Spin Control: Santa Cruz Yo-Yoers Share Skills

Walking up to a Santa Cruz Yo-Yo Club meeting is like entering Cheers, without the beer. Almost everyone who walks up to the club is greeted by name.

Stu Branoff, a fifth-grade teacher at Bayview Elementary and the organizer of the club, can generally be heard cheering the loudest.

"I really enjoy it," said Branoff. "It's because I really enjoy it" that the club is now in its fifth year.

On select Satudays, the crew is found behind Louden Nelson Community Center sharing tricks and hanging out.

Many of the more than a dozen folks who show for the monthly meeting are past or present students of Branoff—the affectionate "Hey Mr. B, check this out," echoes throughout the course of the meeting.

Kobe Allen, an 11-year-old Mission Hills sixth-grader, is one of Branoff's many protégés.

Now sponsored by the yo-yo maker Yoyofactory, Kobe showed up to work on his yo-yoing and hang out with pals.

"I'm working on more choreographed stuff," Kobe said, and he swung his yo-yo around him, forming geometric shapes and seemingly making the yo-yo defy gravity.

Chris Garcia, a 20-year-old UC Santa Cruz student, stood by his backpack filled with skill toys—juggling equipment, yo-yos and diabolos, a large Chinese yo-yo balanced on a string attached to two sticks.

"I'm more into juggling," said Garcia, who runs UCSC's juggling club. But he's recently started yo-yoing and is quicly picking up the new skill.

"He's good at anything he tries," Branoff said.

The club draws from outside of Santa Cruz as well.

Long-time yo-yoer David Capurro has made the trek to Santa Cruz from the Bay Area for the monthly meetings since the group's inception in 2006.

"I've been doing it for so long, it's become a part of my life," said Capurro. "I always have one on me. It's a good way of making friends. It's a good social lubricant."

Branoff agrees. His circle of friends is ever-growing, thanks to the yo-yo world.

"It's such a social thing," he said. "So many of these people are my friends."

Branoff regularly travels to yo-yoing contests across the nation.

In August he ran a diabolo contest at the World Yo-yo Contest that takes place in Orlando, FL. And earlier this month, he was in Chico for the National Yo-Yo Contest.

"It's like a three-ring circus," he said. "Tops, yo-yos and diabolos."

It's a circus that is open to anyone, in Santa Cruz and beyond.

The Santa Cruz Yo-Yo Club generally meets on the second Saturday of the month. For more information, e-mail Stu Branoff at scyoyoclub@baymoon.com.