Yo-yo . Toy made of plastic or other materials with a deep groove in the center of the entire edge, around which a cord that knotted to a finger is alternately raised and lowered. The disc is handled by jerking up and down.
Summary
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- 1 Origin
- 2 In China (1000 BC)
- 3 History of yo-yo in Mexico
- 4 Sources
Origin
The yo-yo had its origin formed by springs in a hunting contraption, which were used in the early Modern Age by certain civilizations to obtain their prey for food, and required a certain skill to handle it.
In the 16th century, the ancient Mexican hunters devised a yo-yo, which was a weapon made up of two large wooden discs and a stout liana that united them. The yo-yo launched itself with skill, and its liana caught the animal by the legs and knocked it down, which made it easy to kill it. The yo-yo made it easier for hunters, as in the case of the Australian boomerang , which also allowed them to reduce their prey from afar.
The name comes from Tagalog, an Indonesian language that is the oldest and most widely spoken among Filipinos. The yo-yo was not originally a toy.
In the 1920s, an enterprising American named Donald Duncan was able to see the Filipino yo-yo in action. Reducing the size of the weapon, he transformed it into a children’s toy, retaining the Tagalog name, but Duncan’s yo-yo was not the true origin of the game.
In China (1000 BC)
As a toy, the yo-yo originated in China around 1000 BC. The oriental version consisted of two ivory discs with a silk cord wrapped around its central axis. As time went by, this Chinese toy spread in Europe, where it was sumptuously adorned with jewels and painted with geometric drawings, so that its rotation created hypnotic effects.
Playing with a yo-yo quickly became one of the favorite pastimes for children around the world; and Latin America could not be the exception, there it acquired great popularity, which it maintains to this day. In Argentina , during the 80s for example, a great fury was created around the yo-yo “bronco”.
In Mexico , it came to be recognized as a sport, there is even what is known as the Mexican Yo-Yo Association. Without a doubt, the fact that its price is cheap and that it is easy to build one with cheap and easily available materials has contributed to many children in the world, even the poorest, being able to play with it. Those people who think that yo-yo is a game only for children are wrong. Through the years, the yo-yo has been the favorite toy not only of the little ones, but also of the great ones, among them, people of great importance and influence, including various scientists and politicians. Among them are Presidents John F. Kennedy , Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard Nixon, who knew they were big fans of the hobby, as they were often seen playing with yo-yo in the presidential office of the White House.
On April 12, 1985, the yo-yo traveled into space with the crew of the shuttle Discovery and years later, on the Atlantis spacecraft. Currently, world tournaments and competitions are held in which true fans of this curious toy participate. The world competition is held annually in Orlando. In addition, there are a hundred tricks with curious names that can be performed with it, including “around the world”, “atomic fire”, “silver bullet”, “the kamikaze”, “walking the puppy “,” the swing “,” the star “,” the bear’s cave “and many more. As an example, there is “Fast” Eddy McDonald , who owns the title ”
History of yo-yo in Mexico
Before the existence of the telephone and television, there were already yo-yo fans in Mexico. These children and young people played with wooden Yo-yos of the Sheiro brand. It is the first brand known in our modern world as such. Previously, of course, wooden yo-yos were used for home-made and later manual wood made with copying lathe; the latter we continue to find in the markets and use today. Yo-yo takes its commercial and promotional form as we know it today in the sixties with the appearance of the Plastimarx and Impala toy companies that produced these pieces, as well as the international promoting companies such as Flambeau Products Corporation (owner of the brand Duncan), as well as the Jack Russell company who promoted the Coca Cola company worldwide with its advertising campaigns and, of course, Mexico was no exception.
In Mexico it was a children’s toy until Plastimax in 1962 launched a girl named Elvira Leño who served as a promoter so that the girls were included in this fun and educational toy.
