In-Depth Post #6: The Last Knocks and Scratches


In the last month of In-Depth, my skills, knowledge, and natural abilities are all coming together. Now more than ever, I feel that De bono’s ideas surrounding concepts and alternatives have helped guide me through the final stages of In-Depth. Therefore, instead of having my ‘Beautiful Mind’ section at the end, they will be integrated into my post as a whole.

Watch Some yoyoing as well: Progress

Yomania: yoyo tricks and reviews — Everything related to yoyoing!

Over Spring Break I continued working on my yoyo skills as per usual. I’ll walk somewhere and yoyo on the way, yoyo at nighttime and listen to music, or yoyo in front of the TV (And try not to hit it), the fact being, I’ve continued yoyoing and improving. I feel that some of my most significant improvements have come from these last few weeks, the first being designing my own yoyo trick.

Creating my own yoyo trick was a great example of how De bono explains concepts. Yoyo tricks, after all, are exactly that. They are concepts and different people’s ideas that get turned into something physical. When people are creating a trick, they might have an idea of what it might be, but executing and refining the trick is the application of the concept. The trick I created is called Bail Out, and you can see me perform it during my progress video as well as it being the last trick in the video. The interesting thing about Bail Out is that I came up with it through a mistake. I was trying a trick called Double or Nothing, and I messed up the trick by catching it on the wrong string. I fooled around with my yoyo and tried some hand movements, and just like that, I created a new trick. I called it Bail Out because I’m ‘bailing myself out’ of what would’ve been a mistake. When I first was messing around and basically freestyle yoyoing (no specific tricks and just random motions) the concept came into my head. I realized I could turn my mistake into something cool and impressive, and with trial and error, I did exactly that. I ended up showing my mentor during one of our meetings and taught Nolan how to do it as well. Both of us were impressed I could create my own trick, and I’ll be integrating it into my final performance. It goes to show you how mistakes can be a good thing, and how concepts are crucial to the development of anything, yoyo tricks included

All in all, my In-Depth has been going better than ever. I have continued my research and knowledge expansion of yoyoing. Specifically, I’ve been researching the World Championships of Yoyoing and how they work. The competition is a complex event more similar to a hip-hop competition than any other sport. Each competitor creates their own ‘routine’ with their yoyo and shows off all the skills they have. they’re judged on originality, complexity, space use, music, and so much more. The performances can be long and quite tiring, and obviously, they take a lot of skill. (See Build an Epic Routine Video)

You’ll also see a video called the 26 Levels of Yoyoing. Personally, I can get up to level 13, and for someone who has not been yoyoing for too long, I’m impressed with myself. The video also does a great job explaining how tricks build off each other, and I’d recommend watching it for anyone starting to yoyo. The video touches on De bono’s ideas about alternatives in a very interesting way. Alternatives are great because they provide additional insight, a different perspective, and flexibility to anything. Specifically for yoyoing, the idea of alternatives is critical as you start learning more tricks. You learn that there really is no one way of yoyoing. I talked about this with my mentor when I learned a new trick. It is all about flexibility and realizing that alternative ways to execute tricks do exist and could potentially be even better than the original. There is a general idea, but endless different ways to execute it. In yoyoing, the creative effort to generate alternatives appears the most. While this is a very yoyo specific idea on alternatives I can be applied to everything else as well. For me, its always about keeping an open mind with people, ideas, mentors, teachers, yourself, and everything around you.

I’m also happy to announce I’ve met and passed every single Goal I made for In-Depth. I thoroughly understand how yoyos work, the types of yoyos, the use of yoyos, and their components. I understand the basic history of yoyoing and how it has changed and evolved into the sport it is today from its origins in the 80’s and 90’s. I also know way more than 20 tricks that I can perform and explain, and lastly, I’ve created my own trick. Just cause I’ve met my goals doesn’t mean I’m finished. I have to put all of this skill and knowledge together for my final presentation, and I hope to keep adding to it in the time I have before May.

One thing really stuck out to me over these past couple of weeks. Yoyoing isn’t just a toy or a sport. There is a whole community behind it. Yoyoing came from a craze in the 90’s to complex engineering, aerodynamics research, creativity, competition, and fun. On the surface, it doesn’t seem like much, but there is so much more to explore.

I want to thank everyone who has helped me through my In-Depth, Nolan especially, and I can’t wait to show off all my improvement in my final presentation. Don’t Bail Out just yet…

Research:

YOYO Championships

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