Yo-yo like a pro: Inside the World Yo-Yo Contest in Cleveland

It may not be an Olympic sport yet, but yo-yo play is serious business. Especially in Cleveland this week, where the world’s most skilled yo-yo players are gathering for The World Yo-Yo Contest.

The competition features various styles of yo-yo play, with contestants performing to music. And their skills go way beyond those basic yo-yo tricks like walk-the-dog or break away.

Steve Brown, a U.S. national yo-yo master and the organizer of the World Yo-Yo Contest, says this year’s event features 230 competitors from 27 countries.

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“The closest comparison I could actually draw to it would be figure skating, which yo-yo players are never fond of me drawing that comparison,” Brown says. “But it is very, very similar in that it's very tightly choreographed to music. With yo-yoing, the tricks tend to be a lot more dense. But the scoring system is actually remarkably similar.”

What are the different types of yo-yo play featured in the contest?

“So there's five primary styles. 1A yo-yoing is probably what most people would classically think of as yo-yoing. It's one yo-yo, it's tied to your hand, you're doing the most elaborate, complicated tricks you can.

“2A yo-yoing is two yo-yos. One tied to each hand and it's sort of like fast looping style tricks. 2A is similar. It is two yo-yos. One tied to each hand, but you're actually doing complicated string tricks with both yo-yos at the same time.

“4A is what we also call off-string. The yo-yo is not attached to the yo-yo string. So the players will wrap the loose string around it, throw the yo-yo, catch it back on the string, and then do a lot of moves. It's a lot of like kind of large catches and big body moves and like big high toss kind of stuff.

“And then the final division is 5A, which we also refer to as counterweight, where there's a weight tied to the end of the string that you can actually release in the middle of yo-yo tricks. So you're almost doing tricks with both ends of the string at the same time.”

Now, is it true that you invented that style of yo-yo play called counterweight?

“I did. I managed to come along with an okay idea at exactly the right time and a whole lot of other yo-yo players kind of really took it to heart and have pushed it forward in ways I could not ever have imagined.”

Describe your big move with counterweight yo-yo play. 

“My big kind of stage move is a trick called an aerial, where you would essentially do it around the world, which is a yo-yo trick we're all familiar with. But if you release the counterweight, the around the world continues, you can shoot that thing 30 feet up into the air. It'll just continue doing multiple revolutions, and then as it comes down, you catch the weight and continue playing with the yo-yo.”

What made you fall in love with yo-yoing?  

“I got into yo-yoing in the weirdest way possible. I was living in Tallahassee, Florida. I found myself homeless and unemployed, and I wandered into a kite shop because I saw a ‘help wanted’ sign. I talked to the owner for a few minutes, and he was like, ‘Well, I can give you a job, but you have to know how to yo-yo and how to juggle.’

“And so I said, ‘Fine, I'll learn.’ And he kind of smirked and turned around and went back to the register, and I stole a yo-yo and left. And I went back to the rooftop that I had been sleeping on for the past month at that point, and just started figuring out how to do a handful of basic yo-yo tricks that I sort of vaguely remembered from when I was a kid.

“I went back to that shop a couple weeks later and said, ‘Alright, well, I've learned how to yo-yo, can I have a job now?’ And I ended up, I ended up sitting in the back of his warehouse assembling yo-yos and then, next thing I know, I'm running his cart at the mall during the holidays, and I'm demonstrating yo-yos six, seven, eight hours a day.

“So anytime there weren't customers, I was just practicing tricks, practicing tricks, practicing tricks. That was 29 years ago. And now at this point, I've traveled the world. I've done shows in almost 20 countries. I had a patent for a little while. I developed an entire style of play. I've had dozens of signature models. I manage a yo-yo company and I run the World Yo-Yo Contest.”

If someone wanted to pick up a yo-yo and start yo-yoing but doesn't have any experience, what's your advice? 

“Just make sure you have a good yo-yo. Making sure that you have a good yo-yo really is the difference between success and failure with this.”

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Samantha Raphelson produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Micaela Rodriguez. Allison Hagan adapted it for the web.