uh… most of my freestyles 
I got in a bad habit of making freestyles that were too difficult so I rarely went clean. Luckily this year I think I improved in that regard and hope to keep improving.
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The string I’ve used exclusively the past couple years is Kitty “Whip”. It’s like Kitty Fat but with a coarser texture to make whip tricks more seamless. As long as you find a string that is the texture, thickness, and whippiness that you enjoy, use that. Most popular strings are really good.
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I’d say Koyo Hashimoto 2023 Japan Nationals 1A Final 5th. Should have won imo, and one of my all time favorite freestyles. I’m sure there’s plenty other underrated ones but that’s the first that comes to mind.
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I think it’s in the tap water.
While I’m practicing a freestyle, after 10-15 minutes of play, during regular life when I’m not practicing, every few days or 2-4 hours of play…? Hard to say, but the string needs to be really fresh during competition practice to keep a consistent feel.
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In terms of skills, 4a helps me improve spacial awareness and eye tracking the yoyo while it’s airborne. 4a is more rewarding than 1a to me, because it’s easier to have few mistakes in 4a. Of the 10 freestyle I did in 2025 (including demos and qualifying rounds), my world 4a semi final was most satisfying because I was actually able to go pretty clean.
It’s hard for me to pinpoint another yoyo as inspiration for the contrast, I just really wanted a yoyo with 50mm width, but also more center weight which the placement of the SS ring accomplishes. And I thought the black and white color would be cool 
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- Chen (the owner’s) professionalism, good treatment to his sponsored players, and care and attention to cultivating younger players (with the W1LD 2030 team). Also I thought the design and build quality of their yoyos were top notch.
- Similarities: have a ball bearing. Differences: wider, more comfortable catch zone, polished anodization, cool color schemes, and sexier.
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I’m not very good at handling it but my best help comes from
- Lots of practice of the freestyle under my belt. On paper that shouldn’t make any difference with nerves. But when I’m a master at the freestyle it makes me more excited to show it, than scared to mess up.
- Positive self-talk during mistakes
- Box breathing 2-3 minutes before stepping on stage, keeps my heart rate lower. Deep breath in the nose (4 seconds), hold breath (4 seconds), exhale (4 seconds), hold breath (4 seconds), repeat.
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I love making a freestyle to music, I want to do it more often. I also like to win. Learning other styles of yoyo is definitely helpful to potentially improve coordination of your non dominant hand, or to control the motion of two objects in unison, it’s not a MUST but it is really fun and helpful to improve your skills through learning an X division.
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Yes, my favorite is the A-RT B7 Grail. Sooooo nice.
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I usually start with a genre, theme, mood, or vibe I’m trying to accomplish, and that narrows it down a bit. And I listen to tons of music and try to look for both characteristics that technically “work” for a freestyle (right tempo, opportunities to choreograph) as well as character and artistic value. And it helps to love the music.
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I had considered shaving my head for a little while but was not seriously considering it until my friend Archie Harrison recommended it. I sought his advice with my outfit / theming of the freestyle and he said shaving my head would be the perfect touch, which I agreed. I told Jenny about the idea two months before nationals. She wasn’t a fan of the idea at first, She said “pleaaaase don’t do it, I love your hair! 
“. I told myself I’ll ask her again next month. A month goes by and I didn’t even need to bring it up again. When she first saw me do the freestyle with the outfit, and she saw the theming and vision for the performance, she said “you have my blessing” and she ended up loving the hair style and encourages me to shave my head whenever I want
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Hence the name with the CONTRASTing colors
- why did you go bald at nats?
- what string do you use?
For the edgy vibes. And to draw interest in the performance before it started. And to try and answer your second question… The creation process and practice process blends together a bit, a lot of the changes or edits I make are during the practicing process. Basically, practicing the freestyle under pressure, or even by myself is the beta test of the freestyle. If you are only in creation mode and don’t “grind it out” and put hundreds of repetitions into it, you won’t know the weaknesses and limitations of the freestyle.
My practice process involves simulating the competing process. Basically, I try to avoid practicing the combos in a vacuum, but rather practicing the whole freestyle start to finish. I do my freestyle 3 or 4 times in a row with 1-2 minute breaks in between. After 3 or 4 I’m too sweaty and need to take a break for 10-15 minutes I envy my high school self when I was able to practice for 1hr+ straight without breaking a sweat. Every time I perform the freestyle I act as if I’m on stage. All the same body movements, recovering from mistakes, if I have a restart or yoyo switch, I keep going. If I make many mistakes in the beginning, too bad, I keep going.
Since I don’t “warm up”, I’ve learned my third run-through of the freestyle is usually the one with the least mistakes, so when I compete I run the freestyle twice and then control my breathing and step on stage. The first two runs act as a warm up.
Serious practice involves putting myself under pressure. I try to do my freestyle in front of friends and family as much as possible, and I give myself one attempt… If I bomb, too bad. Again, I’m trying to simulate the competing experience as much as possible, so I simulate as much as I can.
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I haven’t counted in a while, probably around 150, and that’s heavily downsized, I have sold a lot of yoyos the past few years. My next biggest hobby is probably gaming…? I really dig survival horror games… I love the resident evil series and the last of us. I am soon to play through the silent hill series as well. Jenny (my wife) likes to “backseat game” so we play together
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No, it is not inspired by the zephyr. The Contra (soon to be released) is the exact same dimensions as the contrast, but monometal.
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Well, I’ve only helped design two released yoyos, motive and contrast. I suppose the biggest influence to the motive design was my familiarity with other yoyo designs at the time, I was trying to make something that I thought looked cool. I really liked (and still like) Turning Point yoyos, and I thought inner ring bimetals were cool and under utilized at the time, especially for more angular competition focused yoyos. I thought the combination of angular shape, inner ring, and bubble shaped hub was pretty unique, so I chose that.
You mention “evolution of trick styles”, and boy did that play a factor with the contrast. The tricks have been trending bigger and riskier, so people have been using wider yoyos to try and help with that. While I will admit wider does not inherently make a yoyo better (in many instances it sacrifices enjoyable traits like maneuverability), it can be advantageous to use a wider yoyo, but only if you adjust your trick choice accordingly, some tricks are better suited for a more narrow yoyo, and other tricks are better on a wider yoyo. I knew I wanted to make the plunge into a 50mm yoyo, but wanted to retain some good maneuverability, that’s why I put the SS ring closer to the bearing to help.
I actually barely tried the brass + PC version of the contrast before it was released. All of my practice with the prototypes before nationals was with the SS + POM version. This is because I thought the black and POM would look cool with my greyscale outfit I think both versions are great, brass version is more rim weighted which might be preferable to a lot of people who are used to that feel. It’s more worth my time just to pick a yoyo and start practicing without changing anything. My goal with the contrast was by no means to maximize rim weight.
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too many good options 
in terms of non W1LD yoyos, probably the A-RT Furn or B7 Grail
for W1LD yoyos, contrast
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