Shawn Garcia is well known in the yoyo community for his creative genius behind the lens. Check out his compilation of SPYY shots at theglasslab.com

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a week ago, i was sitting in reagan airport, feeling exhausted and dejected. i had popped out of bed around 4am, was fully comported 5 minutes later, and then spent the next few minutes shaking my wife awake so she could drive me to the airport. i’m a good husband. unfortunately, i made the mistake of assuming that, if us airways offers a flight to hartford with a 30 minute layover, it MUST be enough time! sadly i was mistaken, and though my ticket would indicate i arrived at the connecting gate with minutes to spare, the plane was gone. to be sure, i asked the guy attending the gate.

‘you just missed it, man.’

‘you’re kidding, right?’

‘… you see a plane out there?’

awesome customer service. this threw a monkey wrench into my plans for the day. i was flying up to hartford, where my friend and yo-yo icon, john higby would pick me up. i was super-amped because we were even going to do a few shows together, but following this snafu it was no longer possible. in a sense, i was glad, not because i’d miss the shows, but because i had been kind of stressed out. i love driving, but hate the whole process of air travel. it’s not a ‘fear of flying’ thing, so much as a ‘dear lord this is annoying’ thing. however, once i got this roadblock out of the way, i found myself much more relaxed, and able to enjoy the trip.

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Sector Y, THE official yoyo video achive, presents SPYYGUY Comics… A stunningly edited piece Featuring Guy Wright and his agile sidekick, the Punch Line! Click the image above to watch the vid.

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The profile of this yoyo was inspired by Guy and his desire for something uniquely bubbly and floaty. Its wide shape and rounded rims make long grinds a breeze, while it’s centralized mass provides a light and airy feel…

Click on the images learn more.

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while driving to an aikido seminar yesterday, i remembered an old description of japanese horsemanship which i read a long time ago.

i’m paraphrasing: ‘it can be said that there are four types of horses: excellent, good, poor, and bad. the best kind of horse will run or stop at the command of his rider even before he sees the shadow of the whip. a good horse will respond immediately at the crack of the whip before he feels any pain. the poor horse will react to some measure of physical pain, and if the worst kind of horse reacts at all, he will do so only when the pain of the whip has sunk into the very marrow of his bones.’

almost all of us would prefer to think of ourselves as the ‘best kind of horse’; as ‘excellent’. failing that, we’d like to be ‘good’, and so on. this is just as true of yo-yo players as any other pastime or profession. it’s totally natural to do so, because our society tells us that our worth is linked to our achievement; to our product. what is the ‘product’ of our yo-yoing, however? how do you measure it? by a trick list some other yo-yoer compiled? by your placing in a contest as judged by other yo-yoers? i think that no extrinsic standard will ever feel wholly valid and unassailable. your yo-yoing is just as good as you feel it is as you do it; just as worthwhile and fulfilling.

i don’t know that the stratification of excellent to bad is really the best way to think about things like yo-yoing. no one wants to feel ‘bad’, but in many respects, it’s best to see oneself as the poorest manner of horse, because that horse allows for the most room to grow; the most reason to practice. Read the rest of this entry »

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We’re putting the finishing touches to Guy Wright’s signature series yoyo, the Punch Line! Look out for final release information on the SPYY blog soon! In the mean time, please enjoy Guy throwing his red with silver splash pre-release. Read the rest of this entry »

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Hello friends. This is just one of those little thoughts that make me enjoy what I do a little more.

The portable happy machine:
It all starts with what makes you or rather what makes everyone happy. Well, its chemicals…in your brain. (serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, whatever) when these chemicals are released it makes you happy. (To put it in a really simplified way) lets call it happy juice. Nice and simple right?

The tricky part:

Getting it to be released. The reason that your brain releases happy juice is because your brain has determined that your body has done something awesome and therefore it (you) deserves a reward. So it’s all about the reward for effecting the physical world in just the right way. So if you get your body to dance around just right your brain will see that and say “hey that’s some mighty fine dancing. How bout a dose of happy juice?” and BAM! You’re happy. Read the rest of this entry »

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ok not really. i’m not quite egomaniacal enough to believe that i could legitimately make that connection. actually, it’s a take on eugen herrigel’s book ‘zen and the art of archery’ (wherein the author exposes himself to traditional japanese archery in the effort to understand its more esoteric applications)… hey, if he can make it work for a book, i should be able to milk a blog post out of it.

when steve approached the team about contributing to the spyy blog, i wanted to do something different (in this case, ‘different’ takes the meaning of ‘exactly the same thing i’ve done on every other blog’). what’s always intrigued me about yo-yoing is the fact that people continue to do it. some people even obsess about it. while i won’t go so far as to espouse the socratic view that ‘the unexamined life is not worth living’, i AM pretty curious as to why we, as a community, continue to yo-yo. one of the more justifiable criticisms one can make about yo-yoing (and, i guess, about most of the things i tend to pursue) is that while throwing, yo-yoers aren’t really being ‘productive’. Read the rest of this entry »

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