Last time the full performance was available on YouTube next day…
Having watched the whole show last time, I think I’m going to pass this time and only watch Shu’s segment.
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Not a bad idea. Thank you.
Shu was awesome!
If you recorded it, Shu is on around the 1:40 mark. I didn’t start the recording on time, so apologies that it’s not exact.
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I know it’s part of the judges’ schtick to be jerks, but they were taking some real cheap shots at yo-yo 
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You’re right. Thanks for calling me out on it (seriously, not sarcastically). I apologize. I was just kind of amused that I wasn’t censored 
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And it’s already on the YouTubes.
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Another stellar performance.
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I thought that was an offstring yoyo that was gonna fly to the judges faces.
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Dangit I missed it! Did he make it through another round or did they shut him down?
He’s so amazing and his latest performance is great for us yoyoers, but I think the wow factor from his first performance worn out on the audience.
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He is such an awesome ambassador! The trouble with yo-yo is that the audience doesn’t realize The level of difficulty as to what he’s doing without mistake. Just incredible!
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Should be the World Champion every year! No one could outperform his expertise!!!
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Yes he’s in the finals.
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I agree, he is amazing but for a non-yoyoer it’s so hard to appreciate the difficulty of what he’s doing. Unfortunately he didn’t make it into the finale, but was very close!
So if you watch the end of this clip it sounds like Shu moved into the finals.
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This is true for virtually anything high level. At some point every skill gets so technical that you don’t know how difficult it is unless you’ve tried to learn yourself.
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Upon returning to yoyoing after 5 years, I tried to think to myself a while back how to get other people I know into yoyoing. I’d show them 1A tricks and they were always like “Cool but I’ll never have the time or drive to do things like that.” then I feel they start to think of it as super dorky niche thing. I think unresponsive string tricks, though super technical, are uninteresting to normal folk. Then I picked up my old looping throws.
The magic came back to me with the responsive yoyos. It all reminded me exactly how I felt when I was a kid playing with yoyos. The way it returned to my hand was magical. They even made a yoyo ball back in the day with auto returning mechanisms. We were enthralled by the way these things just came right back to our hands! It was literal magic.
I think Shu made amazing choices with how he was going to do his set. Looping or responsive yoyos are what people all know. When you do tricks on a responsive throw it draws them in moreso because it feels more attainable. Walk the dog? Hell yeah. Rock the cradle? You betcha. 500 loops in every direction in 3 minutes? No problem.
So as far as his performance, I think his choices were the best they could possibly be. It seemed the audience was still wowed including the judges, but I could feel some fatigue and questioning of marketability. I don’t think it’s be great for a 1.5 hour vegas show. However it’d be great marketing to sell yoyos. I’m sure they could find a way to make money on it, but not sure the show is designed for that type of production.
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Which part? The judges said good things but to make it to the finale he has to get enough votes, which he didn’t.
I wish he was in the finale though!
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Sorry i guess i totally misunderstood the end of that clip.
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(WARNING TO THE READING IMPAIRED- a huge amount of words in a row may have a negative attitudinal effect on a certain percentage of viewers. If you already know everything you need to know in life, do yourself a favor and stop right now. Go read something else. You have been Warned)
Sadly, singers and dancers most often get the votes and make it to finals.
This is just my personal opinion, but I think the average person can connect on more levels to singers and dancers. That’s just the way it is.
For example if a singer is really good, then the person in the privacy of their own home when they are in shower can try to emulate that person. They can watch the recording over and over and sing along with it like the people do with Rocky horror picture show. They play the tune in their head or they hum it out loud.
When it comes to dancers people can do the same thing. They’re at home in their living room watching the TV they can record it later try to dance along with it. Like the song with the dancers dancing to, they can sing and dance too.
…. No matter how horrible they may sound, if they don’t care, or their tone deaf, or if people are listening and watching them and appreciate a certain nuisance value that they provide, everybody’s happy.
Now we come to yo-yos. As fun as we all think they are to various degrees. No matter how amazing some of the players get, there is just a more limited audience open to appreciate the mad skills that are provided by top shelf yo-yo players appearing on talent shows.
The audience can’t sing along, obviously. No matter how hard they try in this instance, they can hurt their self pretty badly trying to copy cat amazing acrobatic moves that Shu does in his routine. Most non-yours can appreciate what they see Shu doing. They can respect what he’s doing. They might venture into even having a clue how long it took him to get that good. But the rank and file members of the audience whether in person or through the TV or Internet, can’t wrap their heads around what he’s doing whether we like it or not.
Sadly it’s just the nature of man on earth. You can’t get around it. Consider that in the recorded history of man think of how many Centuries singing and dancing go back. In civilized countries and uncivilized countries singing and dancing have been going on for literally centuries and then some.
It’s not just yo-yos that are the problem. Consider just about any skill toy or tool or both.
Here’s a short list: strongman competitions… Archery competitions… Golf tournaments… Pro bowling tournaments… Guys at throw Diablos… Guys suck and jump over buildings with pogo sticks… Guys they can get on a Hayabusa motorcycle and pull a wheelie down the freeway until the run out at their entire tank of gas… sled dog racing… Canadian lumber jack competitions… I could go on for an hour.
What’s the point,? I’m glad you were thinking of asking. Everything I mentioned in the short list are things that some people spent decades getting really really good at. And they’ll win this and they win that. But their audience is often limited. And the ones that do understand can seriously appreciate their accomplishments. But when you get past the awestruck factor, the general public is never going to participate at any higher level in these challenges. So they’re never going to really be able to wrap her head around the complexity of what they see. It’s more like wow can you see that did you see that I can’t believe I saw that that was unbelievable I hope we recorded that I got to see that again boy I could never do that that’s just unbelievable those people are serious wow wow wow.
The bottom line is that only the organizations that are developed and structured to identify and recognize various levels from beginning to championship of whatever mad skills people have in any endeavor, they and the associated audience are going to be the ones that identify who is the best and pass out the awards appropriately.
Talent shows have the flexibility and the potential to recognize anybody that excels at whatever they do. They do have that capability and they do have that option. But you have to remember something about talent shows. They are looking for a viewer market percentage just like any other show. They probably have more people tuning in or coming back to watch higher level singers and dancers either move to the next level for fall flat like the dogs. People eat that up .
We… YoyoLand are primarily amped up with positivity and looking forward to seeing one of the best yoyo players in the world get that ‘Top Talent’ recognition.
Shu Did a great job representing top shelf yoyo skills combined with great dancing, acrobatics, some pyrotechnics and some enjoyable music. He could not do more than he did. Plus he speaks well. He has excellent stage presence. And he’s very charismatic and charming.
He still got excellent nationwide exposure to give many people a glimpse of what serious yo-yo playing looks like. He did an excellent job of promoting himself, his skills and yo-yos as a skill toy and a fun toy.
He will still be a success. He’s certainly not done winning world championships. I have absolutely no doubt about him getting his own show and traveling the world and spreading the word with his unique and amazing form of entertainment.
He’s a great ambassador. He’s a heck of a nice guy. I don’t think the guy has any natural enemies ha ha. I mean does anybody know anybody that doesn’t like Shu?
He was a winner before he appeared on the show. And the fact that he did two outstanding performances supported that he is a winner. Winning the show would’ve been nice, everybody would agree with that. But I think not winning the show has nothing to do with losing.
It has more to do with what people can wrap their heads around. And that is primarily things that earthlings have been doing for centuries, singing and dancing.
Shu Rocks……
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I stopped watching America’s Got Singers quite some time ago. I’m glad to see Shu get some much-deserved recognition, but I’m not surprised he didn’t make it to the final round. Maybe if he had been an amazing singer who threw yoyos during his act…
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