Types of Competitions
The BYYA is a strong supporter of yoyo competitions that are open to all, they help provide players focus and are a great chance for people to share new tricks and ideas. Yo-yoing has a strong tradition of contests but they have changed a lot since the first local Duncan contests of the 1920’s and before. As yo-yoing has evolved over the past years so have the contests. Competitions vary and are broken roughly into the following categories:
Trick List
Raw trick lists are a far more traditional way of ranking players and is probably the best method to date of judging players of a beginner to intermediate skill level. It is simple and does not require the yoyoers to have enough tricks to fill a desirable length of time for freestyle. Trick lists can be designed to suit the location, time and skill level of the participants in the competition. Trick lists consist of a pre-set list of tricks, a participant works through the list attempting the tricks. Who ever attains the highest score wins, if there is a tie then a trick can be used to break the tie, most repetitions of the named trick by the competitor is the victor. Trick Lists are comparably easy to judge than the other categories because they have hardly any subjective qualities in them.
For more information on UK Trick List rules click here.
Trick/Sports ladders
Trick ladders are a variation on compulsory trick lists, a list of tricks is set out however they work on a sudden death like principal where the as soon as the competitor misses a trick they are out. Some competitions chose to allow the competitor one or two mistakes and a ‘skip’ where the yoyoer can choose to miss a trick out and continue the list with out being penalised, it just depends how skilled the participants are and how much time is available for the competition. Sports ladders are run as a fun alternative to the official list and Freestyle elements of the main competition for less advanced yoyoers.
Freestyle (FS)
Freestyle elements of competitions were used in the 1950 but only in the late 1990s did they really come into their own. Most agree that the freestyle (FS) elements of competitions are far more enjoyable and a far better measure of skill and originality than raw trick lists. Freestyles are, simply put, a chance for a yoyoers to demonstrate their own personality, ideas, skill and tricks through a performance to music (usually 90seconds for small competitions and 3minets of larger competitions). They are usually judged on technical ability and showmanship. Freestyles are often held in conjunction with a compulsories trick list. This is so that the top players can be decided by the list and then only the top players get to freestyle. This is because often allowing all competitors to freestyle will take to much time and is too hard for the judges.
For more information on UK Freestyle judging click here.
Throw Down
More recently “Throw Down” have become more popular as an informal competition. They take come from the idea of hip-hop battles. The idea is anyone can enter, they do a trick then someone else does a trick and the audience or sometimes the competitors’ votes (usually by cheering for their favourite at the end of that round) on who should go through to the next round. This process is repeated till a winner is found. This can produce some very entertaining situations and can be great for yoyo events but for a more public based audience this may not be a great idea as often the public will vote for the smallest, shiest child who was probably the least skilled yoyoer! A nameless juggler summed up this more negative aspect up well when they called Throw Downs “Cutest kid win comps!”.
If you have any questions please get in contact.
For up and comming compeitions go to Events.