TRICKED OUT

If you’ve got three minutes to spare, Tyler McClellan would like to show you a little something he’s been working on.

The West Valley High School senior, Tie to his friends, officially became one of the best yo-yo artists in the world earlier this month, and he’s currently preparing his routine for the national championships in October.

If he makes the finals in Chico, Calif., (the preliminary round is just 60 seconds) he’ll have just long enough to soft-boil an egg to show judges what he can do.

“I’m always working on my three-minute routine,” he said. “I keep working on the tricks I’m going to do, looking for ways to improve it and ways to get a bigger crowd reaction to what I’m doing.”

McClellan isn’t just showing off. “Wow factor” and showmanship are figured into his score. At the World Championships in Orlando, Fla., it allowed him to place 16th in the freehand – improving from a 32nd-place finish a year ago.

That would put him on course for an eighth-place finish next year, right?

“And fourth the year after that,” he joked.

McClellan first picked up a yo-yo four years ago – your basic, everyday Duncan yo-yo. The kind most have tried at one time or another.

Exploring the Internet, he found a number of sites dedicated to breaking new ground in the age-old sport – historical records date it as far back as 500 B.C. Walking the Dog, Shooting the Moon and Rocking the Baby, those old, classic tricks are passé.

Google “yo-yo,” McClellan says, and a whole new world of yo opens up. The tricks are radically new, the music is loud and the equipment is cutting edge. In essence, the same bold spirit that drives skateboarding to new heights and new tricks is at work in the world of yo. McClellan wanted in.

“My first yo-yo lasted about two weeks,” he laughed. “I ordered a new yo-yo off the Internet and started teaching myself tricks”

If you haven’t looked lately, the yo-yo has grown into the technology age. That toy-store Duncan is an Edsel compared the new Ferrari-on-a-string style available on the Internet.

“The new yo-yos are a lot more advanced,” he said. “For starters, they’re usually made out of metal, and they have a ball bearing in the axle so that they spin for a long time. They don’t come right back up, either. You have to learn how to throw strong around the axle to get it to snap back up.”

Beginning in the 1990s, the transaxle was introduced to the yo-yo. The ball bearing inside the axle allows the yo-yo to spin longer, which in turn allows for more elaborate tricks.

Another difference, McClellan said, is in his personal specialty: freehand. It’s considered the fastest growing division in the sport of yo.

“In freehand you don’t have the string tied to your finger,” he said. “You use a counterweight to balance things out. That leaves you free to use both hands to do your tricks.”

As usual, there’s a price to technology. While the old-fashioned yo-yos can be purchased for less than $5 finding a high-tech version is a mail-order item.

“If you’re really lucky, you might find one at a toy store,” McClellan said. “For the most part, you have to order them online, and they’re going to cost about $110 each.

“My family was really supportive. No one laughed when I told them I wanted to get into this whole thing.”

One of the benefits of competing at the world championships was connecting with a sponsor.

“If you get to where you’re good enough, you can find companies that will sponsor you – like they do with skateboarding,” he said. “My sponsor is a company called Death By Yo-Yo, and they keep sending me new stuff all the time – all their latest stuff – and I use it when I compete.”

Just for the record, he said, he can still make the old yo-yo sit up and take notice.

“I can do all the same tricks I do with the new yo-yo with the old-fashioned one,” he said. “It just takes a while to do it. The new ones are much easier to use.”

Tricks are elaborate. Most involve complicated string patterns laced through the fingers and catching the spinning toy with the string.

“My friends are always trying to get me to demonstrate what I do,” McClellan said. “They even got me to put on a demonstration in class. They were blown away by it and the teacher was really impressed and totally supportive.”

Now, if he can just do the same with the judges in October …