school talent shows coming up fast and still deciding if i should you and what song to use? What do you think?
For the song, I would just go with your personal favorite song (as long as it’s appropriate of course)
For the yo-yo, if you have one or can purchase one soon I would get the Chief. It’s great for freestyles 
http://youtu.be/64liF2VuLxI
http://youtu.be/vxIOUJ7by6U
http://youtu.be/6wk2yLXmHQ8
http://youtu.be/qtD1IpH5a5Q
http://youtu.be/gH2efAcmBQM
http://youtu.be/-lszdEZ0-74
-There is quite a few ideas.
want a chief but i’m broke haha but i got a yoyo in mind
Good luck
thank you i like em ill choose one i can yoyo too or just pick one of my own
Its all about the show really, most people can’t tell if you mess up. A flashy yoyo, maybe led or glowing the dark would look good, and dubstep is pretty good to yoyo to. Overall, its all performance, so give the spectators a show, really dramatic tricks. If you know some, do some off-string, looks very impressive. I recently was in a talent show, and I got crickets for my hardest combo, and loud applause for messing up on eli hops. ???
that made me lol.
haha wow really messing up on eli hops?!! ahah and yeah i think i might do dubstep or somthing chill but i dont know
I chose dubstep because I thought the crowd would like it, and they did, except my “kill-dubstep” friend who hates it. No surprise there really. And yeah, its weird, audiences sometimes just like random tricks that are not really that hard
Who likes Dubstep? Anyway, a fun song would something be like Green Day-When I come around
Nonyoyoer’s can’t follow most long combos, it all looks the same to them. Basic is better.
Its like if you watch ice skating, all the spins look the same even though there are many different types. If you don’t know it, it is all the same.
-Eli Hops
-Boingy Boingy
-Rock the Baby into dizzy baby
-Double Wrist whips
-Gyro Flop (a must)
-Walk the dog
Its easy to us, but to everyone else they want to see what they know. Start off easy and then go to intermediate at most. Trust me, ladder escapes will not be as impressive as matrix.
Off sting is super impressive to nonyoyoer’s too, if its an option.
I agree,
Gyro Flops are a must, people really don’t expect it.
Also thumb grinds are one of my favourite and people usually jaw drop when they see it.
Suicides are good to do though they are risky if you are not consistent.
Slack is also a idea since most people would rather see that than messing around with say a ladder escape.
Good luck.
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Everyone loved it when I brushed my shoulder off during my talent show performance. Some people told me after that it “oozed swag”.
Kwijibo might also be a good trick to incorporate. It has cool hops and isnt too hard to do but is very visually entertaining. And the most applauded tricks Ive seen myself do are Mach 5 and Eli Hops
Basic tricks are the way to go. Tech is boring even to most yoyoers so stick to basics :]
If you can do 2A or 4A then much better! Non yoyoers like seeing two yoyos in action at once and more so about seeing the yoyo away from the string 
Abit unrelated, but doing flashy tricks 'cause it appeals the non-yoyo audience more is one of the main reasons why Mickey doesn’t do a lot of tech in his freestyles [and yet still gets criticized for using the same tricks over and over (but that’s another story)]. He said once in YoYoRadio that he wants/likes to make freestyles that are visually appealing on contests and use that same exact freestyle for gigs for non-yoyo crowd.
Showmanship is key. Just watch how Mickey presents himself on stage.
And if you want to give out the art of yoyo, check out Black, as well
I agree, visual, super easy, but also important is the direction of the show itself. Does it build, or have something to it besides, “look at all of these tricks”? For instance if you go out and lay down your flashiest tricks first, then the audience will see everything else in relation to that and may be let down.
I once did a talent show at the same time I was getting ready to enter ladder for the first time. The audience was an even mix of adults and kids. At work I had been sneaking in yoyo practice on breaks and lunch, so I played off on that theme.
I walked on stage after being announced as YoYo Man, dressed in my business casual clothes and with a yoyo hidden in my hand. I pretended to be sneaking off on a yoyo break and looking around to make sure no one was watching.
Then I slipped on my shades and put my earbuds in. Then looking around one more time, I pushed the play button on my MP3 player, to which the audience could suddenly hear Dave Brubeck’s Take Five over the sound sytem. It’s an old jazz tune and I started getting into the music, and then finally threw a sleeper. (Now keep in mind that most people haven’t seen a modern yoyo and don’t understand that it can sleep much longer than a Duncan butterfly.) I just let it spin for a short bit while getting into the music. Then I tugged it to look like I was trying to get it back up, but of course it just sat there at the end of the string. I gave a few more increasingly desperate tugs to try to get the yoyo back up, but it still wouldn’t. Now the audience was smiling like “oops.” at which point I did a simple bind to get it up. I actually got a small reaction out of that alone. (So far, all I have done trickwise is nothing really, but the audience is already hooked into the story and ready to see more.)
Like I said, I was working on the trick ladder at the time, so all I did was work my way up the ladder one simple trick after another. To keep the story going, I kept getting into the music when I landed the trick and occasionally would glance sideways to still make sure “no one was watching.” I acted all excited when I landed the trapeze.
The audience originally sees someone who can’t get the yoyo to return. Then they start cheering when I land easy tricks, because it appears difficult for me. They get a good variety of tricks that don’t all look like the same impossible crazy string tricks. By the time I get to the stuff that was actually difficult for me at the time, it begins to seem like I am doing crazy impossible stuff, but they can appreciate the difficulty of it because they had just seen what a minute ago looked a very hard trick, but could see this was even worse.
During the middle there is a drum solo which I edited down, but kept in a good section to which I featured Mach 5, like it was something special, which fit in with the solo. At the end, I finished with some Lindy Loops that fit with the music, and bound the yoyo timed to the last note. I took the ear buds out, put the shades away and “snuck back to work.”
It was so simple, trickwise, but it killed. The point is it was successful in that it had direction and they could see that the whole thing had a bit of a reason or story behind it.
Take a look at:
here is some advice for perfoming a jaw-dropping cool show
For the openings,get a slow melody with some arm wrap like kengo kido…also you can try some grinding or gyro stuffs
keep in mind that do these tricks with huge move as you can.
then give out some string trick you used to do,do it like you are flying to another world,let your people get fascinated with you.
next you need some hopping, variations of hopping that constantly change direction will surely make a stir.
again give some string tricks in another style and finally try some laceration and whip if you can,behind back or horizontal is also a good choice,but you may get high miss for trying this.
One thing that I noticed at CalStates and I have to say I have also seen this in the many, many, MANY yoyo performance videos I’ve watched:
The music has NO tie-in with the performance. It’s merely a music bed.
Let’s take Jayyo at CalStates 2012 for an example of the good kind, for what I can recall of his 2A performance. Whatever criticisms you have of Jayyo, cram it for a bit.
His performance was clearly driven by the music, especially the beginning. Sorry, I can’t say more, I haven’t slept due to dealing with more family drama(another family member died, but he was like 90, so he lived a good long life).
Take performers like Guy Wright at CalStates 2012, where everything was about smooth and flow, making what he did look absolutely effortless AND was clearly inspired and influenced by the music chosen. With the new judging criteria, performers such as Guy Wright atually stand a decent chance of getting some of the accolades they deserve.
As MattB shows, there’s a missing element. But, in yoyo contests, outside of the AP divisions, time and other limitations doesn’t give one the freendom needed to really put on a memorable performance. He’s approaching this from an artistic point of view, to tell a story without actually saying a word. It’s like “an inside look at the life of a yo-yo’er”… a whole theme of sneaking out, but then letting the audience IN on how things have changed and how things are now, and then into a “stolen practice session”, before having to pocket the yo-yo and return to the cubicle farm. And Take 5 is a kick-butt song and if you haven’t listened to it, you SHOULD. Serious. Real. Legit. MUSIC!
Talent shows allow this because the rules are not the same as a yoyo contest.
Let’s face it, a lot of players can just stand there and bang out tricks at break-neck speed. I swear, Mickey throws so fast he should be wearing a seat-belt on stage. Yet, he’s one of the few who is laying them down fast, but knows how to break it up. He also chooses music or makes mixes that cater to what he is trying to accomplish. He goes slow at the slow parts, he goes fast as the fast parts.
You’ll find the better players try to find that happy balance between music and trick selection and placement. There should be a “where, how and why” aspect to many elements. If more people would take advantage of the potential for artistic expression, it would help attract more to the world of yoyo.
I saw many amazing performances at CalStates. However, Guy Wright’s smooth as silk performance will remain the most memorable to me. That right there makes it look like anyone can yoyo as it made it look so effortless, relaxed and comfortable, as if he didn’t even need to watch his hands. The music was soft, easy and flowy, like his performance. And yet, he didn’t place. I’d never seen him perform before except for a couple of videos. An amazing show with a theme that went ideal with the music.
Also, keep in mind, talent contests aren’t for “yoyo people”, they are variety shows. The audience won’t care about much of the technical stuff until you bust into something that recognize. Audiences love silly things like walk the dog and rock the baby as they know those. Eli Hops are big and flashy, people expect them but don’t know what they are. They love Mach 5 and Gyro flops. They love boingy-boing. Heck, they’ll appreciate trapeze, trapeze and bro and double or triple or nothing, or even rewind, but Rewind starts to get too busy for them. If you can throw some towers in or shapes and patterns, the audience will love seeing you get in and out of those. Above all, come up with a show, not just banging tricks out with music underneath it. Keep the audience engaged even if that means you need to go shorter than your allotted time. 3 minutes can be a lifetime.