I stopped into the old fashioned/classic toy store in the neighborhood of Shadyside on Ivy Street. The cool toy store is around the corner from where we lived when we first moved to Pittsburgh. This is the same store my three kids would browse in for the longest time on the way home from school in 1989-1991.
Two floors of toy store! Filled with LEGO® and Playmobil®, knights, puppets, trucks and trains, dolls and puzzles. Everything you can wish for as a child. You might see some items you yearned for as a kid but never received.
I was buying a gift for a friend.
And while I was there, the young man came from behind the counter and started yo-yoing. I mean yo-yoing extraordinaire! His name is Ky.
There was nothing else but to stop my shopping and watch in amazement. All I had with me was the phone camera. With a phone memory too full, I had to delete pics to take a few shots. (too much phoneography for challenges?)
Wowee Wow. I don’t know how to describe it -but I was mesmerized. And then he put down the yo-yo and picked up a kendama. Yes, we have an old wooden one but I never knew what it was called. Or that it was of Japanese origin. He was smooth and skillful at both the yo-yo and kendama!
If you want to learn how to yo-yo like Ky you can head on over to Shadyside on Sunday at noon and practice how to put your yo-yo into a “sleep” so you can attempt the tricks like Ky was demonstrating. Learn “looping”. Ky will be there teaching in the Yo-Yo/Skill Toy Club at S.W. Randall’s. I think I need to return with a video camera and you can understand how you had to keep your eye on Ky and the yo-yo or Ky and the kendama. Do you have any yo-yo tricks?
