Hello everyone! I’ve seen some recent chatter about The Traveling Throw so I figured I would take some time to swing by, introduce myself, and possibly clear some things up. First of all my name is Justin Petty and I started this project a few months ago by accident when I tried to give away the yoyo I started with in hopes someone else would be introduced to this wonderfully activity/community. I offered up my Sage to someone on reddit just getting started with the only stipulation being they pass the yoyo on after they were done; but this quickly evolved into the idea of The Traveling Throw. A beginner or intermediate thrower would receive the yoyo and have it for one month in which they would film their progress before sending it on to the next person. I started the blog to chronicle the yoyo’s journey from beginner to beginner; we would watch new throwers develop their skills and follow the yoyo around the world. It didn’t take long for some of the more experienced throwers to take interest in the project so I reached out to One Drop and they agreed to provide a Benchmark for us to use for our new “Seasoned Traveler” project. As more and more people expressed interest in the project I decided to bring on a longtime friend of mine, Grant Frazier, to head up social media; he was also just getting started with throwing so this was a perfect opportunity to add another Sage to the project. As we have continued to grow we have added a few more yoyos and are currently at 5, 4 Sages and 1 Benchmark.
A few of you have mentioned that you have been following the project and were wondering where the Seasoned Traveler is right now. The second participant took a little longer with the throw since he was waiting for a local event to film at. I’ve been in constant contact with him and he finished filming this weekend and has since shipped the throw off to the third participant. We should be seeing his video shortly. Going forward I will be putting a two week time limit on the Seasoned Traveler project, this should give everyone adequate time to gather all the footage they need and ship the yoyo to the next person.
As far as the “what happens if the yoyo is lost/stolen/damaged” thing goes; I would love to believe that everyone in our community is honest and trustworthy… but we all know that’s unfortunately not the case; inevitably there will be one bad apple that wants to ruin things. If/when this comes up we will address it and the project will continue; we have contingency plans in place. All participants are screened by me before being added to the list; I will not add anyone to the list that I’m not comfortable with. This project is very personal to me and I want to ensure its success, I will not allow someone to take advantage of me or our community.
I’ve also heard someone people on yye wanting to start their own version of the project. I have no issues with someone doing their own thing; however it was never my intention to limit The Traveling Throw to reddit only. I would love to have you guys involved in the project too, if you or someone you know might be interested in joining either of the projects please just shoot me a PM or an email (Justin@thetravelingthrow.com) I’d love to go over details or answer any questions you might have about the project. You can also feel free to ask any general questions about the project here in this thread.
Like I said before, we currently have 5 yoyos in circulation. I believe the 4 Sages are enough to cover the beginner/intermediate throwers for now; but the list for the Seasoned Traveler is starting to get pretty long and we’re in the process of looking for ways to get something in your hands sooner. I’ve had throwers offer to donate yoyos from their personal collection; but I would much prefer the yoyos to come from the manufactures themselves, similar to how One Drop helped us out. If anyone is involved with or knows someone involved with any companies that would like to help out with providing additional yoyos for the project please let me know. While I love One Drop and am thankful for everything they have done for the project, I don’t want this to be only about one manufacture. The project is about generating interest in our hobby/sport. My dream would be to have several different yoyos from different companies all traveling the world to help spread the word about our incredible community.
Grant and I have been working hard to evolve our vision into something that everyone will want to follow and participate in. We have some really cool things in the works that I’m not going to discuss till we work out all the details, but I assure you we are both incredibly committed to making the project a success. So hopefully this answered some of the questions you may have had, but like I said please feel free to ask more and don’t forget to follow the project
Thanks,
Justin
www.thetravelingthrow.com
Twitter: @travelingthrow
Instagram: @thetravelingthrow