The CLYW BOY is back at the Motmot Shop.
The Boy by CLYW
The Boy is the signature model from yoyo wizard Ayumu Harada, and the BOY has consistently been one of my personal favourites since its release in 2019. It’s been a non-stop cavalcade of awesome.
The BOY is the next step in the evolution of the beloved Arctic Circle family of yoyos, and it’s not a stretch to think of the BOY as the Arctic Circle 3. Back when I first started getting back into yo-yo I managed to buy a few used CLYW’s (all part of an extraordinary 28 Stories collection) and managed to get an Arctic Circle 2, which quickly became one of my favorite yo-yos. (I also scored a Puffin 1, which is not one of my favorites, but FWIW, the Puffin 3 is awesome!)
Of course, the Arctic Circle was the signature model of World Yoyo champ, Zach Gormley. In my personal opinion, Zach is the G.O.A.T, the Greatest Of All Time, and that’s a pretty a popular opinion in yo-yo land.
Zach Gormley 2015 World Yo-yo champ. He went to college, he finished college, he’s yo-yoing again.
He’ll also beat you at Smash Bros.
Zach went on to compete with the beloved Borealis and Wish familiy of yo-yos, and the Arctic Circle was in limbo for a while. But the crew over at Caribou Lodge were not going to let one of their most successful designs simply shrivel up and rot on the vine.
This is where yo-yo prodigy Ayumu Harada enters the picture, Ayumu has been a long-time member of the CLYW team, and over the years has been tearing up the yo-yo contest scene with some impressive wins with his graceful yet how-the-heck-did-he-do-that play style. Ayumu is one of those players that can bust out some incredibly complex tricks onstage and make it look effortless.
The fine folks at CLYW worked with Ayumu for a considerable amount of time with the laborious process of having prototypes made, and sending them back and forth between Canada - the USA - and Japan. They went over every line, cut, and angle, until the final product was something everyone agreed was awesome. The BOY is not retro-nostalgia; but taking something from the (recent) past and making something new and different with it.
The BOY keeps the Arctic Circle’s width and light weight, but the reworked inner cup and weight distribution gives the BOY a serious power boost which adds some serious spin time. It’s got just enough weight to give it a little extra momentum, to give it that floaty feeling, while having a nice wide catch area to hit those bangers with ease. It’s a nod to CLYW’s past with a modern twist, The BOY is a re-release and redesign done the right way, taking the elements that worked, and improving on them and bringing them up to today’s standards.
The Boy is a competition ready yo-yo, but it’s also fun to play and could be your new everyday throw as well, it’s crazy like that.
The newest run of BOY features some really eye-popping color ways, crazy off-kilter Caribou Lodge splashes for members of the CLYW Team. Classic Adam Splash (Adam Brewster) CHKNSTRPS (Alec Campbell) Graysocean (Gray Johnson) and Vyletel Gourami (Tomas Vyletel).
You do not want to sleep on this bad BOY, now available at your friendly neighbourhood Motmot Shop.
Motmot is the only yoyo shop in Vienna, Austria, and we’re one of the few shops in the EU Stocking CLYW Return-Tops.
Diameter - 56 mm
Width - 44.5 mm
Weight - 66.6 grams
Bearing - Centering Bearing
Response - Snow Tires
