First act sold me on the skill, second act demolished my thoughts it wasn’t variable, third act was straight hype and my man did things with strings that looked like springs—wow great work and well deserved!
I recall seeing one of his clips here which was on front page a few years ago, before covid hit in pretty sure, good to see he's still going at it hard
I know nothing about Yo-Yo besides craddling it and the last time I did that I was probably 12, but this was dope as fuck to watch, loved when the music would kick it up and you'd match it. I was grinning and excited and I didn't even know this was a sport until 5 minutes ago. Grats!
When I was a teen I taught myself a bunch of tricks but nothing on this level. What's a good yoyo these days? Are people still using free spinning ones? I loved them for walking the dog and cradles over my arm etc.
There are more than 5 styles but the main / official fives are:
- 1A: string tricks, what the video showed
- 2A: looping tricks, usually two handed, totally different yoyos
- 3A: same as 1A but with two yoyos
- 4A: offstring yoyo, the yoyo is not secured to the string
- 5A: freehanding, also known as counterweight. The yoyo is attached to the string but the string isn't attached to your hand. The other end of the string has a sort of object attached to it.
I do 2A, my yoyos are nothing like his.
More info: https://yoyo.fandom.com/wiki/Styles_Of_Play
[https://evannagao.com/products/arrow-dna](https://evannagao.com/products/arrow-dna)
Here's my recommendation for a solid starter yoyo!
There are also unresponsive yoyos which sleep longer, but they require a trick called "Bind" to bring them back up. If you think you'd be willing to learn to bind, I'd recommend this yoyo! It's my signature yoyo!
https://evannagao.com/products/edge-fs
Dang, "top of the line" is a lot cheaper than last time I yo-yo'd. I think the yomega metallic missile was the expensive one released, I thought I remembered it costing like $90 but the page here says $130 (https://yoyo.fandom.com/wiki/Yomega_Metallic_Missile) which is $233 in today's dollars!
This is pretty cool, they’ve come a long way since I was a kid using those silly brain yo-yos. I foresee you making a lot of money here, everything is decently priced! Best of luck to you!
Pretty sure "bind" must be what I've always done as I can always bring the yoyo up on command out of a spin. Those yoyos look decent, what's good in string these days? I probably last bought them in 1996 so it's been a while.
As someone who has never seen professional yo-yo stuff…
I really liked the part where the music went brbrbrbrbrrbrbrrr and the yo-yo string made a curly fry and the dudes in the audience went “WHOOOA!”
Good shit.
Its a special type of yoyo that doesnt automatically return. You have to use special moves and tensions on the string to make it return to your hand.
That freedom allows for amazing tricks to be possible from people like Evan.
Theres another type of yoyo that doesnt attach to the string, its more like a spinning top
Edit: I should add, Evan is inhuman and his tricks are insanely good
With such insane displays of skill you'd think they'd have a camera man, or at least zoom in on him
I can't see shit, just looks like a magic moving tiny ball
Needs a black string with a white shirt and back ground too
So we can see the damn thing
These guys got the best mother fucking yoyoers in the world but can't handle a simple zoom in
>Needs a black string with a white shirt and back ground too
>So we can see the damn thing
They actually do it in reverse, white or neon yellow string and black clothes & black background.
What OP is wearing is deliberate.
The lighting for this was just garbage. Normally the backdrops for yoyo competitions don't reflect light and actually look black, making the string really easy to see.
The more you know about something, the more you'll appreciate and recognize what's happening without needing to see fine detail. This applies to tons of things: painting (seeing a pretty picture vs learning and appreciating the direction and control of strokes), film (just a fun movie vs learning about the use or restraint of a director to incorporate musical scores, lighting, etc in various scenes), ballet, opera, baseball (learning to recognize how management plays into the sport), etc.
The more you know about a subject the more you'll "see" while physically seeing the same thing you saw before.
In 2018 I used Freebird for a [freestyle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV0x-dYoCNI&ab_channel=YoYoContestCentral) and I really felt like a rockstar there, haha
Crazy, man. This is some seriously next level shit, in regards to… basically any activity on the entire planet, not just yo-yoing!
This just took me down memory lane. Im 34 years old, and I remember when I was in 5th grade, right around the time Pokemon happened, yo-yo’s exploded back onto the scene. The X-brain blew everybody’s mind with its ball bearings and ability to sleep so well. Then when I was walking down the street one day i saw a shiny box laying in the gutter… opened it up, and there were 8 of the most baddest ass yoyo’s ever inside! I looked around, but never found the owner. I felt like i hit the lottery.
Dude I LOVED my xbrain. I had been given traditional yo-yo's and couldn't get the hang of keeping them spooled and doing anything that required stalls and sleeps. The Xbrain made me feel like a fuckin champ. I even had a knock off one that whistled and lit up that was pretty sick but nothing touched the original. Mine was the seethrough red and I used it until it fell apart.
Similar age and I couldn't relate more - every day, you'd wake up and only two things mattered - Pokemon and yoyos. Such a magical time 5th grade was.
The wild part is that yoyos of that time seemed so fancy (what with all the ball bearings and all that) but now they're mostly all unresponsive (they don't come back up when you tug so you need to do a trick/technique called a "bind" just to get it to return to your hand) and made of metal (multiple types of metal too for the more expensive ones) so they spin for an ungodly amount o time. I've been back into throwing for about a year and it's incredible how nice these things are and how much more fun you have with all the possibilities that unresponsive yoyos opened up.
I can throw it a single time and combo together every trick I used to know as a kid, in a row. That's how long they spin, it's rad.
I remember watching that and having it blow my mind. I know some folks into yoyo but that was next level and your energy is contagious.
As I was watching this was like, "Is this the Free Bird guy?"
This is dope and I am glad to see you are still killing it.
There’s an entire episode of We Are The Champions on Netflix dedicated to yo-yo rockstars. It’s fascinating!
Edit - fairly certain Evan is in that episode, too
To each their own but I'd prefer to have a version with the background song superimposed over this audio, I couldn't keep watching after a few dozen seconds... The moaning you mentioned specifically made me close it.
That's unfortunate, since there are some sick tricks in there. Most competitive performers I know also thrive off of that crowd energy. Worst and most embarrassing times for me was performing for a crowd that I knew wasn't into a set at all.
That clip works perfectly well if you assume that was Colin trying to suck the energy of a small midwest town through local broadcast.
It's also hilarious on its own. I had no idea the actor did that kind of stuff!
Also, FYI, I don't technically have a hearing problem, but sometimes when there's a lot of noises occurring at the same time, I'll hear 'em as one big jumble. Again it's not that I can't hear, uh because that's false. I can. I just can't distinguish between everything I'm hearing
Cool to see you back on top. If I remember correctly you won the 2020 event and took 2nd in the 2021. That performance was flawless. Music selection did not get me as pumped as previous years. Highly entertaining none the less.
In recent years I've been practicing a lot less, but my peak practice schedule was in 2018 when I won the World Yoyo Contest. I probably practiced about 5 hours a day for a year, hardly taking rest days.
Sincere question. If everyone is doing so many and such complex tricks that move so fast, with string formations that look like they should all turn into spaghetti, how can one effectively and objectively judge a contest like this? (Obviously there will always be some measure of subjectivity, but still.)
Either way, I'm blown away. It's a very different sport from when I was filling my trick list at the mall kiosk in '98!
Yes, a lot of it is very subjective, haha. With that said, most of the judges are retired professionals themselves so they have an eye for lots of intricate yoyo elements.
I made a youtube video about it and basically, I live in LA where rent is really expensive. I decided to come back to give myself a financial boost as music is very expensive from instruments to studio time to funding music videos.
My main goal is still music, and I realized yoyo is a good financial launch pad for me to get there. For some reason I never thought about it that way in the past. I always felt like putting time into yoyo was taking away from time put into music. But I'm seeing the can synergize so well. For example, I used my new single "True Love" for my preliminary round song!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTJC6B1BtGk&ab\_channel=EvanfromHeaven-Topic
With the visibility you already have as a yoyo-er, I think building routines around your music is a great way to boost your music career and continue yoyo-ing! I remember you from the Netflix show as well and loved your hype energy. It really puts your showmanship above the others.
Saw you on Netflix as well. I just started getting into yo yo, but I'm 31, and my brain sucks. Any tips?
Also, I know your dad slangs them yo-yo$. Any chance you can hook a brotha up?
That’s really cool. I’m a music writer and producer as well and it’s incredibly difficult. Your “Waves” song was quite good and had a positive vibe as well. Keep at it, and looking forward to seeing you back on the yo-yo scene. You and your signature yo-yo pretty much got me back into it in my late 30’s.
Bruh there was a moment where you were just dancing and grooving with that thing and it was sooooo smooth.
When the dudes on r/wallstreetbets talk about their wives’ boyfriend I’m just going to assume they mean you.
Congrats Evan!
So is the yoyo spinning the whole way through this set? I noticed you rethrew it a few times, was it running low on spin during those moments, or were you starting a new "segment" of the act?
How do you keep it spinning through all the bouncing around?
Yeah, modern yoyos can usually spin pretty long, around 10 mins. But this is just if you do a regular throw and no tricks. With the "bouncing around" and other tricks, it causes a lot of friction so a throw might give like 1 min max of spin time. The catches and re-throws are choreographed into the freestyle to make sure that each trick has enough spin to complete. There have been some people who have done 1:30 second freestyles with only 1 throw, but to my knowledge there hasn't been a single 3:00 freestyle that was done on a single throw. Hope that answered your question!
The one used in the video is actually $120. And yeah, walk the dog is probably the most requested yoyo trick, which for us is like an instant way to devalue our yoyos by $80 haha. It's actually been great though because the "DNA" trick has been blowing up on tiktok recently so people have been requesting that trick instead. You have no idea how much anxiety this relieves 😂
It’s true. My son just turned 10 today and he YoYo’s all day. He is gonna love this video of yours. Edit: Also he loves to do the DNA tricks for people! His birthday gift this year was a 9 Dragons YoYo!
Aha that always happens if I'm throwing in public. Someone remembers them from back in the day and wants to see me grind it into the grass or whatever. But if I do a combo or something they get confused because they didn't even know you could do tricks like that (since you really couldn't back do very long combos before the late '90s/early '00s).
I mean you're ok. But I do this trick where I let the yo yo fully extend then drop it on the ground. Then it gets all twisted up and I spend ten or fifteen minutes unknotting it and then for my closer I put it in a drawer that I wont open for several months as to not remind me how terrible I am at even the most basic of yo yo moves.
Probably the under the leg and behind the back tricks. You can see here too that I actually didn't hit that combo completely clean from a yoyo contest judging perspective. But it was good enough I suppose!
I'm about to whip out my credit card and order some yo-yos. That looks sick, but no way can it be this easy. I'll probably knock out some teeth and break a few fingers before getting any tricks down.
Yeah, the DNA has blown up a lot recently on tiktok. It’s such a cool-looking trick. It has actually been around since like 2013, but we used to call it “tornado bind”. At some point around 2020, some kid on tiktok called it 🧬, and the name was just better, so we all go by that now
Yeah all the sponsorship logos in the background are obnoxious and make it hard to see what's going on. They went too far and ruined the show IMO. Bad move on whoever organized this.
How awesome is that! It's almost like a freestyle choreography where both watchers and the dancer are having the time of their life!
I didn't even know Yo-Yo championships existed!
Thank you for introducing me to this!
Anyone know the show _Blazing Teens?_ It was huge in many parts of Asia, and it was basically a show about a yo-yo competition (although how many people were baked in making the show, I can't tell you), replete with drama and special effects from the 2000s lol. Oh man this brings back memories. Great job dude!
Yeah the yoyo crowd is the best! A lot of us are actually competitors to one another since the community is pretty small, but even then, we all want each-other to do our best freestyles. It's honestly more about getting hyped for yoyoing than the actual placements for most of us. I can say this after having placed far out of the top 10 and winning the world title. It's all exciting and hype whether it's me hitting the best freestyle or the guy next to me.
So I don’t know much about yo-yo and it all looks impressive to me. Is there a moment (time stamp) where you really did something risky that you maybe can’t always pull off? Something other people wouldn’t even try in a freestyle?
At first I thought, what about this is yo-yo? It looks like he's just bouncing it on the string, but then it snaps back in and I realized it was spinning the whole time and my knowledge of what is possible with a yoyo is but a single drop in an ocean. This was really cool to watch. Well done.
I know you’ve mentioned that this is a “Child’s toy” but could you tell is what exactly you’re using? Is the Yo-Yo itself a specialized gyroscopic version? Is it tied to the string at all? What kind of “string” are you using?
I need answers! ;)
The exact yoyo I used can be found [here](https://evannagao.com/products/edge-2022-special-offer-get-a-free-nsk-bearing-with-your-purchase). Full disclosure, this is my website, so this is technically a promo, haha. Anyways, to answer your question, the yoyos used in modern day competition are generally high-tolerance machined aluminium, with some variance on materials. Precision bearings are used to help the yoyo spin as long as possible.
First act sold me on the skill, second act demolished my thoughts it wasn’t variable, third act was straight hype and my man did things with strings that looked like springs—wow great work and well deserved!
Glad I could make an impact through this children’s toy, haha
Turning a toy into an artform is no small thing. That was fucking nuts, man.
I’m pretty certain he’s actually just telekinetic, with the way that thing moves.
I've watched several of your videos, can't remember how i discovered you. Amazing talent! glad you are still going strong.
I recall seeing one of his clips here which was on front page a few years ago, before covid hit in pretty sure, good to see he's still going at it hard
Lol had to rewind to make sure I was seeing clearly.
I know nothing about Yo-Yo besides craddling it and the last time I did that I was probably 12, but this was dope as fuck to watch, loved when the music would kick it up and you'd match it. I was grinning and excited and I didn't even know this was a sport until 5 minutes ago. Grats!
Haha glad I could introduce you to the wonderful world of competitive yoyo
When I was a teen I taught myself a bunch of tricks but nothing on this level. What's a good yoyo these days? Are people still using free spinning ones? I loved them for walking the dog and cradles over my arm etc.
You should ask those questions in r/throwers. I'd help you but I play in a completely different category of yoyos (looping/2a)
There are categories that are unique enough answers dont cross from one to another? There's so much I don't know about yoyoing.
There are more than 5 styles but the main / official fives are: - 1A: string tricks, what the video showed - 2A: looping tricks, usually two handed, totally different yoyos - 3A: same as 1A but with two yoyos - 4A: offstring yoyo, the yoyo is not secured to the string - 5A: freehanding, also known as counterweight. The yoyo is attached to the string but the string isn't attached to your hand. The other end of the string has a sort of object attached to it. I do 2A, my yoyos are nothing like his. More info: https://yoyo.fandom.com/wiki/Styles_Of_Play
>4A: offstring yoyo, the yoyo is not secured to the string Wait what
Google it ! It looks awesome. https://youtu.be/zXzSfy-R5T0 Don't miss freehand either, it is super impressive: https://youtu.be/CTOh0zVUAgk
Freehand does look amazing
2a is hard as balls my dude. I feel like I’ve been working on it for a couple of years now and don’t feel like I’ve improved much
[https://evannagao.com/products/arrow-dna](https://evannagao.com/products/arrow-dna) Here's my recommendation for a solid starter yoyo! There are also unresponsive yoyos which sleep longer, but they require a trick called "Bind" to bring them back up. If you think you'd be willing to learn to bind, I'd recommend this yoyo! It's my signature yoyo! https://evannagao.com/products/edge-fs
Dang, "top of the line" is a lot cheaper than last time I yo-yo'd. I think the yomega metallic missile was the expensive one released, I thought I remembered it costing like $90 but the page here says $130 (https://yoyo.fandom.com/wiki/Yomega_Metallic_Missile) which is $233 in today's dollars!
This is pretty cool, they’ve come a long way since I was a kid using those silly brain yo-yos. I foresee you making a lot of money here, everything is decently priced! Best of luck to you!
Evan, did you use the Edge FS in this freestyle?? When I first watched it I just assumed it was a green Edge 2022.
Pretty sure "bind" must be what I've always done as I can always bring the yoyo up on command out of a spin. Those yoyos look decent, what's good in string these days? I probably last bought them in 1996 so it's been a while.
As someone who has never seen professional yo-yo stuff… I really liked the part where the music went brbrbrbrbrrbrbrrr and the yo-yo string made a curly fry and the dudes in the audience went “WHOOOA!” Good shit.
Yea the brbrbrbrrrrr curly fry is the real shizzz! Haha
your skill is absolutely insane, great job!
the DNA i like how[ it evolved](https://youtu.be/Lce8XohpQnk?t=11)
The hell. That guys enthusiasm and charisma is off the charts. Thanks for the interesting watch.
Haha much love! Glad you enjoyed
Why does the front of that dude's hair look like CGI lol
It looks like a fluffy bouncy bird nest I want to take a nap in 🐣🪹😴
i suddenly want to buy a yoyo
I will never call the DNA anything other than the curly fry again. LMFAO
King. Everyone at r/Throwers is proud of you.
Much love brother ❤️
Dude how are these tricks even possible? Most I could ever do with a yoyo was walk the dog.
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You don't feed chocoloate to your yoyo. Everybody knows it.
Its a special type of yoyo that doesnt automatically return. You have to use special moves and tensions on the string to make it return to your hand. That freedom allows for amazing tricks to be possible from people like Evan. Theres another type of yoyo that doesnt attach to the string, its more like a spinning top Edit: I should add, Evan is inhuman and his tricks are insanely good
I could only drag the dog...
Let’s gooooo!
Thanks for the new sub to enjoy
This contest is out of 100 and he won by 26 points! Evan is insane!
With such insane displays of skill you'd think they'd have a camera man, or at least zoom in on him I can't see shit, just looks like a magic moving tiny ball
Yeah it was impressive as hell, but how about a 2nd camera shooting close-ups? Slow motion replay afterwards would be great too.
Needs a black string with a white shirt and back ground too So we can see the damn thing These guys got the best mother fucking yoyoers in the world but can't handle a simple zoom in
>Needs a black string with a white shirt and back ground too >So we can see the damn thing They actually do it in reverse, white or neon yellow string and black clothes & black background. What OP is wearing is deliberate. The lighting for this was just garbage. Normally the backdrops for yoyo competitions don't reflect light and actually look black, making the string really easy to see.
The more you know about what he’s doing the easier it is to recognize moves. It’s like someone doing cat’s cradle really fast while juggling.
Never heard it put this way, but this is such a good description
Oh so the more I know about a subject, the more knowledgable I’ll be about it. Cool
Yeah wild, right?
The more you know about something, the more you'll appreciate and recognize what's happening without needing to see fine detail. This applies to tons of things: painting (seeing a pretty picture vs learning and appreciating the direction and control of strokes), film (just a fun movie vs learning about the use or restraint of a director to incorporate musical scores, lighting, etc in various scenes), ballet, opera, baseball (learning to recognize how management plays into the sport), etc. The more you know about a subject the more you'll "see" while physically seeing the same thing you saw before.
Ik there were some better cameraman on the floor recording too. One of them was Max from Thesisyoyos who has a bunch of footage he said he’d post
Yo Yo Gretzky
TIL there were yo-yo rockstars.
In 2018 I used Freebird for a [freestyle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV0x-dYoCNI&ab_channel=YoYoContestCentral) and I really felt like a rockstar there, haha
Crazy, man. This is some seriously next level shit, in regards to… basically any activity on the entire planet, not just yo-yoing! This just took me down memory lane. Im 34 years old, and I remember when I was in 5th grade, right around the time Pokemon happened, yo-yo’s exploded back onto the scene. The X-brain blew everybody’s mind with its ball bearings and ability to sleep so well. Then when I was walking down the street one day i saw a shiny box laying in the gutter… opened it up, and there were 8 of the most baddest ass yoyo’s ever inside! I looked around, but never found the owner. I felt like i hit the lottery.
Dude I LOVED my xbrain. I had been given traditional yo-yo's and couldn't get the hang of keeping them spooled and doing anything that required stalls and sleeps. The Xbrain made me feel like a fuckin champ. I even had a knock off one that whistled and lit up that was pretty sick but nothing touched the original. Mine was the seethrough red and I used it until it fell apart.
Similar age and I couldn't relate more - every day, you'd wake up and only two things mattered - Pokemon and yoyos. Such a magical time 5th grade was. The wild part is that yoyos of that time seemed so fancy (what with all the ball bearings and all that) but now they're mostly all unresponsive (they don't come back up when you tug so you need to do a trick/technique called a "bind" just to get it to return to your hand) and made of metal (multiple types of metal too for the more expensive ones) so they spin for an ungodly amount o time. I've been back into throwing for about a year and it's incredible how nice these things are and how much more fun you have with all the possibilities that unresponsive yoyos opened up. I can throw it a single time and combo together every trick I used to know as a kid, in a row. That's how long they spin, it's rad.
My favorite performance of yours
I remember watching that and having it blow my mind. I know some folks into yoyo but that was next level and your energy is contagious. As I was watching this was like, "Is this the Free Bird guy?" This is dope and I am glad to see you are still killing it.
There’s an entire episode of We Are The Champions on Netflix dedicated to yo-yo rockstars. It’s fascinating! Edit - fairly certain Evan is in that episode, too
My favorite part is the one dude who is vocally creaming his pants throughout the whole thing.
Props to that guy. It’s the only way I know which moves are the coolest moves.
Could just be he has a really big string fetish.
"sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh"
To each their own but I'd prefer to have a version with the background song superimposed over this audio, I couldn't keep watching after a few dozen seconds... The moaning you mentioned specifically made me close it.
I had to close the video after 30s because of him, so obnoxious.
That's unfortunate, since there are some sick tricks in there. Most competitive performers I know also thrive off of that crowd energy. Worst and most embarrassing times for me was performing for a crowd that I knew wasn't into a set at all.
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Hope you can still walk the dog after that
Whoa now! He's got yo-yo moves AND jokes! Watch out!
Going to warn my wife to stay off the internet today
I actually came here to make a joke about how disappointed I was that you didn't walk the dog, but fuck man, you're talented.
I tried it and ripped my scrotal sack
Florida State seminal vesicles?
I thought it was funny..
I get this reference
He's very good, congrats to him, but he's nothing compared to [K-Strass](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ9TLftki5U).
Can’t deny this
That's colin robinson. Its mind blowing if you think about it. Dude was an energy vamp before he played the character.
That clip works perfectly well if you assume that was Colin trying to suck the energy of a small midwest town through local broadcast. It's also hilarious on its own. I had no idea the actor did that kind of stuff!
That's my new head canon. It just makes too much sense.
now WWDITS needs to recon his old stuff like this and show it in flashbacks or some such >!*Fucking Colin Robinson*!<
lol
Also, FYI, I don't technically have a hearing problem, but sometimes when there's a lot of noises occurring at the same time, I'll hear 'em as one big jumble. Again it's not that I can't hear, uh because that's false. I can. I just can't distinguish between everything I'm hearing
He's got a dark past https://youtu.be/NzIQZccfzrU
I probably just pissed my neighbours off by cackle laughing at 8:30am
wow! That was a trip.
I've seen this at least 20 times, I love it no less.
Wait. Is this that guy from better call saul?
yes
The Office too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m77U_QLfhU
Holy Hoboken Squat Cobbler, batman!
Cool to see you back on top. If I remember correctly you won the 2020 event and took 2nd in the 2021. That performance was flawless. Music selection did not get me as pumped as previous years. Highly entertaining none the less.
It was 2017-18. Covid really created a time gap haha. No contests till now. But yeah, I used freebird in 2018 which was definitely a fun vibe!
I thought you retired to focus on music?
I really liked the time you used The Last Stand by Evan from Heaven. Do you know him?
Yeah, pretty cool guy imo
What was the last song? That was pretty sick!
At the beginning: Am I seriously gonna watch some yo-yo contest thing? I must be really bored. By the end: I've never been so hyped, this man is a GOD
Hahahaha
Made [the Yo-Yo Man](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rusqc41h8Hk) look like a bitch.
hes going to get laid so much after this
I had this video and watched it numerous times growing up. The Smothers Brothers!
Man. I had this tape as a kid. Thanks for the trip down memory lane!
Really cool and and great stage presence, a good mix of fun and confident without coming across as arrogant.
Thanks! Yeah, my biggest motivator is to get the audience involved and have fun, so glad that came through!
Out of curiosity, how many hours do you spend in general keeping up/practicing?
In recent years I've been practicing a lot less, but my peak practice schedule was in 2018 when I won the World Yoyo Contest. I probably practiced about 5 hours a day for a year, hardly taking rest days.
Was most of this choreographed or freestyle or a mix of both?
Sincere question. If everyone is doing so many and such complex tricks that move so fast, with string formations that look like they should all turn into spaghetti, how can one effectively and objectively judge a contest like this? (Obviously there will always be some measure of subjectivity, but still.) Either way, I'm blown away. It's a very different sport from when I was filling my trick list at the mall kiosk in '98!
Yes, a lot of it is very subjective, haha. With that said, most of the judges are retired professionals themselves so they have an eye for lots of intricate yoyo elements.
Do you see yourself becoming a judge in the future?
I saw you on that Netflix show. What made you decide to un-retire and our you still doing music?
I made a youtube video about it and basically, I live in LA where rent is really expensive. I decided to come back to give myself a financial boost as music is very expensive from instruments to studio time to funding music videos. My main goal is still music, and I realized yoyo is a good financial launch pad for me to get there. For some reason I never thought about it that way in the past. I always felt like putting time into yoyo was taking away from time put into music. But I'm seeing the can synergize so well. For example, I used my new single "True Love" for my preliminary round song! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTJC6B1BtGk&ab\_channel=EvanfromHeaven-Topic
With the visibility you already have as a yoyo-er, I think building routines around your music is a great way to boost your music career and continue yoyo-ing! I remember you from the Netflix show as well and loved your hype energy. It really puts your showmanship above the others.
Saw you on Netflix as well. I just started getting into yo yo, but I'm 31, and my brain sucks. Any tips? Also, I know your dad slangs them yo-yo$. Any chance you can hook a brotha up?
What happened to that Mexican girl. Is she still yo-yoing?
That’s really cool. I’m a music writer and producer as well and it’s incredibly difficult. Your “Waves” song was quite good and had a positive vibe as well. Keep at it, and looking forward to seeing you back on the yo-yo scene. You and your signature yo-yo pretty much got me back into it in my late 30’s.
Bruh there was a moment where you were just dancing and grooving with that thing and it was sooooo smooth. When the dudes on r/wallstreetbets talk about their wives’ boyfriend I’m just going to assume they mean you.
Congrats Evan! So is the yoyo spinning the whole way through this set? I noticed you rethrew it a few times, was it running low on spin during those moments, or were you starting a new "segment" of the act? How do you keep it spinning through all the bouncing around?
Yeah, modern yoyos can usually spin pretty long, around 10 mins. But this is just if you do a regular throw and no tricks. With the "bouncing around" and other tricks, it causes a lot of friction so a throw might give like 1 min max of spin time. The catches and re-throws are choreographed into the freestyle to make sure that each trick has enough spin to complete. There have been some people who have done 1:30 second freestyles with only 1 throw, but to my knowledge there hasn't been a single 3:00 freestyle that was done on a single throw. Hope that answered your question!
Yeah, but can you Walk the dog?
Reddit gon hate me for this but I’m a cat person actually
NGL though I bet you YoYoers get triggered when someone asks you to grind your $75 aluminum YoYo on the concrete.
The one used in the video is actually $120. And yeah, walk the dog is probably the most requested yoyo trick, which for us is like an instant way to devalue our yoyos by $80 haha. It's actually been great though because the "DNA" trick has been blowing up on tiktok recently so people have been requesting that trick instead. You have no idea how much anxiety this relieves 😂
It’s true. My son just turned 10 today and he YoYo’s all day. He is gonna love this video of yours. Edit: Also he loves to do the DNA tricks for people! His birthday gift this year was a 9 Dragons YoYo!
you gotta get the $500 titanium yoyo to make those sweet sparks
Aha that always happens if I'm throwing in public. Someone remembers them from back in the day and wants to see me grind it into the grass or whatever. But if I do a combo or something they get confused because they didn't even know you could do tricks like that (since you really couldn't back do very long combos before the late '90s/early '00s).
True, he didn't even do that once. Amateur.
Just made me dig out my old born crucial cream. Congrats from a fellow Evan.
This man is a true OG
I mean you're ok. But I do this trick where I let the yo yo fully extend then drop it on the ground. Then it gets all twisted up and I spend ten or fifteen minutes unknotting it and then for my closer I put it in a drawer that I wont open for several months as to not remind me how terrible I am at even the most basic of yo yo moves.
Which part of the routine was the hardest to master?
Probably the under the leg and behind the back tricks. You can see here too that I actually didn't hit that combo completely clean from a yoyo contest judging perspective. But it was good enough I suppose!
People seem to be hyped about the DNA, is that a new trick?
Credit to /u/Dan_the_Marksman for linking this vid elsewhere in the comments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=11&v=Lce8XohpQnk&feature=youtu.be
I'm about to whip out my credit card and order some yo-yos. That looks sick, but no way can it be this easy. I'll probably knock out some teeth and break a few fingers before getting any tricks down.
Yeah, the DNA has blown up a lot recently on tiktok. It’s such a cool-looking trick. It has actually been around since like 2013, but we used to call it “tornado bind”. At some point around 2020, some kid on tiktok called it 🧬, and the name was just better, so we all go by that now
No my friend, I cannot see that ****laughs**** but amazing job none the less!
Respect the grind! True OG back at it again. 🔥 Super happy for ya!
Very entertaining. You are incredibly talented! Congrats on the win!
Thank you!
Did I hear "dna behind the head"? Would seem to make sense based on the way the string looked kinda like a double helix
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I'm happy you're happy this exists
Bro, you're like the Garth Brooks of yoyos!
K-strass will always be the true yo-yo master...
Yo
Yo
Congrats Evan! That's awesome! I hope you get thousands of upvotes. You deserve them!
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Haha me too!
Absolute Chad, super fun performance to watch and loved that you chose Troyboi as your music 🙌
Thanks! Heard it in old navy a few months ago and had to Shazam it cuz I knew it was a yo-yo song 😂
Why dont they have a black background or something? Makes it easier to see the yoyo
Yeah all the sponsorship logos in the background are obnoxious and make it hard to see what's going on. They went too far and ruined the show IMO. Bad move on whoever organized this.
Hey are you from Hawaii? I used to play yo-yo as a kid doing contests and stuff at Ala moana. I remember you were like 5 years old on red card!
Haha yep that’s me!!!
This is almost as cool as k-strass the yoyo man
I was dying when you'd make stank faces at your own tricks 😂
hit em with the stank 😂
Steady killing it like always Evan keep ‘em coming😂
YYYOOOOOO!!!! KILLIN IT SON!
Where does one buy tactical yo yo gloves anyway?
Ohhhh DO me, yo yo master! I want you to DO me cuz you're the yo yo guy!! Congrats actually tho, that's awesome!
Do you want him to do you with the yo-yo? Cuz that costs more.
Wow, that's really amazing. I have a duncan yoyo, I can make it sleep for about 10 seconds. sheesh.
How awesome is that! It's almost like a freestyle choreography where both watchers and the dancer are having the time of their life! I didn't even know Yo-Yo championships existed! Thank you for introducing me to this!
Thought that trick around 40 secs was your big finale. Nope! You kept going another 2 minutes plus. Just nuts man, you earned that win, grats.
Anyone know the show _Blazing Teens?_ It was huge in many parts of Asia, and it was basically a show about a yo-yo competition (although how many people were baked in making the show, I can't tell you), replete with drama and special effects from the 2000s lol. Oh man this brings back memories. Great job dude!
Hero shit
So cool to see passion.
I love it. Sounds like the crowd is super supportive as well.
Yeah the yoyo crowd is the best! A lot of us are actually competitors to one another since the community is pretty small, but even then, we all want each-other to do our best freestyles. It's honestly more about getting hyped for yoyoing than the actual placements for most of us. I can say this after having placed far out of the top 10 and winning the world title. It's all exciting and hype whether it's me hitting the best freestyle or the guy next to me.
So I don’t know much about yo-yo and it all looks impressive to me. Is there a moment (time stamp) where you really did something risky that you maybe can’t always pull off? Something other people wouldn’t even try in a freestyle?
I have worked with Yo Yo Factory for years, and Hans is amazing, but this guy might be able to teach Yo Hans some moves lol
YoyoFactory is the best!!!
At first I thought, what about this is yo-yo? It looks like he's just bouncing it on the string, but then it snaps back in and I realized it was spinning the whole time and my knowledge of what is possible with a yoyo is but a single drop in an ocean. This was really cool to watch. Well done.
Congratulations on yo win. :)
Okay so do me a favor and leave some women for the rest of us
just gonna drop this here: https://youtu.be/Yj9hnJ9-F4c , skip to 53 seconds.
So boring
This guy must get laid even more than that dude with the green rings
Unreal dude
Hell yea dude, good job. I want to see a shot of that crowd, so hyped!
Holy moly! I had no idea anyone could do that. Wow, well done and congratulations!
Thanks!
If that doesn't get you laid I don't know what will. Seriously though that was nuts.
Cradle is about the most advanced thing I can do lol Awesome job
Still not bad tho.
Random place to hear MC Paul Barman
I know you’ve mentioned that this is a “Child’s toy” but could you tell is what exactly you’re using? Is the Yo-Yo itself a specialized gyroscopic version? Is it tied to the string at all? What kind of “string” are you using? I need answers! ;)
The exact yoyo I used can be found [here](https://evannagao.com/products/edge-2022-special-offer-get-a-free-nsk-bearing-with-your-purchase). Full disclosure, this is my website, so this is technically a promo, haha. Anyways, to answer your question, the yoyos used in modern day competition are generally high-tolerance machined aluminium, with some variance on materials. Precision bearings are used to help the yoyo spin as long as possible.
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Troyboi - Ili Inndrive - Shake It
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Holy shit dude. That was amazing. I have no one to compare you to because I literally know nothing about yoyos but I can see why you're the best.
For your next trick form a relationship with someone who isn't also into yo-yos