mills.  My thinking--If they can do it, so can I.  I went into a fast learning mode and was interviewed by Duncan with the promise of a job if they survived a lawsuit over the name Yo Yo.  They lost and I never worked for them.
  I did use the top for ministry for many years so did not loose anything.
  In 1993, Don Olney invited all the known top spinners to the IJA in Fargo, ND.  There were about a dozen that showed up.  I had a 4 inch top which, you guessed it, Jim S. gave me.  I so enjoyed it.  I copied it a bunch of times and took them along.  They sold like hotcakes and the Watts' Top was born.
  I have discoverd that I can no longer bend my head back far enough to see/catch a top on the string so have sort of retired except for still making a few Watts' Tops and shipping them literally all over the world.
  It has been a great hobby and thanks to this post, it has been growing.  Makes me happy to see that.  I think Jim S would be pleased as well.
 

[the Earl of Whirl]

I was at that water logged and flooded 1993 IJA fest in Fargo.  The local campsites were a mess so they let people camp around the convention center.  Tents were everywhere.  I knew nothing about tops and did not attend any top workshops or gatherings of spinners.  That did not happen for me until 1994 in Burlington, Vermont.  I do remember walking around the juggling space and seeing someone's bag with a whole bunch of large tops laid out on the ground.  I don't think I ever saw anyone spin them, though.

[lincolnrick]

I was at Fargo in '93 also. I remember they let people camp at the venue, and I remember Don's blanket. I may have even bought one that year. We stayed at a hotel with a tiny casino, I remember because we could play 21 and could see the floodwaters out of the windows just about to overtake their banks and hit the hotel (we stayed dry).

[Mermouy]

Discovered tops world at the Marines festival2014, where I just learn to throw on the floor, but it took me one year more to really being "hanged" and started to spin at 2015 edition, then on next edition I was actually involved in the event organisation...
few of us decided to organize a similar festival in our region with the help of Loon-plage town hall, regarding the moderate success of that one (caused mainly by the carnaval running at the very same time), we decided to make once every two years...
Thanks to Emmanuel who bring me there, and of course, Ludo's family and Jim for creating first such a great event!!!