This thread is for general 5a discussion. Who are your favorite players currently? Favorite freestyles?
What kind of tricks are you working on?
My current favs are Owen Ekblad and Yoshihiro Abe.
This freestyle had a lot of impressive tricks and was so clean. I can definitely see Yoshihiro getting top 3 at worlds
Huge fan of this guy. What a unique style!
Yea I’ve been watching this guy. He has really interesting movements.
been diggin this guys flow a lot too 
Chase Baxter is #1 Player for sure, other than that, some of my favorite players include:
Ryota Torigoe who I truly believe shaped current 5A very heavily.
Tyler Severance who made 5A really seem cool in the first place, and really made players want to create more exciting tricks in my opinion.
Mason McCall
Takeshi Matsuura
Sojun Miyamura
Rafael Matsunaga
Sterling Quinn
@Nemyo and Jared Marcus have been doing good things at Nationals in the past couple of years.
Tran Quoc Huy has a very developed style and his tricks are really pretty satisfying to watch. I think his style is really future.
Colin already mentioned Denny Ko, but I think he’s worth mentioning. He’s really bringing new movements into 5A without them seeming overly abstract- these are actual motions that can be used in real 5A tricks, fluidly and conventionally.
Miggy Hizon is another important 5A player from the Philippines. He has a really clean style and some difficult tricks. He’s one of my favorite 5A players and I draw lots of inspiration from his style and tricks.
Sora Ishikawa has been around for a while, but his tricks continue to impress me. He, along with Yoshihiro Abe, is one of my favorite Japanese 5A players.
Any discussion about 5A would be lacking without mention of Takuma Inoue. He is the world champion, and for good reason. He is an incredibly skilled yo-yo player and his tricks are really very innovative. He’s really pushing the boundaries of kinetics within 5A and has some really incredible motions involving the yo-yo and counterweight (controlled chaos).
Anyway, I’ve failed to mention any American 5A players here, but there are really very few contemporary 5A players. Jared Marcus is a great up-and-comer (or has he up-and-came?), and has some great tricks. I think in the future, when his style has developed and his diversified a bit more, he will definitely be a top world competitor and a proud compatriot in the great American 5A fight.
John Wolfe is pushing 5A, and I really attribute my later interest in 5A in him (Chase Baxter got me interested in it initially). John has redefined American 5A and has been putting in some serious work on making some new new tricks and I’m always impressed to see what he does.
Chase Baxter is essentially the greatest 5A player of all time though. He practically invented modern 5A and he deserves major credit for that. He has beaten Jake Elliot, Tyler Severance, Miguel Correa, Bryan Jardin, John Wolfe, myself, and probably many more high-caliber 5A players in competition, all while using incredibly original tricks and a style that many have tried to imitate since. My first tricks were just a straight-up copy of Chase’s; and my current tricks, while having an original style, are really just Chase’s under the guise of a developed style.
This thread is right up my alley :3
I think largely my favorite 5a players growing up leading up to my Nationals win last year were the ones who I considered my greatest rivals as they pushed me to better my tricks and style in hopes to one day triumph.
Two big names on that list are Chase Baxter and Juan Renteria. Chase basically took 5a to a whole new level and was one of my biggest inspirations and rivals during the period we were both competing.
Juan was an OG 5A inspiration who’s been on and off through the years but has always had one of the smoothest and most refreshing styles in the history of the style.
In today’s current competition, Owen is truly the future. His stuff is beyond what I could have ever dreamed was possible and he is for sure the height of innovation.
Outside the US, Sora Ishikawa is forever a God of 5a who has way too many second and third place finishes than he should have. His stuff was a huge inspiration to me and his showmanship and amplitude is unmatched.
i’m really digging Denny Ko’s new vid. He has a lot of interesting ideas
My dude, Sora. He’s very impressive.