YO-YO CHAMPION OFFERS HISTORY, TIPS.Byline: MARK KELLAM valleynews.com It may be more than 2,500 years old, but the yo-yo's appeal seems timeless, gauging from the interest stirred by a program that yo-yo world champ World Champ is a boxing game created by Visco for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was first released in Japan under the name Great Boxing: Rush Up, and was later published in the US by Romstar. The gameplay is very similar to Ring King, another NES boxing game. Jason Tracy presented Tuesday. Tracy, who won a world yo-yo championship in 1997, was at the North Hollywood Regional Library talking about all things yo-yo, from its history to the science of how it works. He also showed the young audience members some cool tricks ranging from impressive-looking "Around the World" to an intricate feat he just learned called "Darth Vader Darth Vader fallen Jedi Knight has turned to evil. [Am. Cinema: Star Wars] See : Evil ," in which the yo-yo string is looped around his fingers several times to create the image of the famous "Star Wars" character. The name yo-yo came from the Philippines, but it's been around for centuries with different names including bandalore (France), Prince of Wales' toy (England) and whirligig. During the French Revolution, the toy was called L'emigrette, French for "flee the country." Why? Many of the aristocracy had to leave Paris because of peasant uprisings and the well-to-do children brought their yo-yos, then often made of glass or ivory. Tracy dispelled the myth that yo-yos were used as weapons in the Philippines because the physics of the toy makes it improbable. "It would probably be better to take the yo-yo off the string and just throw it at the animal," he said. The ancient toy came to the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. in 1928 when a Filipino man named Pedro Flores Pedro Flores is the name of several people:
Donald Duncan is most commonly associated with Yo-yos; the commercial success they enjoyed during the 20th century in the United States, and , whose name was synonymous with synonymous with adjective equivalent to, the same as, identical to, similar to, identified with, equal to, tantamount to, interchangeable with, one and the same as yo-yos for many years, saw people playing with the toys in San Francisco and decided to purchase the company from Flores Flores, town, Guatemala Flores (flōrəs), town (1990 est. pop. 2,200), capital of Petén department, N Guatemala. Flores was built on an island in the southern part of Lake Petén Itzá and on the site of the . The rest is yo-yo history. Tracy also explained that yo-yos work on a physical principle called gyroscopic gy·ro·scope n. A device consisting of a spinning mass, typically a disk or wheel, mounted on a base so that its axis can turn freely in one or more directions and thereby maintain its orientation regardless of any movement of the base. stability. He pulled out a metal toy top to demonstrate the concept. When he placed the tip of the top in his hand, it fell over. However, if he started it spinning, it stayed up on its tip. The yo-yo works the same way. Because the string is wrapped around the toy's axle, you can do lots of neat tricks while the yo-yo is spinning in place, which is called "sleeping." "While it's spinning, it stays in a line ... it stays stable," Tracy said while demonstrating a trick called "Walk the Dog," in which the yo-yo actually touches the ground and rolls along like a pooch on a leash. Toward the end of the demonstration, three young audience members -- Victor Hernandez, Corey Rhyne and Raul DeLacruz -- got the chance to take part in a little yo-yo contest. Corey won the competition with an impressive "Around the World." CAPTION(S): photo Photo: (color) Jason Tracy, left, shows Vanessa Morales the basics of spinning a yo-yo, while Tahmina Hasan tries out her own yo-yo. Mark Kellam/Daily News |
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