Stringin' Along

By Andrea Appleton
POSTED FEBRUARY 1, 2008

When Patrick Cuartero walked into the lunchroom at P.S. 234 one  recent afternoon, the response was deafening. “Pat! Pat’s here!” screamed a dozen 4th and 5th graders, their words echoing off the walls as they rushed to be the first to get his attention.

 Cuartero, looking like a kid himself in spiked hair and high-tops, smiled patiently and waited for the yelling to die down. “YoYo Nation!” he called out. “How you guys doin’?” The room erupted in cheers.

In 2005, Cuartero, 26, left a well-paid job at Merrill Lynch to start his own Web-based yo-yo retail company (also called YoYo Nation). He is a champion yo-yo player, and as of early last year, a yo-yo teacher at P.S. 234 and P.S. 89, through an afterschool program sponsored by Manhattan Youth.

 The man has a near-religious fervor.

“It’s about sharing the love,” he said. Cuartero teared up a bit and then laughed at himself, wiping his eyes. “When I see these kids excited, I see myself. I still get excited. When they get a trick, when I come into a room and they all come after me…you can’t pay for that.”

Yo-yos are no longer the plastic stocking stuffers of yore, capable of a few simple tricks such as Around the World or Walk the Dog. The modern enthusiast has hundreds of stunts to perfect—Eiffel Tower, Splitting the Atom and Buddha’s Revenge. And while simple plastic yo-yos still sell for just a few bucks, high-end precision-balanced magnesium models can go for $450. There are five different styles of professional yo-yo-ing, including one in which the competitor performs with two yo-yos at once.

But for his afterschool program, Cuartero began by teaching the kids the basics, like the Gravity Pull, a simple move in which the yo-yo descends and comes back up. This was followed by the Power Throw and the Sleeper, and by the time a Trib reporter appeared late in the semester last month, the kids could do dozens of complex tricks, from Rock the Baby to Man on a Trapeze. Some were even branching out.

“I invented my own trick,” said 5th grader Victor He, who loop-de-looped the yo-yo string into an intricate figure, creating a sort of cat’s cradle in motion, and pulled it into a knot. Then he blew on the knot while pulling on the string, and the knot disappeared. “It’s called the Houdini,” he said.

The course culminated in a performance on Jan. 23, part of a show featuring students in the various afterschool programs. After a brief concert by the piano class, Cuartero hit the stage. “Are you ready for some yo-yo action?!” he yelled. The kids ran onstage, showing the tricks they’d learned. Mona Johnson and Ruby Marzovilla performed a choreographed dance routine, interspersed with a few coy Gravity Pulls with pink yo-yos. Aaron Lee demonstrated DNA, the yo-yo spinning at the bottom of a swiftly whirling vertical spiral of string, to a chorus of oohs and aahs. Jackson Kaufman showed off Mach 5, an advanced trick in which the yo-yo appears to hover in midair as the string rotates around it.

It was the grand finale for this semester’s yo-yo class but for Cuartero, it was only the beginning. “We plan on spreading this to schools all over New York City,” he said. “The more programs we can get going, the more kids can get into it, and the happier I’ll be.”

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