There's nothing to learning to yo-yo. It's the yo-yo tricks that are, well, tricky, according to "Yo-Yo Man" Barry North.

"The hardest trick is learning any new trick," he said from his home in Rolling Meadows. "Once you learn it, it's not hard anymore."

Barry North brings "around the world," "skin the cat," "the dog bite," "loop-de-loop" and a plethora of other yo-yo tricks to the Lakeside Music and Arts Festival.

He performs at 12:10 p.m. on the main stage and at 1:35 p.m. on the Beach House stage Saturday, July 5, of the two-day festival.

For North, it started with "the sleeper." "The Sleeper" is a classic and basic yo-yo trick that makes the yo-yo come to rest at the bottom of the string, still spinning.

"That's what you have to learn before anything," North said.

He was 10 years old when an uncle who was also a bit of a yo-yo trickster got him interested in the pastime.

North said during his childhood, he had to find ways to entertain his self. So he picked up a yo-yo.

He won his first yo-yo competition at age 11 and took second place in the City of Chicago Championship in 1953 at age 13.

He would later go on to win a world championship and break a record by swinging a yo-yo 287 times in the advanced division of the National Championship in 1994.

North, now 67, said he no longer enters competitions, but judges them instead.

"These young kids today, I can't compete," he said. "That's the way it should be. They should be getting better and better."

But he says you can still "teach an old dog new tricks." He said he recently learned "drop in a bucket."

North continues to tour demonstrating a yo-yo is more than up and down and working to peak an interest in possible future yo-yo enthusiasts. He added he currently feels the popularity of yo-yos is down, but he believes interest will surge again for the rounded toy, like it does every 10 years.

"Everyone's picked up a yo-yo once in their lives," he said. "It's just some don't stick with it."

"If you practice something long enough and study something and stick with it, you're going to get it," he said as a message to anyone wishing to learn tricks with the yo-yo. "Don't give up, I tell them. Keep at it."

WHAT: "Yo-Yo Man" Barry North

WHEN: 12:10 p.m. and 1:35 p.m., Saturday, July 5

WHERE: Main Stage (for the 12:10 p.m. show) and Beach House Stage (for the 1:35 p.m. show), Lake Decatur

COST: Free

(EDITOR'S NOTE: This is one in a series of profiles of acts performing at the Lakeside Music and Arts Festival July 5-6.)

Alicia Spates can be reached at aspates@herald-review.com or 421-6986.