A quick rant. Excuse me.

From how I see it, yoyoers get better at their craft by attending contests and meets. But for the most part, only sponsored players have the privilege to go to all sorts of contests without burning a hole in their wallets.

I’ve always wanted to go to 44CLASH since a friend of mine in Japan keeps asking me if I’m going. But there’s no way in the world a college student like me can afford the airfare and admission to go to 44CLASH.

If not sponsored, then they are wealthy one way or another. My friend from Indonesia told me that for the most part, only of the rich folks can attend their national contest and it leaves others hanging.

Back to me. Not only that, but I feel like my growth is halted because I live so far from any contests or meets [DXL and stuff] so I don’t get to stay inspired and learn more stuff from people. There’s only so much watching tutorial videos online can do.

What I’m saying is…I also want to experience attending lots of contests without any fear of going broke. I’m jealous, I guess… I don’t want to get sponsored because I don’t have the skill for that, obviously. But I also want to grow and how am I supposed to do that if I can’t even go to any contests?

Going to a contest doesn’t make or break a yoyoer; and by not going to one doesn’t mean you can’t progress anymore… while it is an enjoyable experience, its not completely necessary.

Where are you located?

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My rant doesn’t even make sense since my thoughts are all jumbled around.
Well, let me rephrase…not necessarily contests, but the fact that people meet up and chill and share tricks and stuff. I couldn’t care less about competing, I just want to chill with people who share the same hobby.

Especially that I’m learning 2A…it’s much harder for me to find others who also do 2A because not too many do it. And I’m in need for advice and stuff.

I live in Southern California. DXL meets are about one hour away by car…and that’s the closest right there.

Many of us are isolated. My closest meet would a quick 10hr international flight.

Not to take anything away from your misery, but I guarantee you there is more of a chance you can find clubs and other yoyoers in SoCal than here in Ottawa, Canada.

Thankfully a work colleague of mine took an interest and we now “throw down” daily. But we’re progressing slowly and independently; online tutorials and “making stuff up” is about all we’ve got anyhow.

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You live in SoCal man. This is like ground zero for anything even remotely interesting in the way of contests or meets for pretty much any hobby.

You’re talking to guys like me who live in the middle of Indiana where virtually nothing interesting ever happens besides the odd Super Bowl.

An hour by car? lol. I have to drive more than an hour just to get to the airport that might get me to something cool.

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you should really just start your own club … Sam (salzorin) And I first met Last year and it was just the two of us and we met from the forums and just going around looking for people in our area…

and now we have like 15 guys and a few pros who come to our club.

So if you want to make something happen, you have to want it bad enough and go out there and do it. People will notice and come out.

We have been looking for people to come out for almost a year and a half but the past 6 months its been great and every meet, we meet more and more yoyoers.

If you can’t find anyone, than teach someone else and get them hooked just like how you are hooked.

oh and you are talking DXL being a hour away, we have --> Trace (who you should know from the forums) he drives like 2 hours to come out and hang.

Awwman, now you guys are making me feel like doodoo :stuck_out_tongue: I think I’m just too cheap to drive to DXL and meet with all of the cool peoples.

The NorCal meets and the meets in Japan [they even have buildings to chill at] and the Philippines [FlipSpin] are the ones that make me jealous the most. Due to the density of those areas, they can meet easier and more often.

Sometimes I wonder why the US is so big…it makes everyone apart from one another.

While im close enough to travel to quite a few contests i just simply dont have time. I work to much and personal life. But what i do as well as a lot of my friends and people all over is start a meet. Find people that livebin an hr or two drive and findba mutual meeting ground. And meetbup and throw for a few hrs. Share tricks try new throws and such. It help keep the interest.

WHAT! You live in SOCAL? That’s where ALL the contests are. I used to live in Socal, Riverside to be exact, but I moved up two hours north to Bakersfield and I still go to contests down there. SoCal is the YoYo Contest Capital of the World! It has more contests than any other place on earth.

Definitely go to the next one. It’s so worth it if you’re around the area.

I thought you lived in like Wyoming or something like that. haha

With the possible exception of Siberia, I can’t imagine people living further apart from one another than we do in Canada. All stretched for the most part along the Canada-US border (coz it’s cold as heck much further north; trust me, I lived in true Northern Ontario for a year!). It is far more prohibitive for me to see friends and family elsewhere in Canada than to pop down to the States. :wink:

San Bernardino, yo.

You’ll always have it way better than someone else.

Sometimes you just have to make it happen for yourself. If you are dedicated and you put in the work for something you love, you can do anything you want.

I live in Michigan. I own a restaurant in Rochester Michigan.

Just over a year ago Ernie Kaiser (General Yo owner) made an announcement on the YYN forum for a contest to win a brand new Entheos. All someone had to do was come into my restaurant and say “General Yo” and show me a double or nothing (or something more difficult). I returned the Entheos to Ernie a few weeks ago when he visited my place. No one here. Just crickets…

@ the OP - I’d say make the hour drive. :slight_smile:

Here’s my thoughts:

You get out of something what you put into it. Unlike many other things though, yoyo does need additional input,which is often best achieved through social settings with other yoyo players. As we know, there’s more to this than just banging out tricks, otherwise we’d just be satisfied with trick ladders.

Not all of us can be the best. It’s just like nearly anything else. Many will try, but no matter how hard some of us try, we’ll never make that upper echelon. That’s life. But, it doesn’t matter how good we are if we can’t attract the attention of those who can provide us with the means of staying at that level. In the case of yoyo, it’s in the form of sponsorships.

In my case, I know for a fact that no matter how hard I try, I’m not going to be an upper level player. It’s also not my goal either. I do want to improve and get better. My end goal is still selfish if you want to look at it that way. I’m only in this for personal enjoyment. However, if I can teach, help, share and inspire others, then so be it. I got a guy sending me 15 bearings to clean and Dry Play treat, and I absolutely don’t mind this at all. My goals don’t include competing and that means “no freestyle” and “no trick ladder” either.

Similarly, we’re not all made of money. Unfortunately, it costs to go to contests. Either the cost of entering, the cost of travel, the cost of food, the cost of accomodations. It ain’t cheap. Just like with pro athletes, they are taken either as a team or individually to events. This does NOT count against the salary of the athletes. In the case of pro teams, the ownership of the team is covering travel and accommodations plus per diem. In the case of individual athletes, this is often covered by a sponsor, such as a product they are endorsed by(sounding kind of familiar?). However, in the case of high profile athletes, such budgets may be in the millions, where-as budgets for yoyo players might be in the thousands annually. We’re talking about the difference in marketability and recognition on a global stage. No yoyo company has the money to pay a player $3-$5 million per year to play yoyo on top of expenses. Well, maybe one does but in general they ain’t gonna plonk down that kind of dough.

Attending contests in and of itself does not make one a better player. Hard work makes one a better player. Add the social element and peer to peer criticism, challenge and fun also helps a player improve. Finding other ways to improve is also critical.

The key is finding ways to meet with other players. I’m lucky I found YoLex. I also tried my own stuff and it’s not really working though, but that’s because my schedule keeps changing and sabotaging my plans. Through YoLex I’ve met many amazing and great players, which has in turn led to great things for myself, which in turn has led to meeting other amazing players. I still suck, I just suck less… or something like that.

For me, yoyo is very difficult. It’s frustrating, it’s aggravating. At the same time, it’s relaxing and therapeutic. Nothing comes easy in this for me. Everything is a fight. Perhaps this is something I am NOT meant to be doing. I am enjoying this, if you can believe it.

For those of us who are not sponsored, trips around the world, a county or even around a state or province can get costly. We all can’t do it. For those of us not made of money, do what you can within your means. This isn’t worth going broke over. Get to nearby contests that end up with some decent names showing up and do your best. The objective isn’t necessarily to win. Always do yourr best. Winning should always be a goal. The objective is to attract the attention of companies that might be willing to sponsor you. Control your costs, but you will need to find ways to reach out to something big enough to ensure that you put yourself in front of companies. Not to pick a brand, but YYF had Ben there at Nationals. While Ben put on a good show for 2A, I can bet you that he was also scouting talent and looking out for his team, his brand and expanding his stable of talented, young players. I can also tell you that I’m positive he wasn’t alone. I know Rick from Madhouse was there, and so were 2 of his players.

For me, sponsorship isn’t going to happen. My goals are are to do sound at CalStates, BAC, attend Nationals AND get the sound contract, and my big trip will be helping run production at Worlds in Orlando. Why won’t sponsorship happen? Well, it won’t be because I’ll refuse it, but it’s because I doubt I have what sponsors want. I won’t compete. I won’t make videos. A brand won’t want me because I switch throws often and pay little attention to brand, I play what the mood says I should play. Outside of doing sound product at events, there’s honestly not much I can offer or bring to the table.

Keep in mind your hidden agendas and end goals. Mine are modest, simple, perhaps selfish, and oddly enough, not hidden.

Find your own way. However, as long as you’re on YYE, you’re not doing this alone.

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That sounds like the best excuse for a crappy road trip ever.
Get it back, I’m on my way.

Ill race you.

Seriously, if I had known about that, I would have made the trip.

you have not much to complain as there is probably more people playing, and at a much higher level in southern california than there is in my whole country.

now if you want to move around and for it to be cheap, definitely consider eastern europe, poland, hungary, czech republic. Of course there’s the flight that’ll cost, but once there, everything is so cheap (hotel for european championship was around $14/night, including breakfast, in the heart of prague)

being sponsored is an opportunity that very few players get, but they also create those opportunities for themselves by making sacrifices and go places.

From the sound of it, you’re still a teenager, don’t rush, there are a few sponsored teens, but most are young adults or just adults. There are very few ways that one could get a significant sponsorship at your age, one is incredible talent (takeshi matsuura, peter pong for example, one being a 7 times world champ at only 15, the other being a serious contender for the title for quite some time now), the other is marketability (which basically comes down to stuff like your looks and rep).

You make it sound like a sponsorship is all benefits, but for the most part, it’s also obligations towards your sponsor, professionalism (augie is a great example, most YYF sponsored players actually are) is one of them. And it usually doesn’t go well with younger people (because of school, parents etc…), being sponsored requires a commitment on your part that can hardly be compatible with a teenager’s life (unless you get tons of help, money, or both from other parties, parents etc…)

is it fair? probably not, but it works that way. it’ll be easier for some than it is for others, but trust me, socal ain’t half bad as a place to meet players, your average player there is probably twice as good as most europeans national champions. at least it is my understanding that good stuff generally happens there. Here we are like 5 players in a 200km radius and I’m probably in the top 2, if that says anything about the yoyoing desert we have here.

don’t think about sponsorship, try and attend constests to meet the community, meet the people, have fun and never forget it’s just a toy, not a serious career option (this is coming from someone trying to make a living in yoyoing)

Like I said earlier, I couldn’t care less about sponsorships and all of that. I have no skills to do that at all and my life as a college student leaves me almost no room to practice for 8 hours each day. So I only get 30 minutes to an hour if I’m lucky.

What I’m saying was, I want to be able to have the opportunity to travel around and meet others. Stuff that will serve as a catalyst to keep the fire lit up and for me to stay inspired. A former world champion friend of mine keeps asking me if I’ll make it to 44CLASH this year, and it sucks to say no 'cause I don’t have a money tree growing in my backyard.

Yes, I actually have it better. Apologies to drop names but, GrawrD and I live in the same town but we’re not acquainted well enough to throw together. I’ve influenced others to play yoyo even though it’s been a while since those people seen me in person. Costa Mesa [where DXL is usually at], Riverside, and Redondo Beach are those cities in Southern California with lots of yoyoers around. But for some reason, even that…at my very silly selfish reasoning…I still want more.

I don’t know…once I saw those Facebook posts of Ben Conde and Ann Connolly going to 44CLASH, YYF promoting the same event even saying somewhere between the lines of “If you want to see it, you gotta start booking flights and see it in person!” … I just got jealous.

I’m a person who rarely gets emotions get a hold of me, but it got frustrating.
I only made this rant 'cause yoyoing has become one of the fewest hobbies that I stick with.

BTW, a bit unrelated…but I found it interesting that Hadoq has 1234 posts now XD
Sweeeet!

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