Hawai'i no ka 'oi when it comes to yo-yos

By Will Hoover
Advertiser Staff Writer

Maribel Hebron, 12, of Chinatown, practices before her turn at the semifinals of the yo-yo competition at Ala Moana Centerstage. There will be a wild-card event, open to just about anyone, at the shopping center Saturday, followed by the state finals. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser The Hawai'i State Yo-Yo/ Spin Top Final Noon Saturday Ala Moana Center Centerstage Free 947-7097

No one seems to know just why Hawai'i produces the world's best yo-yo talent. Supreme 'ukulele players, sure. Finest hula dancers, absolutely.

But yo-yos?

"It's not like Hawai'i has the most people," said Alan Nagao, owner of High Performance Kites, which sponsors the state yo-yo championships. "And you've got to believe that yo-yo players in some of these states with big populations, like Texas and California, are pretty good.

"But right now, Hawai'i is dominating."

Fact: The membership of Hawai'i's world-famous Team High Performance includes the current two-handed freestyle United States yo-yo champ, Alan Batangan; the current one-handed freestyle U.S. champ, Takumi Sakamoto; the guy who was runner-up to Batangan, Joseph Harris; and the finest female yo-yo player anywhere, Nana Sakamoto (Takumi's sister).

And, adds Nagao, every Hawai'i yo-yo champ since 1996 has gone on to become the national champion of the American Yo-Yo Association.

"One of the problems with the Hawai'i yo-yo competition is that to win, you have to beat all these United States champions," said Nagao. "And if Jennifer shows up, you have to beat a world champion."

That's former THP member and 1997 Hawai'i yo-yo champion Jennifer Baybrook, 20, who took the 1997-98 U.S. national championship before becoming the 1998-99 world yo-yo champion (the first female world yo-yo champ, and only the second person to hold the U.S. and world titles simultaneously).

Yet, says Alex Poole, 14, who was ranked sixth in the world going into the Hawai'i State Yo-Yo/Spin Top Semi Finals earlier this month, just about any of the THP competitors today performs beyond Baybrook's world championship skill level.

Baybrook, who is studying marketing at the University of Hawai'i and these days judges world yo-yo competitions, agrees.

"In like one or two years, the skills jumped to three times the difficulty level," she said. "It's crazy."

Not only are today's yo-yo specialists ripping inside, outside and overhand loops better and faster than ever, they are younger than ever, too. At 17, Baybrook was the youngest world yo-yo champ in history. Now, she says, all the best players are younger than that. Joseph Harris, who some say is the best bet to win Saturday's state championship at the Ala Moana Centerstage, is a mere 13.

As to why so many yo-yo marvels come from Hawai'i, Baybrook says she is as mystified as anyone else.

"I just don't know," she said. "It's very strange.

"You know, the best yo-yo players in the world for the past few years are from Hawai'i and Japan. The current world's champions are the Japanese players. And we are the ones who taught them how to play! But they took it to the next level."

Current world champion Tomoya Kitamura, 16, is a member of Japan's Team High Performance. If that team name sounds familiar, it's because Kitamura and his teammates borrowed it from their Hawai'i mentors.

Their Hawai'i mentors are flattered, but they are also determined to take back the world title this year.

Meanwhile, Nagao thinks he knows why Hawai'i yo-yo players excel.

"Part of it might be that we have an ongoing program here," he said. "Meaning, we have free yo-yo classes. I don't think other parts of the country have that. Our theory here is that the champions teach others how to play yo-yo. They are like our top teachers."

Local yo-yo enthusiasts practice and compete year-round. Many schools have their own yo-yo competitions. Few other places maintain that degree of yo-yo intensity, says Nagao.

The popularity of yo-yos has always been an up-and-down thing in America. Yo-yo competitions were big in the 1930s, they were out by the early 1940s, and they were back again in the 1950s. The last yo-yo resurgence started in the mid-1990s, about the same time Team High Performance began and the American Yo-Yo Association was founded.

Keep in mind, though, that the days of your basic Duncan Yo-Yo are over. Yo-yos today are specialized instruments, employing clutches, transaxles, high-speed roller bearings and other gravity-defying enhancements. The best players have several kinds for different tricks.

"The big yo-yo now on the championship level is the Yomega Raider, which is made out of a bullet-proof glass material called polycarbonate — you know, the stuff they use in bank windows and armored cars," said Nagao. "The gap between the two yo-yo halves can be adjusted to within a thousandth of a inch. It costs about $20."

Throughout June, players competed in regional and state semifinal rounds in hopes of making it to tomorrow's state finals. But just about anyone can show up for tomorrow's wild-card event at noon. The five top competitors in that also will qualify for the finals. About the only requirement is Hawai'i residency and a yo-yo.

The finals will follow the wild-card event. When the spinning's over, and the strings are untangled, one person will be the new Hawai'i yo-yo champion.

"And, if history tells us anything, there's a good chance he — or she — will become the next national champion," Nagao said.

Which accounts for tomorrow's top prize:

"A free flight to the USA Nationals in Chico, California."

The word "yo-yo" is Tagalog, meaning "come, come," and it's known that the toy has been a part of Philippine culture for centuries. But there are artworks depicting yo-yos on vases from ancient Greece.

And the Chinese lay claim to the toy from a thousand years before Christ.

Fact is, nobody knows whence came the yo-yo.

However, we do know the first person to own the word yo-yo: Pedro Flores, who, in the 1920s, started the first company in American that made "yo-yos." In 1932, Donald. F. Duncan Sr., who invented the Eskimo Pie, bought Flores' company and the trademark "Yo-Yo."

Duncan made both the yo-yo and the yo-yo contest famous. For decades he virtually owned America's yo-yo industry. Eventually, Duncan became a victim of his own success. In the mid-1960s he lost the rights to the trademark because the courts ruled that "yo-yo" had become synonymous with the toy, and his company soon filed for bankruptcy.

By then, Duncan was making more money off another innovation of his, the first successfully marketed parking meter.

Among great moments in yo-yo history, the following stand out:

• In 1968, Abbie Hoffman was found in contempt of Congress for "walking the dog" with his yo-yo while testifying before a Capitol committee hearing.
• In 1974, President Nixon played with a yo-yo on the stage of Nashville's Grand Old Opry. Shortly thereafter, he resigned from office.
• In 1980, Mike Caffery patented "the yo-yo with a brain," which facilitated spectacular tricks and led to numerous other yo-yo advances.
• In 1985, space shuttle Discovery astronauts discovered it's not possible to "walk the dog" without the pull of gravity.
• In 1996, national yo-yo champ Alex Garcia of Hawai'i won the first modern yo-yo freestyle event with a technique he pioneered called "Warp Speed." Garcia and his Hawai'i teammates have since been recognized for revolutionizing the yo-yo world.