Yo-yo champion has the world on a string

Justin Weber, AS ‘09, says that basic yo-yo maneuvers include somersaults, rolls, pops, underpasses, whips and grinds.

10:26 a.m., Aug. 31, 2005--For those of you who feel satisfied when you simply get a yo-yo to spin toward the ground and return to your hand without the string knotting up and the disc toppling over, please stop reading. University of Delaware incoming freshman Justin Weber will break your heart.

Weber, a resident of Newark, Del., who plans to major in visual communications beginning this fall, is counted among the world’s best yo-yo competitors and even a brief demonstration of his skills will leave you shaking your head in disbelief.

Weber competes in the Single A division at major yo-yo competitions, that being the “string tricks” category in which a long-spinning yo-yo is mounted onto its own string and a number of complicated tricks are performed, often to music.

Weber finished fourth at the 2004 World Yo-Yo Contest held in Orlando, Fla., and sixth in the 2004 National Yo-Yo Contest held in Chico, Calif. He is the 2005 mid-Atlantic regional champion.

Weber’s interest in yo-yoing started about six years ago when the ancient toy, believed to have originated in China and with historical evidence placing it in Greece around 500 B.C., enjoyed a resurgence of popularity among the young people in his neighborhood, he said.

“It was quite a fad at the time and it seemed like every kid in the area had a yo-yo, so I got one,” Weber said. “The fad died down, but I kept with it.”

That he did, training himself through books and videos and putting in about two hours a day of practice. “Even when I wasn’t practicing, I was constantly playing with it,” Weber said.

Competitive yo-yoing for Weber started about four years ago after he went to Mitchell’s toy store in Fairfax, Del., which carries a variety of yo-yo brands and sponsors contests through the interest of Joseph W. Mitchell Jr., BE '89, himself a yo-yo enthusiast who served as president of the American Yo-Yo Association.

Successes in regional, national and world competitions have led to a sponsorship for Weber, who competes and performs demonstrations under the banner of the Yomega brand of yo-yo. Yomega has a team of sponsored yo-yoers and Weber is part of that team.

Last year, Weber visited Japan, where he performed demonstrations on behalf of Bandai, a toy company that manufactures a small line of Yomega yo-yos.

Both competition and demonstrations require a good deal of choreography, Weber said, and he performs to music that he creates using a computer program. “I usually have some tricks in mind, often put together in combinations,” he explained. “Then, I select music and put the tricks in place in different parts of the song.”

The basic maneuvers include somersaults, rolls, pops, underpasses, whips and grinds, in which the yo-yo is steered onto the hand, and “new tricks are being created all the time,” Weber said.

In addition to lots of practice, he said the key is a good initial throw and a good yo-yo, one that makes use of a ball bearing.

Because yo-yoing has been so fulfilling, and has opened up so many opportunities, Weber said he plans to continue his interest through UD and probably beyond. “I have met so many new people at yo-yo competitions all over the country,” he said. “The competition is half of the experience but the other half is hanging out with other yo-yoers.”

Yo-yoing is exceptionally popular in Japan, and Weber has made a number of friends from that country and has taken an interest in the Japanese language and culture. He says he plans to continue that interest through courses in UD’s East Asian Studies Program.

Article by Neil Thomas
Photo by Kathy F. Atkinson

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