When I first picked up a yo-yo, I was around five or six years old. I noticed a bright red Duncan Imperial sitting on one of my grandparents desks collecting dust. There was just something about it that drew me in. I remember climbing up on a rickety chair to get it. I slipped the fuzzy string on my finger and went at it. What started as a happy curiosity quickly went south. It was one of the most frustrating experiences of my childhood to say the least. The yo-yo constantly thrashed into the ground, knots appeared out of nowhere, and I can’t count the amount of times I just let it dangle at the end of the string. Despite any guidance my grandparents gave me, I couldn’t figure it out.
About ten years later, as a junior in High School, I picked the hobby back up. Yo-yoing was one of the few things that had challenged me in the past, and I was anxious to give it another try. Having reached my teens and growing a bit taller, I found the fundamentals much easier to learn. However after a while, gravity pull and sleeper got a bit old. I wanted to learn more. A quick internet search brought me to a website called YoyoExpert. I quickly browsed its catalog of video tutorials. I was mesmerized by amount of ways I could defy physics with a yo-yo. As I went on to check of trick after trick, I found myself with a lot of questions, the type that went beyond how to trapeze properly or how to adjust my string. For answers to these types of questions, I turned to the forum community conveniently located on the same site. I was strictly a lurker for a while, but that would change.
The type of person I am, no matter what type of hobby I’ve picked up, I’ve always tried to help or be a part of the community. For quite some time, I’ve used the forums as my medium to do that. Answering questions, writing reviews, and debating the current trends helped me take my involvement to new levels. After about eight solid months of forum membership, an idea popped into my head. Wouldn’t it be fun to design a yo-yo? Over the next 15 months+, I researched everything I’d need to know to develop my interest into something tangible. On February 9th 2015, I officially announced on the YYE forums that I would be sharing the Shout with the world as a new company, Amplified Return Tops.
With ART, I’d like to help the budding yo-yo scene grow. I want to be a part of this sport’s expansion whether that means sponsoring yo-yo events, organizing future contests, or simply starting a club at the school my mother teaches at. My time on the forums has helped guide me to this calling, and I’m stoked to finally see the Shout here. Without YYE there probably wouldn’t be ART, most likely no Shout, or a journey through yo-yoing to share. You probably didn’t need to know half of this, but I couldn’t hold it in. 
