Spinworkx

It was only during the earlier part of 2009 did local player Darrell start making quite a name for himself in the local scene. With a new look and style of play, Darrell has managed to wow the crowd since the 2009 West Coast Classics held earlier this year in February.

We caught up with Darrell for a short chat to know more about the up and coming player who is also Spinworkx’s latest crew member!

Name: Darrell Mitchell
Age: 14
Country: Singapore
Years of Play: 3
Preferred style of play: 1A,2A
Preferred Yo-Yo and Setup: Dif-e-yo,with flowable silicone
Favorite Music: Remixes from d-jan
Favorite Street Brand: Don’t really have one
Other hobbies: Pen spinning

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Spinworkx:

Thanks for dropping by today Darrell! It’s great to have you here, how long have you been yo-yoing? Was it something you picked up through a craze of from a friend who played?

Darrell:

I have been yo-yoing for 3 three years now, I started during the fast 201 craze when Yohans visited Singapore in June of 2006.

Before the craze I actually knew a few basic tricks, like the walk the dog, around the world and a few improper loops, I did that all with my pro fly, however I did not take yo-yoing seriously back then as I felt these were the only few tricks that could be done with a yo-yo, and it would eventually get BORING, but after the craze I found out that I was so wrong.

Spinworkx:

Sweet, yeah I remember my first time when I got into yo-yoing back in 1998, things were a lot different back then when the hype was all surrounding the wooden axle proyos. So who did you look up to in yo-yoing back then? And what are your inspirations which motivate you today to continuously strive and make better tricks?

Darrell:

When I first got into yoyoing, I looked up to Steve Brown and Yohans simply because they made yoyoing look FREAKING COOL and entertaining.

For today I would say that my inspirations are people like Hidemasa Senba, Johnie Delvalle and Cheng (I started creating arm tricks when when I saw Cheng doing a simple arm combo with his YoyoJam Mini Mo-tu in 2007, one day before SYYC), I looked up to Senba and Johnnie as they are people who are not afraid to be original and have great confidence in their own style of playing yoyo. However, I feel that people who motivate me the most are my friends , especially Christopher, Marcus, Shan Zheng and Malcolm. These are the people who give me never ending motivation when ever I feel ‘NOOB’, or keep me going whenever I feel un-confident about my standard and tricks.

Special mention to Christopher, he is the person which I have known for the longest time in the yo-yoing community, ever since the gatherings at Millenia Walk, when I would always tell him I wanted to quit (coz i was still very bad at tricks), he will never fail to remind me to understand the true meaning of yo-yoing which was to use your imagination and have fun, lots of fun.

Spinworkx:

Glad to see you treat “family” as the most important aspect that keeps you yo-yoing. You can tell from the support your got during your West Coast Classics freestyle that you’re becoming quite the popular choice. So how was it like getting top 3 for the West Coast Classics competition? How hard did you practice? Were there new ideas that you incorporate to your routine?

Darrell:

Being the runner up in WCC09  made me feel extremely satisfied and thankful with my decision to continue playing..and I felt damn HAPPY.

I thought that I practice even harder for this then how I studied for my PSLE, however a mistake that i made was not practicing as hard for my finals compared to my prelimes. In the course of planning my freestyle, I did get new ideas and tricks, however I did not incorporate them into my routine, but out of panic during the finals, I accidentally use some of those tricks in my freestyle on stage.

Spinworkx:

Haha, I guess the competition was quite an experience for you. Oh, and congrats on joining the Spinworkx Crew as well!!! We’re glad to ave you onboard, it’s been awhile since we picked new comers and it’s great to have you become one of us. So how does it feel being part of Singapore’s top players?

Darrell:

Thanks! Being invited into the team made me feel fantastic, I mean its like I am now in the same team as players that I have looked up upon and players who have made great achievements and contributions in the yo-yoing community, on that day that I was invited I was surprised and at the same time happy beyond words as being in Spinworkx was one of my goals, and it was like a dream come true.

On the other hand being in the team has also made me motivated to train harder and be more serious as i would not want to ruin the reputation of Spinworkx in the coming competitions.

Spinworkx:

Don’t worry about not performing during competitions, Spinworkx looks for various qualities when choosing our crew, winning competitions is just a fraction. =)

Anyway, being in the Spinworkx Crew now, what are your personal goals for the future and what do you seek to achieve?

Darrell:

My personal goal in the yo-yoing community is to be noticed by players around the world and also to be able to influence more people to take up yoyoing and therefore increase the size of the Singapore yo-yoing community and the amount of players as a whole.

I seek to achieve qualifying for Asia Pacific Yo-Yo Championships by next year and work harder to be able to place top 5 in Asia in the years after 2011.

In local competitions I wish to achieve first place in the regionals and be able to achieve getting top three placings in syyc, however saying all this would not help my accomplish my goals, achievements only come to those who put in great effort, hard work and their confidence into what they do.

Spinworkx:

Haha, such a wise thing to say. I’m glad to see that you’re really ambitious and have set yourself rather good goals you can look forward to in future.

We’re about to wrap it up real quick, so do you have any last words of advice you’d like to give to our fellow players who seek to become future champions when they grow up?

Darrell:

To the new and up coming players, i just wanna say that nobody starts of a pro or a champion, everyone starts up small, and although some people may learn faster than the others, it is not a valid or good enough reason to give up.

So just keep throwing and creating, use your imagination and u might not know what “yabai” concepts or tricks u might create, and eventually u will find yourself in a position where u are grateful that u did not decide give up yo-yoing!

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We hope you enjoyed this article! Do stay tuned as we continue our search to bring you more interviews fro players around the globe.

Thanks for reading!

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 20th, 2009 at 8:00 am and is filed under exclusive. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.