‘Blazing Team’ – Yo-Kwando and Meditation

Blazing Team is a comedy action cartoon series that follows the story of a group of teens brought together by the power of Yo-Kwando, the mixture of yo-yo trickery and kung fu mastery. It’s an interesting mixture of cheese and fun with a personality on the team for everyone.

::We interrupt this post to bring you a special news bulletin.::
According to the description on Blazing Team‘s trailer, this is a “boys-comedy-action-adventure-series.” I’m a girl and I like the show, so whoever wrote that description can whacked in the head by their own yo-yo for all I care. Moving on. 

I don’t watch the show religiously but I’ve seen an episode or two enough to say it’s not bad. My favorite line so far is from the first episode of season one when Parker asks, “Am I being stalked by a duck?” followed by my second favorite line by Master Lao Shi, “My pet duck here has brought you all here because the world is in danger and you five are the only ones who can save it.” (By the way, the duck’s name is Taco.)

Speaking as someone who prefers cartoons over sitcoms, it’s not a bad way to waste 20 minutes on your lunch, if you need a break from adulting.

All cartoons have toys and Blazing Team is no exception. Since the show revolves around yo-yo mastery, it only makes sense that the toys are yo-yos.

The toys are broken down by level of mastery and range from level 1 (practically yo-yos itself) to level 5 (master). Skip the level 1 toys entirely because they’re a little on the big side for smaller hands and take more effort to yo-yo than is necessary with one that doesn’t wind itself up.

I let my son give a level 2 a try and after an almost broken TV and cracked skull, I decided he wasn’t going to be the one to test these particular toys out.

Instead, I gave them a shot myself and decided that out of the bunch the Morph Master Tiger (Level 3) and the Beast Wrangler Monkey (Level 2) were mine, mine, mine. They were the smoothest to play with and I liked how they felt when I held them.

The Morph Master yo-yos start out as a regular looking yo-yo but can transform into the butterfly shape for more advanced tricks. It’s like getting two yo-yo toys in one.

Hasbro doesn’t just sell the toys. On their website, they have instructional videos on how to use them properly and basic tricks you can do with each of them. At the beginning of the videos, they give you the level of Blazing Team yo-yo needed to complete the tricks successfully. So far, anything between a 2-4 will get you the basics.

I enjoyed playing with yo-yos as a kid but never learned any tricks. And after watching some videos, I apparently never learned how to throw one either. It was fun getting back into the swing of it and after a few throws, I realized how meditative it was.

While playing with the toys, I was trying to think about how to get the feel of the toy and my angle while playing. What happened instead was my brain was so focused on the process, I couldn’t focus on anything but the yo-yo. I ended up playing more for enjoyment than for the sake of getting something done.

I’m not sure how long I was walking in my living room playing but it was long enough that my throwing finger started hurting. When I finally put it down, my brain felt more at ease than when I started. At one point I tried to learn a few tricks, but I quickly saw it was stressing me out, so I went back to just the standard yo-yo throw.

I can’t say these toys are going to make me a Yo-Kwando master, but I do carry one with me at all times now as a form of meditation when anxiety hits. It’s an unexpected twist to a story that was originally only going to be about a new kids show and the toy line.