Spinworkx King of the Spin 2014: Knockout Tournament

The End of Year SHOWCASE Contest is always the most fun because it also features the fun and unique King of the Spin competition. Each year, Spinners sign up for this not knowing what they need to do in the contest until each event is announced. This allows Spinners from different skill levels to participate and stand a chance of winning, whilst having a fun time. So wondering how the King of the Spin 2014 went down? Read on!

The first round, there were 21 competitors and the first activity that stood before them was that they had to do a Braintwister with a Duncan Hornet that was set up for looping.

The list of 21 were:
1) Gabriel Yong
2) Edward Soh
3) Chua Wei Xuan
4) Michael Lim
5) Kendrick Hu
6) Lee Wei Ting
7) Khoo Kian Chew
8) Muhd I'zzun
9) Norman Wee
10) Ian Chia
11) Ethan Ho Quan Xi
12) Karthik
13) Sciran
14) Colin Wan
15) Roland Tay
16) Dillion Ong
17) Marcus Koh
18) Wong Wei Da
19) Muhd Hafiq
20) Nick Yip
21) Brian Low

Each Spinner had to do 2 Braintwisters. If they failed and wished to move on to the next round, they had to do 3 Braintwisters instead. If they failed their second chance of surviving, then they were eliminated. Do note that not only is this tough because it is on an incredibly responsive yo-yo, it had to return to their hand. After a round, everyone got the hang of nailing the Braintwister and almost all went on to the next round.

After the Looping yo-yo Braintwister, the next activity that the remaining 20 had to do was a familiar one from last year. They had to do a 5A 360 using another yo-yo as a counterweight. Just like last year, quite a number of them had problems on this. The yo-yo as a counter weight threw many off and even with 2 tries, this proved difficult for some. With this, quite a few Spinners were knocked out, leaving only 12 competitors.

Now the 12 remaining contestants were split up into groups of 2 for the next challenge. They had to team up to do 10 Loop the Loops. Sounds easy right? Well, they had to loop on a metal, butterfly, unresponsive yo-yo. For this challenge, they had to work together with the team mate to see who was the stronger looper. Most of the teams managed this well and after the challenge was over, 2 more were eliminated, leaving just 10 Spinners still in the King of the Spin.

Next, the 4th challenge of the King of the Spin 2014 had the remaining 10 fight for their place in the competition with them needing to do lying down Shoot the Moon on a Duncan Butterfly.

Top 10:
1) Colin Wan
2) Wong Wei Da
3) Marcus Koh
4) Chua Wei Xuan
5) Michael Lim
6) Kendrick Hu
7) Khoo Kian Chew
8) Muhd I'zzun
9) Norman Wee
10) Karthik

They were given 2 chances to make up the total of 10 Shoot the Moons. This challenge eliminated 6, leaving the top 4 to battle it out in the Semi-Finals.

The top 4 remaining contestants were:

1) Colin Wan
2) Wong Wei Da
3) Marcus Koh
4) Chua Wei Xuan

What stood before the top 4 progressing from Semis to the Finals was one simple trick. The Trapeze. The catch is that they had to hit their Trapeze with the YoYoFactory Wooden yo-yo, the Legend. At Worlds, contestants were only given 1 try for this. This time, the 4 Semi-finalists were given 3 attempts to hit just 1 Trapeze. This proved difficult for even the most seasoned of yo-yo players, and with that only 2 contestants remained.

Finals: Colin Wan VS Wong Wei Da.

The Activity that determined the winner of the King of the Spin 2014 is this game called 'Offstring Goal'. What Colin and Wei Da had to do was to throw an Offstring yo-yo and aim it to go in-between the 2 positioned chairs and score a 'goal'. Both of them had 5 tries like a Soccer Penalty Shoot-out and the person with the most 'goals' would win.

But after 5 tries each, the score was tied at 3-3. So a Sudden Death was in order. Now, the game got tougher as the chairs were positioned even closer to each other, making the 'goal scoring' area even smaller.

After numerous attempts, a winner finally emerged and he managed to score the only 'goal' in Sudden Death. The King of the Spin 2014 Champion is none other than Wong Wei Da, beating out King of the Spin 2013 Champion Colin Wan.

Once again, congratulations to Wei Da, who narrowly beat out Colin in the final Battle.

Look out for the next Spinworkx King of the Spin Tournament in 2015!

But till then, there will surely be more fun-filled activities to look forward to, so keep Spinning!

photo credits to: Andrew Lin, Colin Wan, Hong Aun Lung & Ko Hwee Ngee

SHOWCASE Vol. 5 Freestyles

1A Champion: Marcus Koh

X Champion: Wong Wei Da

Check out the rest of the freestyles here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgjCTH_Essz3I6X-kkbpHsOfpR3F5JyIe

SHOWCASE Vol.5 in Pictures

**Photos by: Colin Wan

SHOWCASE Vol. 5 Results

SHOWCASE Vol. 5 Sequence List

SHOWCASE Vol. 5 Sequence List is out!

For more information on Compulsory Elements, check it out on the SHOWCASE page.

http://www.spinworkx.com/showcasefs/SHOWCASE/Divisions.html

Some have been asking about the 1A Suicides.

1) It must be 2 consecutive Sucides.

2) It must be the standard Trapeze followed by Suicide catch.

3) It can be done anytime during your freestyle.

APYOYO2014 Clip #2 - 94point1

Presenting Clip #2 from the Asia Pacific Yo-Yo Championships 2014. This clip features Hajime Miura, sponsored by sOMEThING by YoYoAddict. Hajime tore up the AP2014 stage with his crazy 3A freestyle. With a near perfect freestyle, Hajime went on to win the 3A Division at AP2014 and later the World Yo-Yo Contest 2014. 

The series of videos were done by local video/film producer Eric Lee (Ratchild Lee Fur Fur), formerly with Nylon doing their online videos. It is interesting to see these videos being made as it comes from someone who has no prior background of what to expect from a yo-yo event, let alone modern yo-yo tricks. 

Till the next video, enjoy!

Spinworkx First Mount #35 - Chop & Grab Double Mount

For First Mount #35, it is something slightly different and requires you to move relatively quickly to do.  This Mount looks kinda like a weird/warped Double or Nothing, and it opens up various string segments for you to land on, giving you the option to explore. This Mount may have been done by other players in the past, but we first learnt it from local Spinner, Li Hao, from back in the day. Li Hao is a 2-time Singapore National Champion, and is one of the most consistent Spinners we have here in Singapore. 

Without further ado, let us get into explaining how the Chop & Grab Double Mount is done.

First, throw a Breakaway and let the string hit the bottom of your non-throwing hand index finger.

Once that is done, the string should be around your non-throwing hand index finger. Take note not to let this string slip off your finger.

Then move your throwing hand index finger to your left and intercept the string as it swings around your non-throwing hand index. Your throwing hand index should be like a 'hook' that is pointing towards you in the direction of your non-throwing hand.

With this 'hook', hook the string.

Now, quickly move you non throwing hand index finger, with the string still looped around, under your throwing hand and around over your throwing hand and 'chop' the string, landing the yo-yo onto the outer string like a Double or Nothing.

Once the yo-yo has landed onto the string, you have completed the Chop & Grab Double Mount.

This Mount may look easy to do, but it requires some practice and focus to be able to hit it consistently. Keep going at it, and you will get the hang of it.

A few pointers to take note of when learning the Chop & Grab Double Mount:

1) When first learning this Mount, do not throw your Breakaway too hard lest the yo-yo moves too quickly.

2) Try to visualise this trick in your head, and then attempt it, and visualize again, and attempt, repeat.

3) When landing the yo-yo onto the string for the complete Mount, remember to aim and cushion the drop of the yo-yo onto the string.

4) This Mount requires you to move both hands around each other in like a 'rolling' motion, so practice that rolling motion and the Mount with a 'dead' yo-yo first.

That is all for the Spinworkx First Mount Project this time around.

If you have any questions or feedback, drop us a note here, or shout out to us at our Facebook page.

You can also show us your Chop & Grab Double Mount by tagging us on our Instagram Page, with @spinworkxsg #firstmount #spinworkxfirstmount. 

Till the next Mount,

Chop & Grab!~

Spinworkx November 2014 Record Setting

November brought another 2 Record Setting tricks for anyone and everyone to attempt. This time, the Kendama trick was slightly more difficult, but the yo-yo trick would have been relatively easy for any 1A player to attempt. The end results were pretty good, and we are really proud of these guys for setting the bar for future attempts.

For Kendama, Jeremy Tan managed to hit 18 consecutive Earth Turns to set the record for it. Other players may be able to do more, but under pressure, 18 was a great result.

For yo-yos, Chua Wei Xuan, who was last month's Kendama Record Champion, managed to hit 128 consecutive Eli Hops to set the record. Definitely a very respectable number anywhere in the world, and we couldn't be more proud of Wei Xuan for pushing the bar for both yo-yos and kendamas!

Congratulations to both Wei Xuan and Jeremy for doing so well for the month of November. We cannot wait to see how everyone fares for December. It is going to be an awesome month!