July 16, 2012

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Meet Contributing Blogger TheFerrell

Hello! There are many who are reading this blog post and already know who I am. You all have seen me regularly post on the AP-club forum and back on the Freedo and Allesastrojax forums. I even had a few posts on the astrojax.com forum BEFORE it became the Ap-club forum! Yes, that means I've been involved with Astrojax for more than 7 years now. I actually was one of the first to experience www.usastrojax.com because I tried to order a catalog from Jim back when he ACTUALLY had a catalog. (Memo to self, bug Jim to get one of those if he still has one).

Oh wait, where was I.... Oh yea, my introduction.

I am a resident of Southern California. I enjoy all those stereotypical "So-cal" things such as riding any board I can get my hands on (surfing, wakeboarding, longboarding, snowboarding, etc.) I also like playing with Astrojax and yoyos WHILE riding said boards. (haven't done it wiht Snowboards and Surfing yet...). I am married to a Civil Engineer who I met back in School. I am a Civil Engineer and currently work for my parents (also civil engineers) and we design pools (anything from custom pools to olympic competition pools), houses, and even the fake rocks you see at Disneyland or Disney World! Yup, it's a fun job! I also get to work with my parents and two sisters all day, so it's a fun family affair..Other than that, I currently work with the Cub Scouts with my church and I have addicted them all to skill toys.

Ok, now about my view of Astrojax/play style/mantra. I believe my strength in Astrojax is teaching. I try to regularly put out tutorial videos about how to not only learn, but master the basic moves. I am currently looking for tricks you want to learn, so feel free to contact me via Facebook or the Ap-club forums. I want everyone to enjoy Astrojax. The main key to enjoying astrojax is to simply LOVE to play. I believe that this is becoming a lost art with the advent of video games, cell phone games (which I extremely detest being a big time video-gamer myself). People simply don't imagine as they used to. Astrojax, to me, is about flow and rhythm and entertainment. I'll post on ways to always be putting on a show, even if you only have one person watch. I'll also make posts (and videos) on ways to practice so if you are in a crowd, you can bust great tricks without having people be completely scared of getting whacked on the head. My wife and I have Disneyland passes, and I'm always seen there with a set of jax putting on a show in those ungodly long lines. It's always fun to see kids' eyes light up and watch as you are in the flow.

I consider myself a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to the skill toy world. I own about a dozen different skill toys and I grade myself "proficient" and above with everything. For this forum, I will be posting about Astrojax and Yoyos. My first skill toy was a Yoyo, so I still keep those dear to my heart. I also realize that my yoyo skills are nowhere near world class, so I will not be making videos for trick descriptions, since those videos are all over the interwebz. I, however, will make videos for yoyos geared towards AP's yoyos and tips and tricks to get the beginner yoyo-slinger graduated from a clutch yoyo and into the world of non-responsive yoyos. That's where the real fun begins!

So yea, that's about it for me! Stay Tuned (pun intended) and hang onto something. This is the wildest ride in the wilderness!

- John Ferrell

a.k.a. Theferrell