The BurninBerlin YoYo Crew went to Leipzig to compete at the German Masters from 5.-6. October 2013 and with lots of success, I'd say! Two titles were defended and many other good positions achieved. But lets take this step by step. The most amazing part is the community! When I arrived, I knew that three of my eight compulsory tricks won't work. At the meet-up on the first evening I was trying Eli Hops and it didn't take long and I had a couple of little people standing around me asking: "Do you need help with the trick? Would you like me to give you some tips?" I probably heard every different variation of trying the trick from more people than I can count to finally get a grip on it. I still can't do them properly on cue, but on stage they worked out on the first try. And with such a good crew behind my back, we were able to make this Sports Class preliminary almost an exciting event! ;)

So I quite unexpectedly got past my compulsory tricks and got to do a freestyle, which was basically letting myself flow as much as possible as I just don't know enough tricks to really fill two minutes. Even nicer then to hear from those twelve-year-old kids that have fingers faster than my brain that that they liked my freestyle. Ended up making the top ten, so that's something!

BurninBerlin was able to virtually own the 5A Freehand (counterweight instead of attached to finger) and Team Masters though! Both titles went to Berlin for the second time in a row. Making Bao repeated double champion and Tina and Luzi arguably the first girls to win a title in German YoYo history. Another strong contender is Team Class mastermind Gesine, who choreographed the winning BurninBerlin shows of the last years. This year she did a special trick and created the Mixed Pickles team from scratch one and a half hours before the show to take second place. Rainer, Conan, her and me never once practiced the whole freestyle before or even with real music for everyone on the team to hear. But we had a show and glitter! Yes, you read that right: I got to play another freestyle and that BurninBerlin/North Rhine-Westphalia collabo made me runner-up in the Team Class! w00t! :)

I think my personal highlight though was Schmidti in the 1A Masters Class. I liked his preliminary freestyle very much already. Great choice of tunes, played nicely close to the beat, very enjoyable to watch. He then walked right through to fifth place in the most crowded class of them all on his first attendance at the Masters! If you're into YoYoing, check out his tutorials - they are just the same relaxed style as his freestyles. His brother got into 2A YoYoing, that's looping with two YoYos at the same time. From what I saw him playing just for fun this year, I'm really looking forward to his first freestyle the next year!

On the picture you see the winning BurninBerlin Team in the front row with the North-Rhine Westphalia guys, Gesine and me in the back. Our team's certificate is missing from the picture cause I was overwhelmed and couldn't be bothered with holding it up. And Conan from NRW is wearing a BurninBerlinOpen T-Shirt... I guess we'll meet again! ;)