2001 Open Letter

A Letter From the Doctor,
I'm giddy. Boy, am I giddy. The Midwestern Regional Yo Yo contest is creeping forward, lurking in the back alleys in your mind, waiting quietly as it hears your footsteps approaching and then WHAM! Midwest Regionals hits you on the back of the head like the memory of that bad salmon you ate back in the fall of 96' and takes your wallet. Er... Well Midwest doesn't actually take your wallet, that's just a metaphor for like how the massive ball of energy that is Midwest is so exhilarating that it can sometimes catch you of guard like a whiff of a two month old carton of milk you left next to the cereal because you accidentally put the raisin bran in the fridge in its place and haven1t noticed until now because you just haven't had as much time in the morning to get your daily nutrients recently because of work and all. Er... well actually that's just a simile, I'm surely not trying to imply that midwest smells like....
Alrighty! Lets just start this over.
This years Midwest will soon be starting, like a.... Well, like something that will soon be starting. For those who missed last years Midwest, you missed one of the years best run and largest contests. It was a full weekend of yoing, diabolo, tops, juggling, painting, and sweet tea. Like last year, this years midwest will once again be a two day event. Beginning on April 21st at our juggling Academy for a full day of yo yo events, then continuing on the 22nd with the featured contest events happening on the main stage at the Mall of America.
But, this years contest will feature several new elements that should make it the best Midwest ever. We are striving, based on player feedback and several innovative approaches to judging, to set the standard and be the epicenter at which all the best new ideas can be tested. For instance, as a contestant I know how difficult it is to do all your trick testing then only have an hour before performing your freestyle. This was the first thing we decided to change this year, all freestyle compulsories will be judged on the 21st in a more laid back atmosphere at our academy. This well give every competitor a full day to prepare their freestyles. The compulsory list itself has a different feel to it. We tried to create a list that had elements of all styles of play out there. Pop up tricks, regenerations, long spin body wrap tricks, and even a new trick created just for this event (the reason for the creation of this new trick was to have a trick that everyone has had the same amount of time to work on, and wasn't particularly biased towards certain groups that have had more time to practice it [one of the changes that I hope catches on at more contests]). We also feel that our double a list is just as challenging. We are also keeping the "bye trick", for those who aren't familiar with this, the Bye Trick is a trick that a player can substitute with any other trick in their division. In essence it allows the player to sort of customize the compulsory list to there own taste. For those competitors not planning on freestyling, we eliminated the lower divisions and replaced them with a 30 trick ladder that will be grouped by age divisions.
Among all the changes dominating this years event, some of the biggest don't even have anything to do with the actual contest rules. Among all the happenings on the 21st, we are featuring a tightly run Top Contest on our stage at the juggling academy. The event is being judged and organized by the top top players in the world (he he... top top, guh!). We are also planning on several new workshops and yo yo related things for you easily amused souls out there. Also making its return this year is Popular-a-Tea. Keeping with this years theme, this years sweat tea will be bigger and better than the sweet tea served at any other yo yo contest in the world!
Word.