@ Greg,
Eh, to each his own I suppose. I try to keep a spare cheapo for my nephews when they come over so they don’t ruin my more expensive pieces. To me, my throws aren’t just toys. They are a considerable investment for my expendable income and I treat them as such.
I would like to point out that I am not saying you treat your throws in negative ways purposely, or at all for that matter, but translation and attitude can get lost in the internet.
What I am saying is if you sent Jesse to nationals and paid all that money for him to try and win, would you be happy and accept if he did that on stage?
This wasnt nats, and there obviously wasnt an expectation of him winning.
Jesse isn’t a world champ yet. But we have also had conversations where he is going to focusing on new concepts onstage and not trying to just do tricks that score well. Doesn’t change what I pay for contests. With that said if Jesse created this press I wouldn’t care. It’s also not his personality like it is jensens.
And I dont think Jensen was sent there to try and win. I don’t think Chris said hey I’ll send you to BAC if you try to win. Jensen did his job keep the talk about CLYW.
Do we really want it to get to that point?
Those sports you mention have the main focus on contest and placings. The sports in their entirety are all about training to win, even casual playing, it’s about the competition. But do we want yoyoing to get to the same point? The way I see it, if it does turn out that way, we would be placing the innovators and video showcase players on a lower level than contest players, because the focus would be competition. And I’m sorry but a world where Mikhail Talabut is considered lower than who wins worlds that year is not a fair or fun world to me.
He could have actually if he tried.
World champ or not, he is a yoyoer who was sent to a contest…I’m sure he wasn’t sent there to do that, at least try. No one competes at a contest without the intent to win, if they didn’t competitions wouldn’t exist in anything. I don’t personally know Jensen but that to me is unacceptable and a slap in the face to the people I’ve said. That’s my personal opinion and I guess others are fine with it but to me and a bunch of others it’s kind of disrespectful to do that.
Any publicity is good publicity I suppose.
I’ve never really been a fan of clyw gasp, I know but this whole ordeal has pretty much solidified my attitude toward the brand.
As far as I’m concerned, I want competitive yoyoing everywhere to be like competitive yoyoing in most Asian countries. I want it to become serious business.
And no, Jensen did not keep the talk about CLYW, Jensen keeps the talk about Jensen.
Even in Asian countries its not all fierce competition only. Look at Simpson Wong who I posted earlier.
And yes, we talk about Jensen, who is under CLYW, thus publicity. When Yuuki won worlds in 07, we talked about Yuuki, which led to Yoyofactory indirectly. Same deal.
There’s a big difference between Simpson and Jensen. Simpson tries to be funny while doing his best.
And I don’t think people confuse players with sponsors, here, all I’ve read about CLYW in more than 100 posts is that they may have been disappointed, but actually not, because, well, CLYW is a friendly familly, which I can totally understand and have nothing against.
Pretty sure I was the one who brought up CLYW and most people aren’t associating this circumstance with them. Jensen wasn’t even wearing a team shirt or anything to give that company exposure.
There are things like rec games and the Harlem Globetrotters.
Yomagic, sure there’s a difference. But you’re making the false assumption that at a yoyo contest every person is scrambling to win. As mentioned by a competitive yoyoer already on this thread, most of them don’t have that same drive. By and large, they want to have fun. These ‘expectations’ of yours are also a fabrication. Chris and many of the spectators had no expectation that Jensen would go up there and rip everyone a new one. They expected to see a unique performance and they got one. Not my favourite by a long shot, but not at all out of “expectations” for him. And no, I don’t think it’s as competitive or as much a sport as anything else:
You’re at a company picnic doing a parent-child 3-legged race. Ostensibly, you are at the start line because you want to try to win. But if you don’t win and still have fun, you’re doing it right. If the parent or child has a fit about not having won, they’re doing it wrong and people will just watch and shake their heads in dismay that they missed the point. Not all competitions are the same, and some do not have winning as the absolute irrefutable goal.
I’m not saying competitive yoyoing is as frivolous as the 3-legged race. I’m saying it’s somewhere in the middle between that and the NASCAR/NBA comparison. Scope and intent absolutely matter. When people treat yoyo competitions with the gravity of World Cup soccer, I’m watching and shaking my head in dismay that they’ve missed the point of yoyo.
Philip, exactly! Thankfully.
Jmosh: if you don’t see letting a little old lady have a joyful moment in her day as preferable to the alternative, we definitely have to agree to disagree about our approach to yoyo. 
I didn’t HAVE another yoyo with me (and I’m not in the habit of bringing two yoyos around with me) so I offered her what I had. I will honestly admit that if I HAD two yoyos with me, I would have let her throw whichever was the less pristine or less expensive of the two. Unless she then asked, “I really like THAT one… can I try it?”
Yoyos are almost never an investment in terms of actual value. They’re an investment in terms of your enjoyment of them, and I totally enjoyed watching her face light up with a smile as I agreed to let her try it out. I’ve done the same with kids before, too. I do not do the same with kids that act self-entitled about it, but if they’re genuinely curious and polite I absolutely do.
Just to add an extra thought out there: Jensen is neither sponsored nor employed by CLYW at the moment. There is certainly a relationship there, though.
All points about anybody not making it out of prelims are moot because they where not good enough to make it out of prelims. They have only themselves to blame. Doesn’t matter how they feel or how much money spent, hand to know that was the risk, and a high one at bac. The best of the best don’t make finals most of the time.
If you don’t like him doing that go ahead and beat him next time and keep him from finals. It is that easy. Oh yeah, its not because he will put you down like a rabid dog.
I’d agree with you, but he was seeded, then this does not apply
he was seeded. A lot of undeserving players have been in finals because of that.
When two teams play a game against each other is it not their goal to win? Lets say the Broncos(top competitors with legitimate chances to win) play the Jaguars (everyone else, "the normal competitor). Everyone knows that the Broncos are going to win before the game starts, just because the broncos are so much better than the Jaguars and even they know it. Do the jaguars not show up or forfeit the game? I don’t think so, they go and try to win. Even though deep down they know they have no shot at winning the game.
Think about it in that aspect to yoyoing. Everyone who goes and does a prelim or freestyle all wanted to win. They compete to win/to be the best, that is the purpose of competition. Even if they know they have no shot in winning they still go up and give their best to at least try and win. I’m sure he wasn’t sent all the way to California to do that freestyle. He is obviously someone who doesn’t take anything serious and makes a mockery of that whole contest. I’m not saying Jensen was going to win or not but to at least put an effort would’ve been better.
Not everyone yoyos for the same reason. Some people like the competitive factor and do it for that rather than the fun. It may be for fun for you and me but just be another tool to beat others for someone else.
A freestyle is more of a piece of Art than a competitive sport.
I may be cheap or not but I’m sure you wouldn’t be happy spending that money expecting him to go up and compete and he does that. There is AP for “Artistic Performances”, the competitive divisions are there for the competitive factor, not really the art of it. It isn’t based off the art of it, they are judged on the actual yoyoing.
