I love talking about how yoyoers can be not just great at tricks, but great performers. On this week’s episode of my podcast “kill your yoyo” I talk about what I learned about performing magic for real audiences while talking to some of the top professional magicians in the world backstage at the Magic Castle in Hollywood. Give it a listen now to find out how we as yoyoers can use that knowledge to make routines that can entertain other yoyoers as well as the general public.
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As a hobbyist juggler from years ago I’ll second the moral of the story regarding the gap of understanding between performer and audience. The most entertaining and successful juggling performers were/are performers first, jugglers second. Selling a simple trick will be more entertaining than your banger done so fast that nobody except other experts can appreciate it. There is a balance that can be difficult if you want to do something that is entertaining for both lay people and experts because a simple trapeze just isn’t impressive on the competition scene no matter how much you build it up. This probably applies to every skill that can be done as performance. Music fits into this the same way. You have shredder/jazz gods of technicality and then you have pop stars that can barely carry a tune but for some reason people find them entertaining.
I think there are a host of hobbyists that don’t care about performing or being entertaining. We just want to get the endorphin hit of learning or hitting a new trick. It isn’t about being entertaining or even “good.” For many of us mastery and/or self entertainment are the goals, even though the skill is a performance skill. I guess it depends upon your goals.
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I think that last line sums it up. It depends on your goals! However, I think a lot of the time people’s goals are skewed towards hitting bangers rather than becoming a competent performer. In magic there are many many people who’s job title is “professional magician” and in yoyoing there are far far fewer. So many people commit so much time to winning yoyo contests and then they get to the age where they need to start working and they give up yoyoing to get a job. Well, that’s now one less extremely talented person in the community and with them leaves all their yoyo knowlege and ideas.
Being an enthusiast is fine, but imagine how much yoyoing could grow if yoyoers could take their skills, add a little entertainment value, and then become professional performers who can go on tour and work on cruise ships like comedians, jugglers, and magicians. There are a few pro yoyoers out there, but it’s so much less common than in the comedy, magic, and juggling world (where the dream is to make your hobby your career and winning contests comes second to getting paid to do what you love). The concept of a professional yoyoer is not celebrated in our community, but winning contests is. Part of the goal of the podcast is to spread the idea that yoyoing is a performing art and that being a yoyoer who is a performer first and a yoyoer second is not only valid, but extremely cool and has potential as a marketable skill.
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This topic really excites me as an amateur magician I start my show off yoyoing. Glad I came across this post and can’t wait to give it a listen
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Would love to talk magic and yoyos one of these days! Hmu In a PM
At “D i c k e n 's on the Strand” in Galveston last weekend, I saw a juggler balance on a ball while balancing a long pole with a spinning plate on top, all while juggling bowling pin like objects that were on fire.
Wow!
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I wonder why Charles D i c k e n s is redacted?
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Awesome, i know some great jugglers in the Galveston/Houston area
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Fixed it for you. It’s the base word (nickname for Richard) that’s causing it.
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Wow. Thank you for the fix. I never would have thought…
Tuning the word censors to cover all the bases while letting innocent stuff go by is hard.
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Truly one of the most difficult things to get right. Even huge corporations with loads of money and resources like Microsoft can’t get it right (ahem Minecraft Java 1.19.1).
Good thing there are a lot of profanity word lists on Github.
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Then some heckler shouts out “do a flip”.
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