Have you seen that one kid who is always playing with a yoyo? Have you ever thought to yourself, why is he doing that? We have all seen him, but nobody has ever stopped to ask what he was doing, until now. “There is an infinite amount of possible combinations you can do with yoyo,” said freshman Dante Sarabia, the “Yoyo Kid.”
Sarabia has been yoyoing for about a year now in hopes of following in the footsteps of his inspirations and making up new tricks that will go down in history.
“I know almost 100 tricks on the yo-yo and made up a few of my own tricks by using combinations of well known tricks,” said Sarabia.
Sarabia is known at school as the “Yo-Yo boy” because he carries his yoyo with him wherever he goes, practicing constantly. In fact, he practices more at school than at home because his parents don’t like yoyoing.
“I can’t really yoyo at home because my parents hate yoyos. My dad liked the old wooden yoyos and hates the fact that they are modernized now, and my mom just hates them all. I have to either yoyo at school or at friends’ houses,” said Sarabia.
He will compete in his first competition this summer.
“My favorite thing about yoyoing is the community around it. There are lots of Facebook hashtags and profiles having to do with yoyoing. I have just recently joined a So-Cal yoyo club on Facebook. We talk about how to work through problems with certain tricks, what yoyos to buy and sometimes we get a pro on the site and he tells us what yoyo he is using and shares some tricks with us,” said Sarabia.
Sarabia’s love for the yoyo wasn’t just developed over one day. On the contrary, he had to spend countless hours watching videos on how to yoyo and practice relentlessly. Interestingly, his first introduction to the yoyo did help him decide if he wanted to continue this skill.
“It started out a long, long time ago. I had a yoyo, and I used it. However, I stopped using it when I was too busy with soccer and basketball. Recently, my brother and I went to this Chuck E. Cheese’s knock off place, and my brother and I won lots of tickets. He had extra tickets left after he bought what he wanted. So, I bought the first thing that interested me, which happened to be a yoyo. I started doing simple yoyo tricks and eventually kept getting higher and higher on the skill scale,” said Sarabia.
Sarabia has even inspired some students at LBHS to start yoyoing. Watching his skill motivates others to pick up the practice.
“I think some of the tricks that Sarabia can do with the yoyo are really cool. I’ve seen Sarabia do tricks that I didn’t know were even possible. It makes me want to strive to do better at my hobbies like football,” said freshman Hunter Wenk.
Sarabia’s love for yoyoing is unparalleled and grows every day he goes to school. He hopes to one day show the world his yoyoing skills, win competitions and master the yoyo.