Helium Rising

by Crazy Ivan


The other day, someone asked me to write a blog where I ranked all the non-Myachi Master players in order of freestyle skill.  What they wanted, essentially, was the top 10 Myachi players in the world that didn't work for the company.  I politely declined.

"Why?  You don't want to offend anyone?" the inquisitor asked.

"No... I just don't really know."

There are a lot of reasons why I wouldn't know.  I've met many of the avid Myachi players in the world, but not all of them.  There are certainly people who got into the game through a friend and practiced a lot and played for a really long time but never put up any You Tube videos, joined the forum or visited HQ.  It's entirely possible that all 10 of the best Myachi players in the world go to the same school in some little town in Mississippi, but we've never heard of them.

Now, if that seems unlikely, consider the case of Helium, a Myachi Maniac that I just met the other day.  He is a legit freestyler with a pretty wide range of skills.  And we're not talking easy tricks.  The dude has a clean Matrix Unleashed, a spot-on Jedi, a Clipper Delay to Gui, a Back and Forth Daredevil and an Instep to Duck.  And that's just a small sampling of what I saw out of him.

If I'd written a list of the 10 best freestylers last week (which is when I was asked about it), I certainly wouldn't have mentioned Helium from Toronto.  I'd never met him and didn't even know he existed.  But after he went toe to toe with me in MYACH today (we had to end our game at H to H after I successfully nailed him on a redemption shot), I've got to imagine he deserves some mention in that top 10 list.

But that's just the thing.  He was probably one of the 10 best freestylers I've seen that don't work for Myachi that I know are playing right now, but what about the hundreds of thousands of Myachis that were sold to people I never met?  What about all the talented maniacs that we got into the game back in Virginia Beach, Ocean City, Cocoa Beach, St. Louis, Knoxville, Miami, Branson or any of the hundreds of other places we've been.  Could it be that one of them is still into the game and pushing the envelope of what's possible?  Could it be that some Manaic that we met back in 2001 has been practicing for 2 hours a day ever since and has a whole repertoire of 6 Myachi tricks?

All I know is that we've taught millions of people to play over the years.  Even if they were all standing in front of me right now and throwing down their best freestyle tricks, I don't think I could pick out the top 10.

Oh, and hopefully I can update this blog with a little video of Helium shredding.  Check back with this post in the next few days...