Alright. This is for some of the newer people who are wondering what we mean by “Old School” And “New School”
Lots of video links in this btw.
Yoyoing has changed much over the years.
Old school yoyo play can be divided into 2 main groups.
1998-2000, and 2001-2002.
Although to most people those years might seem like that much but yoyoing wise-they are.
1998-2000 was the start of the more modern yoyo boom. It was greatly helped along by a yoyo team called “Team High Performance”
Team High Performance was a yo-yo team originally started in Hawaii by Alan Nagao at his store High Performance Kites. Many talented players like Alex Garcia http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhU_wS1yB5I and Ross Pascual http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGNsbSVlW-E emerged, bringing a new wave of popularity and fast flashy tricks. Team members toured the world, promoting yo-yos in many areas, and it eventually picked up members not from Hawaii. Team members were known for their teal shirts, and were sometimes referred to as the “Teal Army” by others.
THP eventually spawned an off-shoot in Japan called THP Japan, which would be a major part of Bandai’s yo-yo promotions in that country.
The yoyos used back then were mostly Yomega Raiders and they were very responsive.
Two styles were involved in contest. 1A and 2A.
The style back then was focused much on loops and braintwister combos.
And contest had more of a “convention” feel to them, and fun stuff like group performances were done on stage.
This mostly lasted all the way into 2000, although in 2000, the tricks started getting a bit more technical. More tricks involving different rolls onto string segments and more technical sidestyle tricks came around.
2001 entered a great time in the world of yoyoing.
Thanks to so many revolutionary players like Jason Lee
Gary Longoria
Paul Escolar and others
The tricks involved many buckets, and sidestyle mach five holds. Tricks started getting more technical and players tried hard to create new revolutionary tricks.
Freehand 1s and Superyo Renegades were the most widely used yoyos of that time.
unresponsive yoyoing slowly creeped its way into 2002 and tricks got even more technical.
FH1s and gades were still widely used but other yoyos like the Spintastics Eclipse were also used.
So now we leave the age of “old school” play and enter “new school”
We can divide this into 2 groups also: 2003-2005 and 2006 to now.
2003 was a great year. Unresponsive play was in making responsive play pretty much dissapear. Whips and slacks came around as well as cool suicides.
A crazy freestyle from 2003 was Johnnie Delvalles worlds 1A freestyle.
Truly revolutionary.
2003 also started the years of other divisions after 1A and 2A.
3A,4A and 5A divisons were added to contest.
2004 showed many great players and many great yoyo vids were made.
Takeshi and Ignitus were great film makers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNbAURd0_gU
More yoyo contest started popping up around making yoyoing more popular.
Yoyojam and Buzzon yoyos were widely used but much more variety was being used.
2005 really started showing lots of tech tricks in not only 1A, but other styles as well.
Players like Yuuki Spencer and Augie Fash came in full force at contest and just blew peoples minds.
Now we go into 2006-to now.
Yoyo factory released hubstack yoyos like the G5 and the 888, and that allowed players to try new things in their yoyoing.
Paul Han made whip and slack combos widely popular .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmVCUPzoEQI
And “tech” 5A came around.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crGuQiGlIpY
1A found itself split into two kind of styles. Flashy, and tech.
Flashy being:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rTgJcpAoz8
Tech being: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teLvOpsXNiI
Still many yoyos are being used. Such a variety.
Some new players emerged and totally wowed us all.
Riga
David Ung
John Chow
And Ryan Gee
And Kevin Eulalia
And others who just seem to come out of nowhere!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAZl7Rj--s8
For 2008 especially, many of the players from long ago have returned.
Like Kalani Bergdorf
It is now 2009, and who knows what will happen, I am seeing lots of John Ando influenced combos these days.
Wherever yoyoing goes, I am sure to stay with it!
J.
