What does "Spyro" mean?

[mc]

I am confused about this.

one voice says that it is "gyro symposium".

the other voice says that it is "gyro with no spin, like paradox, but behind the back", an example of this being the awesome move at 3:47 in Milan's new video.

what's the verdict?

[Anz]

I might remember wrong, but somehow I recall Steve Goldberg telling me that he invented Spyro to call out "bad" Gyro moves - planting before dex.

Then at some point a couple years ago Spyro ment Gyro Symposium. But it didn't seem to catch on. I guess it sort of died away because if you said "I hit Spyro Mirage" you had to explain yourself if you ment Gyro with plant or Gyro Symposium.

Nowadays I think it just means Gyro with plant, and I've never heard it meaning "behind the back" without spin like Honza explained it.

[Cod]

I was always using the term Spyro for Gyro with plant.

[C-Fan]

How confusing. I thought spyro was symposium gyro.

Even more confusing, is the fact that the only trick that ever had the name "spyro" in it was gyro butterfly swirl, which was named "spyro gyro" back in the mid 90s. That trick is neither symposium, nor does it plant.

[Jeremy]

I seem to recall Kenny Shults once giving a rather confusing definition of spyro and then conceding that it made a lot more sense if it just referred to gyro symposium. It definitely originally meant something else. I can't recall ever hearing a move that is not gyro but where the bag passes behind you referred to as spyro, although I do very vaguely recall Lynton saying something about that and "backside" and "frontside" tricks - those terms originally having nothing to do with symposium.

I would definitely agree that today the accepted definition of spyro is gyro symposium or gyro with a plant.

I tend to not use the term at all - and just say gyro symp whirl, or whatever.

[Ian Brill]

Even more confusing, is the fact that the only trick that ever had the name "spyro" in it was gyro butterfly swirl, which was named "spyro gyro" back in the mid 90s. That trick is neither symposium, nor does it plant.

Same here. I have wanted to hit this trick forever. The funniest part is, that I have been consciously working up to it lately by schooling gyro mirages without planting and butterfly swirl variations (on both sides). Spyro Gyro seems like it would be less bad-ass with a behind the back set or a plant.

[C-Fan]

I don't want to clutter the Milan video thread (people should check it out; it's really tight), so I'll respond to Honza's comment here.

So NO Symposium in SPYRO which again kinda proves my theory that a forum like this just confuses people...

:

This stood out to me, because it seemed like the exact opposite conclusion that I would have reached. Before the discussion took place, if somebody asked me what "spyro" was, I would have said gyro symposium. It seems like many other North American players would have said the same. I would have never guessed it meant "planting gyro," as it apparently does.

If this forum didn't exist, I would have continued to be confused. It is only because of this forum that the confusion has cleared up. If anything, this disproves Honza's theory.

[Ian Brill]

Ken,

Based on your definition of Spyro, Spyro Gyro would not be very Spyro (would they- oh?). You know, because it's symple swirl? Is this what you are suggesting?

Racking my brain over here!

[C-Fan]

I'm saying that gyro butterfly swirl, when done properly, is neither symposium nor planting. So "spyro gyro" isn't spyro in any sense of the word.

[Ian Brill]

That's what I thought you were saying.

Sigh.

What a heart-breaking lack of continuity. What a missed, golden opportunity for consistency.

Thanks for at least clearing this up. You know, the NA angle. We might need to summon big Steve himself, before the nails come out.

[Alex Dworetzky]

i could just be retarded, but i always thought spyro was gyro symposium

[Abe]

I thought the same thing Alex, and it could be deemed "retarded" by some, but I want to avoid using that description. But it's also been partly validated based on what others have been saying. The definition of spryo definitely has a lot of ambiguity surrounding it.

What I thought of it was based on one of Anssi's videos: http://www.footbag.org/gallery/show/8251

I'm going to call ask Steve about it now. He'll most likely call us all nerds for discussing something so pointless. But hopefully he'll clarify the topic for us.

If this has taught us anything, its that footbag.org needs to be updated on this topic.

[Jorden]

Nah, spyro has never meant gyro symposium.

Spyro is about as dumb as "plantadox", which caught on briefly. Two pointless terms.

I put my foot down when I could have chose not to.
OR
I waited a little extra longer before turning and starting a dex.

Are either of these actions significant enough to have a term coined?

No way!

JM

[Jeremy]

Well if you take the time to go through the old discussion lists Eli Piltz and Scott Davidson refer to it as symp gyro (or suggest that it should be) in 1999.

[Ners]

Therefore we have something we could call a doctrine conflict "Dimwalk", anyone?

Pozdrawiam
Szymon Kałwak (Ners)

[Tripp]

gyro with a plant is called "not-gyro" (ex. i hit a not-gyro mirage).

Actually I think that was just one of Piltz's suggestions from long ago..

[Jeremy]

Also, and this will blow some minds , the reason "spyro gyro" is called that is because one dex is spyro and the other dex is gyro. ie. the move is a gyro butterfly and a spyro swirl put together. The move possibly should be "gyro spyro" instead though.

edit; from the pre '99 days when spyro was gyro with a plant.

[Outsider]

Well if you take the time to go through the old discussion lists Eli Piltz and Scott Davidson refer to it as symp gyro (or suggest that it should be) in 1999.

Jeremy is correct. Ten years back or more, gyro whirl had been around for a while already, but the notion to do a gyro whirl symposium was probably pretty new, and some people (like Enlightener and Wachipipeta, and others) said "lets call gyro symposium 'Spyro'...". Okay, whatever. I was never any damn good at gyro, so I haven't paid much attention to these terms since then, but, back then, symposium gyro was sometimes called spyro, but then, not always, because, not that many people were even doing many different kinds of gyro syposium moves anyway. The most common one was gyro syposium torque. And since this already had its own name (Big Apple) and could also simply be called Symposium Mobius, nobody ever called it Spyro Torque. Similarly, when we did see someone hit a gyro sypm mirage, this also had a couple of its own names, both of which we thought were kind of funny ("Little Apple", or, "Jersey City"... [ I still think those names are funny, especially taken together ] ) so, again, hardly anybody ever used the term "spyro mirage". About the only gyro symposium move that I can remember anybody actually refering to as "Spyro" was the whirl.

And as for Spyro Gyro, that move has been around since before anybody suggested that gyro symposium be called spyro. We're talking, like, 1996, maybe '95. I remember reading about this trick in one of my first issues of Footbag World Magazine, something about Kenny and Rippin' sort of racing each other to hit this trick at some event. Why did they call it Spyro Gyro? Probably because it just sounded cool. Maybe it had something to do with the Jazz Fusion band from the 1970's and 80's, Sypro Gyra. As for naming inconsistencies, just compare it to Blurriest, which, obvious, is not a stepping paradox move, but was hit and named before the term "blurry" was first used to refer to all stepping-paradox moves (and for that matter, before we even used the term "stepping"...) A naming inconsistency... So what? Deal with it! Its still a cool name.

gyro with a plant is called "not-gyro" (ex. i hit a not-gyro mirage).

Actually I think that was just one of Piltz's suggestions from long ago..

Yeah, around-about 2002, Tricks of the Trade 2 was finally released. Kenny Shults did all the narration, of course, and when he was describing and defining Gyro moves, he took pains to point out that gyro had to be "no-plant" and, looking at the camera, he said in a somewhat stern tone of voice "if you plant, its NOT GYRO". Until then, the idea was that if you planted on a gyro-something, it should instead simply be called a "spinning-something", like, a "gyro butterfly" with a plant should actually be called a "spinning butterfly". Of course, this idea was unsatisfactory, since there already was a spinning butterfly, and it was pretty different from a gyro-butterfly-with-plant, so nobody really liked that idea. So, I just happened to be up in Montreal when the TotT2 was brand-new, and we were all watching it at the Shred Zone in Montreal (Sebastien Duschene, Eli Piltz, and Yacine Merzouk had gone into business by opened a dedicated Freestyle Gym called "The Shred Zone" where they tought lessons or just rented out the space for other shredders to come and play - it was really pretty cool - too bad it wasn't really a money-making business built to last...), and somebody, probably Eli, said, "hey, lets call Gyro-with-a-plant 'Not Gyro', like, 'hey, nice Not-Gyro Whirl!'..." Again, it was something of a joke meant to poke-fun at Kenny and his narration on TotT2, so, of course, I've always really liked the term. I was not really aware that it had ever "caught-on" or that many people outside of the Shred-Zone crew in Montreal really knew that term. I'm glad you mentioned it, Tripp.

[mc]

that not-gyro story is cool, Jon.

Thanks everyone for the perspectives!

[crazylegs32]

I thought the term originated in a different way?> Eric Windsor posted that he finally hit an original move he invented, a gyro symp dlo. Kenny responded that it wasnt gyro and Eric was dejected about it.