Hey folks, a few things have changed around on DTI in the last few weeks, we got rid of the idea of a “Jr. Team”, we have the DTI Crew now. Quinton is the Team Manager (Mob Boss). And we’ve added Joshua Prokay to our crew. Here is Joshua’s bio, it is also available on the crew page. We are happy to have you on our crew Joshua, we feel you will represent us well. Welcome!

Joshua Prokay

Nick Names: Parkay, or just “Prokay”

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/joshprokay

Homepage: http://standbystring.webs.com/

Hometown: Mantua, OH

Favorite Yo-Yo Style: 1a, 4a, and want to learn 3a (soon)

Bio: Hello folks, I am Joshua as it says above. I am sixteen, but 6 at heart. I live in Mantua (man-too-way, or man-away), Ohio. I moved here at the start of school, but have moved in and out of this town due to numerous personal family issues. I spent most of my childhood in homeless shelters and mother-child shelters with my mom, but it wasn’t that bad. If I had toys and food, I was a happy child.

I started yoyoing when a new student at my highschool whipped one out. I saw him throwing everyday in homeroom, but I didn’t approach him because everyone else did. Sadly they always said “Walk the dog!” or asked “Is that a Duncan?”. I actually approached with curiosity about half way throught the year and he gave me an old Playmaxx Proyo with a bearing. I learned all the way up to “Matrix” on it. I knew then that I was hooked. That was in mid 2008. Now I own my own string business (Standby String) and yoyo as if it was a religion. I honestly don’t remember the last day I didn’t yoyo. I don’t think I could even force myself to do that now.

o———–( ))

Craziest Yo-Yo Experience: I recieved a horribly satined and “pad recessed” Freehand Zero as a deal-sweetener in a trade. My friend and I were feeling destructive, so naturally we hooked up a good old counterweight and had some fun. We threw it as high as we could and let it hit the pavement numerous times. It still worked after about three times. We must be doing something wrong…. I decided to throw it as high as my arms would allow, and it ended up going slightly backwards and getting caught in the wind. Well, it now decorates our pine tree in the backyard. My friend and I tried to get it down for over an hour. We threw a bat, chair, plunger, saw, board, and a rock at it, but it wouldn’t budge. We still check every day to see if it came down… it hasn’t.

Competition Titles:

• 1st Place- 1A, 5A, and 1D (Diabolo)- Hiram College Talent Showcase (with Nick Onuska) 2009
• 1st Place- 1S- Mideast Regional Yo-Yo Contest 2010
• 2nd Place- 1S- Ohio State Yo-Yo Contest 2010
• Freestyles coming in 2011. Be afraid… be very afraid.

Hey folks, just got the full second run from the machinist today. They are perfect. The slight vibe that was present in the pre-production run is gone. We smoothed out the inner rim a little bit to keep it from biting at your thumb nail when performing thumb grinds and have switched over from hand injected silicone to square o-rings. The o-rings (from my personal testing) have a much longer lifespan and are a far more consistent response than the silicone.

Additionally we’ve decided to keep the raw BassBoosts at $50.00. We feel this will help out a lot more people who are looking to try their first metal yo-yo but aren’t quite ready to whip out 100 bucks. We will continue to improve the yo-yo as we grow and we will be making many other yo-yo’s for other styles of play, keep an eye out!

(See http://dtiyoyo.com/products to buy your own BassBoost!)

Hey folks, just wanted to fill you in on what the final scores were for the DTI yo-yo video contest. I want to congratulate and thank all of you who submitted videos for all your hard work. I hope to see you guys give it another shot next time!

1st – Michael Laban - 120.25

2nd – Roberto Casale - 112

3rd – Madison Gee - 110.25

4th – Carlos Braun - 108.5

5th – Ian Bailey - 99

6th – Casey Bauchle - 93

7th – Jacob Jensen - 92.75

8th – Riccardo Fraolini - 81.25

9th – Tyler Goldenberg - 80

10th – Owen Atkins - 77.75

11th – Antonio Altieri - 77

12th – Vincent DeZutti - 73.5

13th – Marco Lasam - 72.75

14th – Arif Kristiawan - 69.75

15th – Joey O’Brien - 66.75

16th – Rizki Hadiaturrasyid - 58.75

17th – Jacob Lindgren - 57

18th – Andrew M.- 48.75

19th – Justis Evans - 39

20th – James Murray - 28

Hey Folks just wanted to let you know that I drove over to La Grande, Oregon to judge a yo-yo contest earlier today and brought a few BassBoosts with me. We have a couple left so I decided to put them in the store for $50.00 instead of $75.00. If you’re interested in trying out the new design without having to commit to the $75.00 this would be your chance to do so .

Have a great evening!

Mike

Well folks, 1220 votes came in over the last 15 days, and voting is officially closed. 25% of the votes each video got will be added to the final score. We are going over the judges scores at the moment and will be posting results on Monday the 19th. See you then, have a great weekend!

Hey folks! Just a heads up, we’ve started adding tutorials to our site in an effort to help educate future yo-yoers in a structured format. At the moment we’ve got the Basics of Yo-Yoing and the Beginner 1A (String Tricks) Tutorials up. We’ll be adding more tutorials daily. For now check out the beginners tutorials which you can find here: http://dtiyoyo.com/tutorials/1a-string-tricks/beginner/ or if you’ve never touched a yo-yo before check out the basics here: http://dtiyoyo.com/tutorials/yo-yoing-basics/. If you notice anything wrong (spelling errors or mistakes in the trick descriptions) please let us know through our forum in the feedback area: http://dtiyoyo.com/forum/feedback/ where we can address those matters appropriately. Thank you!