This year at PogoPalooza 2022, AllPogo presented the very first “Lifetime Achievement Award,” honoring two pogoers who we believe have made the biggest impact on the progression of the sport of pogo up until today. Fred Grzybowski and Daniel Mahoney received the award, as well as a free Signature Series pogo stick hand built by Earl Pote. Fred Received an original GG modified into an SS due to his longevity in the sport, and Dan received a Green accented SS, paying homage to an old school website and forum he made back in the mid 2000’s called “Green Pogo.”
Fred has been involved with the sport of pogo ever since the very beginning (we’re talkin’ late 90’s) and is responsible for creating a lot of the basics of big air pogo sticking. In fact, Fred was the very first pogoer to move from jumping full time on a spring stick to a big air stick when the Flybar 1200 was released in 2004. In addition to inventing a ton of basics (double grabs i.e. Judo/One Foot same air etc, Superman, Heel clicker, Rodeo, 180/360 Leapfrog and Reverse Leapfrog to name a few) and flip variations (Backflip Peg Grab/Judo, No Handed Flips, Barspin Flips) Fred is responsible for inventing and landing some of the first game changing tricks such as the Wraparound, One Foot/No Foot Cannonball, Scissorkick, Double Backflip Dismount, and Double ULBS same leg… Fred also created the Mcgryz with Nick McClintock (note the spelling “Gryz,” which was decided against the actual spelling of his name “Grzy” to prevent the trick from being mistakenly pronounced as “Mcgrizzy”). The fact that Fred has been around since the birth of the sport and is still out there jumping and innovating is incredible and deserves to be recognized!
Dan got involved with pogo sticking in the mid 2000’s when Big Air was just starting to kick off (circa 2005-2006). He quickly made a name for himself by landing quite literally every Big Air trick that existed at the time and started inventing a TON of tricks when he ran out of tricks to do. To begin, Dan landed the first front flip on a pogo stick! In addition to this, Dan took Tech-Air, which was very under developed at the time, to an entirely different level. Tech-Air is short for Technical Big Air and is basically doing multiple tricks in one air, usually consisting of combining barspins, grabs, leg wraps, etc with under the leg tricks and various other things. Dan is responsible for inventing and landing a majority of modern Stickflip variations, including the Bri Flip, Mandy, Saudi Flip, Canuck, and Flamingo Flip. He also created a ton of under the leg tricks… Including the Triple Scissorkick (or 1.5 Scissorkick if we’re being technical), Scissor Wrap, DULBS Scissor (DULBS to switch ULBS same air), 720/900 ULBS, ULBS late Tuck Reverse, NFCB late ULBS, Scissorkick late Leapfrog…. the list goes on! Dan is also almost entirely responsible for handplants and handplant variations. And lets not forget about the McHoned and El Doubler!!! An entire article can be written about the tricks Dan has created, and perhaps that will be something we can cover in the future!
Congratulations to the winners! you guys deserved it!