Happy 5A May!

A long-ass time ago, I created an entirely new style of yoyoing called “counterweight” yoyoing. Instead of tying the string to your finger, you tie it to a counterweight which you can hold and release while doing tricks with the yoyo. In 1999 it was a stupid idea that I had; in 2000 it was allowed at contests in the “X Division”, a clearinghouse for weird shit that didn’t belong in the normal divisions, and in 2003 it was granted its own division under the title “5A”. You can learn more about it here, you can see the first time it was performed in public here, and you can see the current 5A World Champion here, which is a very fast history lesson of how far the style has come.

After I burned out and quit working for Duncan, I was sponsored for several years by YoYoFactory and toured a bit for them. They’re the ones who had the idea for “5A May”, a full month of promotion dedicated to counterweight-style yoyoing. At the time, the patent was still active and Duncan Toys didn’t want anyone promoting it but them. They weren’t actually doing any promotion of it themselves at the time, which caused a bit of a stink, but it was enough both to legally keep YoYoFactory from doing it and also put me off my own creation for many years. I was already feeling a little on the outs as a player, and this was enough for me to hang up playing at all for a while.

I talk about all this in my Gifted post, so no need for me to get back into it. But it took me a little while to come back around to 5A May and I’d be lying if on some level I didn’t get a little acid reflux every year when it rolls around just remembering the bad time.

This year though…this year it totally snuck up on me. I’ve been so busy with work and a million other things that it caught me totally off-guard and honestly? I feel pretty damn good about it.

Hell, I might even pick up a yoyo and a counterweight a play a little this month, which is something I just haven’t had the time to do much lately.

If you’re interested in getting started with 5A, I have yoyos that are pretty good for it and a selection of counterweights that I 3D printed myself available for sale at 5Ayoyo.com. There’s also a list of previous World Champions and links to their routines here if you want to see a chronological history of the very best players in the world at the top of their game, which is always a fascinating way to learn the history of something.

Happy 5A May!