Most people think of a yo-yo as going up and down. But Dave Schulte, also known as “Dazzling Dave,” says yo-yoing looks different at the Midwest Regional Yo-Yo Championship.
Schulte has been organizing the contest since its creation in 1998 and is one of the 16 official masters in the National Yo-Yo League.
“This yo-yo is not like the yo-yo you’re thinking of,” Schulte said. “Most people walk away flabbergasted, thinking ‘I would have tied that in a whole bunch of knots,’ because it is, you know, way more advanced than it used to be.”
The contest will be held 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Huntington Bank Rotunda in the Mall of America. All skill levels can compete in the contest, which will feature a Beginner’s Luck division where competitors can perform beginner yo-yo tricks like the windup, dribble and forward pass to earn raffle tickets for prizes.
The championship division will begin at noon. Winners in this division earn a seed in the National Yo-Yo Contest June 27 in Las Vegas.
Ben Gates is the coordinator of videography for the National Yo-Yo League. Gates said the format of a yo-yo tournament is comparable to a figure skating tournament. Spectators watch competitors perform a choreographed yo-yo routine to music in front of a judging panel.
“It’s a very niche hobby, but, you know, in some ways, it’s an art form, like a performance art,” Gates said. “And to others, it’s a competitive sport.”
Gates and Schulte said the yo-yo community is rebuilding its contest circuit after a three-year window without competitions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“During those three years, a lot of the kids that were just getting into it didn’t have a support structure to keep them at it,” Schulte said. “It was really a tough restart as far as making sure to get enough people at the event and making sure it was going to work.”
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The National Yo-Yo League used to have nine regional contests across the country. After the pandemic, the league has cut back to three or four each year — the other 2025 regional competitions were held in Oregon and New Jersey. But Schulte said he expects to have nearly 50 competitors at the championship Saturday. He sees some of his closest friends a few times a year at these contests, which provide an in-person space for the yo-yo community to connect.
“People will be trading tricks, teaching tricks to one another and showing off, you know, new things they’ve been working on,” Gates said. “People trade yo-yos and all kinds of things. It’s a very lively community.”
For more information, visit the contest website at yoyocontest.com/mwr.
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