It has been nearly 4 months since Ive been in Japan, and 5 months since I left Toronto. Writing that out makes it feel short but in reality it feels like forever ago. The last launch of the Plastic Peak was an overwhelming experience. I felt so grateful to work with CLYW, a company I grew up with. When the World Yoyo Contest hit I didn't know what to expect, but I had started noticing a feeling of burn out after grinding out so many yoyo related projects and in a weird introverted way I was a bit reluctant to go.
This year the venue felt bigger than I remember in 2015 Tokyo Worlds. It was only 20 minutes from where I am living. It was surprisingly busy and there were of course no shortage of insanely talented Japanese players. I was surprised at how much the yoyo world has grown - the venue was big but it was packed at times. The live stream was massive with many different angles and a few of my friends from Toronto even came to volunteer. The after parties were insane, where I ran into some old friends I haven't seen in over 8 years. I caught up with many American friends, and met some new Japanese players by using my broken Japanese.
Eiji from Mowl reached out to see if I could do a small booth at his welcome party for the first day. This was a super cool last minute opportunity to showcase some of the prototype plastics I was working on, as well as meet some customers who I have only been able to communicate through Instagram or emails. I think meeting customers is a huge thing I enjoy, since I can really get a sense of connection to the community. Of course in Osaka style it became a huge party after with DJs and yoyo performances. I helped Eiji engrave these square sake cups as well which were offered at the event - a very cool piece of history.
I thought about filming video this year, but in the end decided to just enjoy the event as much as possible. I'm not sure if it was because I've lived in Japan for a while now but the entire experience of worlds this year definitely felt overwhelming. After all it was the first event of this size since Covid happened. I talked to a few other yoyoers too about this, and there were some who shared the same feeling. Perhaps it was the serious nature of Japan contests too, the level of yoyoing here is very high which breeds contests that seem to make the events cater to competitors more so then the consumers.
I had this burnout conversation with a few people at worlds and most were shocked to hear how I felt. Many people I spoke with don't realize how many hours it takes to develop yoyos at the scale that Luftverk does. For a lot of 2023 I was working 70+ hours a week managing logistics, retailers and manufacturing for these projects. A lot of the work is mostly spreadsheets now - making sure the projects at least break even and I can pay people on time. I also directly still manage the retailer accounts as well as do customer service, which weirdly is something I like doing. Interacting with my customers is something I actually love doing, so even though its probably a low ROI task its something I still do 100% of. I think its one of the main positives of events like this, it lets me talk to people who I work with like other brands and retailers. They often can give me insight on how they run their business too and how they manage their hours. I started normalizing the insane hours I was working and beat myself up for not doing more when I wanted to take a break. Only now I am starting to take a breather and enjoy things outside of yoyo related projects like competing at my first drift event here in Japan. Drifting in itself is a full time job, but It was a huge reason why I wanted to get a visa here. It's definitely a decent activity to force my mind to be somewhere else outside of yo-yoing for a bit to recharge my creative juices.
I realized most business owners who are full time successfully really let their job consume them. Many of my friends who are business owners are like that. It becomes a part of them. I love seeing that level of passion and intensity and you can probably tell I often do it too. Next week I am off to Hong Kong and China to work on more production of projects for Luftverk, Cheatcode and Polyform. But I think how I felt attending this Worlds event was an important sign that I need a massive break from work related to yoyo projects. It was the first event I felt overwhelmed enough to notice a feeling of distance from the yoyo players around me, and that's not a feeling I like to feel.
Overall Worlds was a blast, its always fun to catch up with friends you haven't seen for like 5 years. For the rest of 2023 I have some renditions of yoyos such as a redesigned Hybrid Fulvia that has less vibration issues, a new Magnesium in the pipeline, as well as a potentially new color of CLYW Plastic Peak. One of the things I really want to develop is an undersized Hybrid yoyo. But until my trip to China I will likely just take it easy to recover and push forward with new projects for 2024. Usually my blog posts are more about design so I thought I'd give you a different perspective and update everyone of what is going on since Luftverk will be quiet for a bit. Thank you for your continued support - will be back swinging with new stuff in a month or two!
When I first designed the Triple Zero in 2017, I didn't expect this yoyo to become the flagship it is today. Almost 8 years later, this yoyo has been a staple in the Luftverk lineup - one of the first "ultra minimalist" organic yoyos at the time. This design language has slowly worked its way from the first titanium model, the widely loved Plastic Triple Zero, and the aluminum variants as well. So it only makes sense to continue that tradition with a hybrid version.
When I first moved to Japan, I specifically moved to Osaka for drifting. But more so - it was the first place where I made a friend that immediately welcomed me with open arms. As someone who grew up in Canada all his life, I felt like I had bit off more than I could chew. Moving to another country is one thing - but going to a place where you don't even speak the language, where the culture is completely 180 from the western world now that was a different story.
When I released the titanium version of the Revora, I had one goal in mind. Challenge myself to design a solid state product in an era where that is no longer the normal. In a way - it was a challenge to myself to see if Luftverk's evolving design language could stack up against todays multi-material engineering marvels.
Jeffrey Pang
Author