The past months have been super busy with all the contests and business developments going on. The Osu Kannon store is humming along and the guys are gearing up for the World Yo-Yo Contest in Florida. Of course, in the meantime, we're continuing to update our stock with the latest and greatest, check out our New Items Page to see the most recent additions to our inventory. We've even got some Japan first releases, like the new Japan Technology Rera



One of our new products is the YoYoJam Destiny, Takeshi Matsuura's 2nd signature model. To show off the new yo-yo's chops, YoYoJam has put together a clip video of Matsuura throwing the Destiny around:



We also got a visit from Terry (Shingo Terada), 2001 X-division world champion. He stayed for the night and we put together a special clip video for him. Check it out:

We've made two new REWIND clip videos... without any real underlying theme, other than "hey, let's shoot some clip videos!"

Both were shot by Hiro, and edited together by Shinya. Give them a look

The first is Osuka's younger brother, Yo-Yo Performer Naoto, who came to play the other day. The video is also up on Naoto's blog.

>>NAOTO OKADA Promo Video


Obviously, the second is of our own Shinya Kido. The clip is also up on yoyonews.jp

>>SHINYA KIDO Promo Video


Lastly, a special treat, our friend BLACK just recently spoke at the TEDxTokyo event about Yo-Yos and pursuing your dreams. In English!

>>TEDxTokyo - Black - A Yo-Yo Story

Touya Kobayashi is a long-time customer and young yo-yo player, from Iwakura. He's been coming to our yo-yo club since we first started it last year, and has really gotten stuck on yo-yo. In April, he got second at the Hyper Yo-Yo Festival '11 SPRING Grand Cross Prix, and a few days later, won our Long Sleeper Contest at the store, winning himself a golden Starfly.


Also, he's going to be on TV. If you came to our last Iwakura Yo-Yo Club meeting, you probably noticed the camera crew...

The show is NHK's Colorful. Touya's segment aired on May 21st from 6:35PM. You can see a teaser segment here. On the Colorful Blog, Touya named our Shinya as someone he looks up to! We'll try to find a way to share the broadcast with everyone.

The other day, Hiro and Jun went to visit Mickey in the hospital.

Last month, if you were at 44CLASH you might remember that he wasn't feeling too well the whole time, so he went to the doctor when he got home. They diagnosed him with pneumonia and made him check in! Apparently he had up to 2 liters of excess fluid drained from his body (ew!), and showed the guys his surgery scars. Looked painful. It's hard for him to practice, so he's just taking it easy for now. The guys brought him some manga to read and pass the time.

We hope he recovers quickly and starts practicing again soon! Looking forward to his next competition performance.

We have some exclusive footage from the perspective of Team YoYoFactory's new rising star, Gentry Stein!

Hiro took the headcam with him to Chico for the National Yo-Yo Contest, and after the event Hiro tracked down young Gentry and affixed the camera to his head so we can all get a better look at how he plays. He's throwing a North Star in the video. Exclusive world premiere right here:

>> NEW CAMERA09 - 2010 Chico Yo-Yo Club, Gentry Stein


Gentry is a Chico native, and just entered Team YoYoFactory this year at the tender age of 14. At the recent Nationals, Gentry stood shoulder to shoulder with veterans like Yuuki Spencer and Eric Koloski, and got 4th place! Here's a video of his freestyle (using a Genesis):

>> YoYoFactory Presents: Gentry Stein USA National YoYo Contest 4th place


He's so serious but every once in a while you can see that he's really enjoying himself up there. His trick selection, execution, combos and action moves made for a well-balanced freestyle, in our opinion. Hiro used to coach Gentry at the Chico Yo-Yo Club, and has always watched with great pride his rapid development as a yo-yo player. YYF has also put up a clip video of Gentry (again using a Genesis):

>> YoYoFactory Presents: Gentry Stein


He's the personification of practice makes perfect; you may watch the video several times before you realize that he's performing the same trick in different places, but with the same speed and form, so when they're edited together, it looks like the same combo.

We're all looking forward to see what he brings to next year's World Contest.

The first weekend of this month, we went to the Daidougei World Cup in Shizuoka to cheer on our yo-yo friends BlackRay (Black and Rei Iwakura teaming up for a collaboration performance) and Ryo Yabe. The streets were packed with performers and onlookers, and all the performances we saw were very impressive!

There's a ton of footage of the event up on Youtube.


Before we headed to the event, we had two visitors from Osaka, Takuma Yamamoto and Yasushi Furukawa, both 2A World Champions (2008 and 2010, respectively). Yasushi recently joined Team YoYoJam.

>>2008 2A World Champion - Takuma Yamamoto

>>2010 2A World Champion - Yasushi Furukawa

Hiro kidnapped them to shoot 2A trick videos and spent all afternoon shooting over 100 different tricks. You can check them out on Yo-Yo.jp's trick page HERE!!!

You can also check out the youtube channel they set up for the videos here: www.youtube.com/user/yoyotricklist

Most of them are up already, but there were so many videos, we're still working on them. Check back again soon!

Shinya Kido, yo-yo player.
It's probably not necessary to introduce our own staff member! He recently traveled to Tokyo to shoot his own PV for his signature Sleipnir. Give it a look.

yoyonews.jp has the high quality version, or you can go to its youtube page. leave a comment if you like it!
Shinya has written a little bit about the video in his blog (sorry, it's in Japanese!)

Last weekend, Jun was in Tokyo and paid a visit to Takeshi Matsuura. It goes without saying that Takeshi is a two-time (and current reigning) 5A World Champ. For those who haven't seen his 2010 freestyle, where have you been!?

 

From Jun's post:

He's never without a yo-yo, and is constantly practicing some amazing tricks, many of which haven't been seen at competitions yet.

A full trophy case rests in the living room, displaying his amazing awards from national and international contests. The other day, the mayor paid him a courtesy call. You can read about it here or here. (sorry, the articles are in Japanese)

His family treated me to some homemade dinner. The main course was green curry, delicious! Thanks mom! After dinner I hung out with Takeshi some more; I intended only to stay a couple hours but ended up barely making it on the last train back home! Because it's his default state to work hard, I don't think Takeshi realizes just how hard he practices, but it really is impressive, and I gotta give him props. Someone somewhere said that it's the players that practice the most that become world champions, and young Takeshi is certainly proof of that! I'm really motivated to practice hard now! We should all have such a strong drive, it's the only way to get any better!

Special thanks to Takeshi Matsuura, his sister and their parents for welcoming me into their home (and feeding me).

- Jun

Allllso, we got some more goodies over the past few days, but I thought it'd be bad form to keep doing new item posts and clogging up everyone's feeds every time we get some new stock in...

The YoYoJam PHENOMizm and Equinox went on sale last weekend and sold out with a quickness, no surprise there!

New yo-yo cases came in from My-tho-logy, with PHENOM logos printed on them (in multi-color or blue). This bag may make you nostalgiac for the BC Yo-Yo cases from about 10 years ago... check em out here

Oxygene sent us some new OXY5's to replenish our stock. These are really cool yo-yos, and one of the few full metal models with an adjustable gap.


YoYoFactory dropped the new regular version Rockstar. The regular logo is neat, the stars are actually made from diamond shapes.  In case you missed the Shaqler version released a couple weeks ago, now's your chance to grab a full metal Protostar. All four colors are acid-washed, even the blue (though you have to look closely for it).

Also fresh from YYF, the new Yuukstas. Also all in acid wash, the orange is more vivid and the blue/green color is new.

Lastly, we also got new G5 Kits and Z-stacks from YYF. Don't let the name fool you, the G5 kit is compatible with any YYF hubstack model.