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| The journey continues |
After I got my 888 , I thought to myself that I will never ever change to any yoyo because this yoyo is perfect. Plus Rm300 is not that easy to get for a college kid with no job. My first yoyo contest experience was in 200 with a speed in Sunway Pyramid ( that's a shopping mall in Malaysia by the way , extra info for any foreign people reading this ). I can still remember that was the first time I met Hiroyuki Suzuki. He came to Malaysia for this event and attending as a judge. This include Maya Nakamura ( or popularly known as Buko ). It was definitely a very very exciting and nervous moment for me.
With no experience and a very limited amount of combos , I have 1 min to show what I got on the stage. Everyone is looking at me when I'm on the stage expecting me to pull of something amazing.... butttt.... as expected , my performance didn't go too well as what I have pictured it in my mind.
After that , I started learning more and more tricks in-order to come up with new combo and I started joining more and more contest that was held in Malaysia. In 2010 , that was the first time I've attended Asia Pacific Yoyo Championship 2010 in Singapore. It's interesting for me because I have been hanging out with our local people all this while , but this time , I manage to talk to foreign people from Philippines, Singapore, Brunei , Japan. and Korea.
When I got back, I was offered a job. A job that doesn't actually feel like a job but it's a dream come true. What was the job ? Well, I was offered to be a Superyoyo master. Now I can be like the guy that I idolized, Yohans. It was because of his performance back in 1999 in Sungei Wang , I wanted to be like him. Standing on the stage , performing in-front of a huge crowd and looking at kids playing yoyos around the stage area. So , without hesitation I took up the job and I was sent to various places around Kuala Lumpur and once to Johor Bahru to perform demos and emceeing to the crowd. Trust me... It's nerve wrecking emceeing to a huge crowd of spectators.
During this second Superyoyo season, it went by pretty quickly compared to the previous one in 2003. My position as a Superyoyo master is now just part and parcel of my resume. It was because of this campaign, I came up with the idea of making a yoyo academy. That's when I came up with the idea to set up Angel-Yo ( this project is still running and it is still in a work-in-progress ).
Angel-yo , or it is pronounce as Angelo , is a yoyo academy teaching in yoyo clubs in schools , colleges or learning centres that serves as an extra curricular activities to enhance creativity, teamwork, and self-confidence. The academy will educate the students from the basic level of yoyo tricks and will be train all the way up to a professional level, whereby the students will be trained by highly professional yoyo players that has competed on an International and World standard contest , this includes Judges that has judged for Malaysia national contest, Asia Pacific yoyo contest , and world yoyo contest.
That was the initial idea , but unfortunately , in Malaysia , they have the mentality of "My kid doesn't know how to play yoyo , so why bother buying a yoyo ?" . Well duh , your kid doesn't know how to play is the reason why he want's to learn it now. I have been teaching kids on how to play the basics but not under the academy name.
Anyways, in 2013 , a yoyostore known as 28DC was established in Sunway Pyramid and I decided to work there early Jan to Mar 2013 as a part timer. So every Saturday and Sunday, I will be at the shop teaching new customers how to play yoyos and explaining to them the various type of yoyos and the pro and cons of the yoyos that they are interested.
In 2014, as part of the Malaysia Yoyo Club's committee ( owh , I forgot to mention this , I was invited to be part of the club in 2011 , I think , anyways , yay !!) , I was given the opportunity to be the emcee for the Sarawak Regional yoyo contest and the Malaysia National Yoyo Contest 2014. It was fun and I don't have stage fright as much as before. When I was in Sarawak , a friend showed me how he made strings (his name is Victor with his Victory Strings) and he even taught me on how to make strings. It wasn't easy at first but I finally got the hang of it.
This is when I started to make strings for my own-self. I didn't had the intention to make it commercial at first because I wasn't confident with the response that I will be getting but after few feedbacks from my friends and other yoyo players in KL , I decided to produce and sell it. However , this string needed a name. I couldn't just call it Adam Strings. I thought to myself that is weird and it's definitely a self-proclaimed glory string name. So after countless thoughts , I came up with the name Wyvern Strings. Why ? I was born in the year of a dragon and I like dragons. So , I went and searched through Google for the different names of Dragons and Wyvern sounds really bada** .
Thus Wyvern Strings is born. I had the logo made by Seki , a yoyo player as well as one of the partners for 28spin and tadaa ~~ Wyvern Strings is complete with a proper name and a proper logo.
Now ... It is 2015 , my goal is to make Wyvern Strings a world-known brand and it is used as an official strings in a yoyo packaging. I wish that this blog will grow to serve the readers better by exposing more news on the Malaysia yoyoing scene. I have been on a really long journey to get to where I am right now. I hope that this journey never ends.
I would like to say thank you to my mum that has given me support (although reluctantly occasionally due to my studies and the injuries I've sustained) , my brother and my sister-in-law that encourages me to continue with my yoyo career because I will make it big someday, and my wife with her never ending support by accompanying me to yoyo contests , yoyo events , and event committee meeting , whats not to love , right ?
Not to forget my friends , Ryanlim , Dimi , Zafran , Azrin , Raymond , Seki , Kenneth , and Victor. Thank you for your feedback and your support all this while. Last but not least , I would like to say thank you to the supporters of Wyvern Strings too ^^
That's my journey so far, it won't end just there. We shall see till where I will be in 10 years down the road or more. Now that you have read my journey, I wonder who's journey will be next on this blog.
Till next time,
Wyvern Strings
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