The greatest day of Michael Mena's life as a professional athlete ended with a pair of world championships that the 33-year-old had spent the better part of two decades chasing.
Asked how becoming the best in his chosen sport – for a day anyway – was going to go over back at the office, the Florida native who currently works as an automated software tester in Canada just laughed.
“They think it's cool,” Mena said. “But they don't get the full depth of how it all works.”
Hard to blame them. Because how do you explain ... this?
Mena is a pogoer. Check that. He's a “professional pogo sticker".
Yes, really.
Mena and the rest of the tight-knit group that gathers every year in a parking lot a few miles east of downtown Pittsburgh, attempting to one-up each other during the annual “Pogopalooza," understand what they do is a little out there – even for an action sport.
“I feel like it’s similar to a fraternity,” said Dalton Smith, considered one of the greatest of all time. “But if like all the frat guys were half jocks, half artists, with a little sprinkle of mystical zest on the whole thing.”
That mystical zest comes during those precious fractions of a second when you’re 3m in the air with a piece of steel between your legs, trying to balance the yin and yang between gravity and imagination. They do this for glory, not for money.
The total amount of cash won across three days at Pogopalooza 2026? Zero.
“The dream used to be: We’re going to be the next skateboarding,” Mena said.
“If we got a bunch of money, it would be cool, but it’s not the goal anymore,” he added. "We’re not like, ‘How can we make more money?’ It’s like, ’How can we make it more exciting? How can we push the sport further and get more people into it?' That’s what it’s all about.”
Where you see a pogo stick, others see a calling
Front flips. Back flips. Letting it go, doing a full twist, then snatching it back and setting your feet on it just before you land. The list of possibilities is endless, and that's kind of the point.
“We're equal parts naive and brave,” said the 29-year-old Smith, whose flowing black hair, moustache and soulful approach to his life's work give the “Man With Pogo” a zen-like vibe. “It's not even naive. You just want something so bad. You see it in your head, this trick that you're chasing. Once you get into the flow of trying it, you're not thinking about fear. Your body's just pushing, pushing, pushing until you get it, so you kind of get over the fear hump and then whatever happens, happens.”
The Big Air and Best Trick trophies Mena won on a cloudy June afternoon in front of a few hundred curious people were the result of hundreds of moments of failure.
The first time Mena tried a backflip, he was 13. He inflated an air mattress for safety. He didn't know how to flip off two feet, let alone a hollow air-pressurised tube.
“It went really bad,” he said. “I landed on my head or whatever.”
Want to be good at pogo? Hope your pain tolerance is high
Smith remembers pulling all the cushions off the couches of his childhood home in Franklin, Tennessee, while his parents were at work and using them as crash pads, then putting them back when he was done, hoping they wouldn't notice. Henry Cabelus' dad put carpet on top of plywood so his son could practice in the backyard instead of the street, where Cabelus' mother feared he'd get hit by a car.
At 26, Cabelus has arthritis in his right knee and his left foot. A couple of years ago, one bad landing ended with both feet broken. There was the time he had to spend a night in the ICU because air was leaking into his cranium due to a fractured orbital bone and doctors feared he might have a stroke.
The morning headlines including rising Ebola cases in DR Congo, scorching temperature across Europe and the loudest man in the world is crowned. (Source: Breakfast)
Yet, there is no other way Cabelus, who lives in Long Beach, California, wants to make a living, for now anyway. Most of the athletes at Pogopalooza are part of the “Xpogo” team that performs at everything from NBA halftime shows to state fairs and cruises.
What began as a childhood fixation has become a livelihood for most, run by a Carnegie Mellon graduate who left a job as an internal consultant for IBM to run a business that has morphed into a passion project. By Will Weiner's own admission, the corporate gig the 34-year-old once had was “1000% more lucrative" than his current job.
If you know, you know
Weiner described Pogopalooza as more of a family reunion than an actual competition. And while Xpogo is technically a for-profit business, after making a push to try and broaden Pogopalooza — including making an appearance as part of ESPN's The Ocho programming — the event has settled firmly into “if you know, you know” territory.
“We might not have 20,000 people here, but we can give you authentic, and we can give you cool and we can give you content,” Weiner said.
On the eve of the event, Cabelus debuted a three-minute video that served as a mash-up of some of the most difficult tricks he's ever completed. Duncan Murray criss-crosses the country in a white hatchback, “The Duncan Pogo show” emblazoned on the side.
They all want pogoing to grow, but only in a way that feels organic.
Pogopalooza ends every year with a “jump off” for spectators 15-and-under in an effort to provide the spark that turned into an obsession for Mena and others long ago.
Connor Poe, 19 and considered one of pogoing's bright young stars, stood atop the Big Air course during the finals and said to no one in particular, "I'm going to ... hurt myself", before dropping in.
He was right. Ten seconds into his run, the stick gave way. Poe's face hit the pavement.
No matter. That didn't stop him from attempting it twice more. Poe's third run was a clean and creative 60-second journey from one element to the next, earning the former high school football player third place behind Mena.
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