WT19 R5 combo

Please use the 120 fps slow motion with subtitles. I’m unsure of the naming for some tricks.

1st block 0:01 - 0:04 (120 fps video 0:01 - 0:12)

Pinky fxxk 34 ~ sonic 23-24-14 (sonic has total 1.0 rotations) ~ 14 pushed index fxxk aerial ~ curled b1b2 fl fxxk ~ pd fl ra 0.5 ~ pd fl ma to 24 (catch ring out)

The pinky fxxk ~ sonic 23-24-14 is not that hard, but uses fingerswitches/hybrid to condense several tricks into less rotations, and makes the 14 pushed index fxxk aerial more difficult.

Back in February, it took a total lucky try to do the 14 pushed index fxxk aerial ~ b1b2 fl fxxk once (I was not able to link it to pd fl around), and I was not able to do it again in the next few weeks.

b1b2 fl fxxk (pen does not go around any finger) is different from the curled index fxxk in R3 (pen goes around curled index). Very difficult to control the conic rotation.

Doing pd powerpass segment after curled b1b2 fl fxxk was also extremely tough to learn, because of the change in angle of rotation required after the earlier difficult material.

Collectively, this block is tied with the 3rd block (0:07-0:11) as the hardest linkages I’ve ever used.

2nd block 0:04 - 0:07 (120 fps video 0:13 - 0:24)

pd fl ma to 24 (catch ring out) ~ inverse side sonic rev (ring out to in) to 34 ~ ?vertical plane pd angled fl pa to 14 (catch mid in, ring out) ~ 14 pushed curled index-mid bust 14-b1 ~ fist bust fishing b1 ~ pd fl pa rev to 24 (catch ring out) - pd ma rev 1.5 24-b1b2

The ?vertical plane pd angled fl pa is intended to change direction of pen’s rotation without there being any obvious direction change. Using a different plane of rotation allows this to happen.

In late 2018 when I visited Japan, I remember discussing pd fl pa rev with ennis at a gathering. It’s been a while, but I’ve finally used it in a combo properly. To train for this linkage, I trained pd fl ia rev to x 10 to set foundation for doing pd fl pa rev cont, which I got up to x 5. Catching in 24 increases the difficulty significantly.

3rd block 0:07 - 0:11 (120 fps video 0:25 - 0:41)

b1b2 pushed ?ia release ~ pinky bust to 14 (catch mid in, ring out) ~ ?invisible direction change wiper 14 ~ neobak - curled pinkybak 1.5 - curled pinkybak 1.0

The b1b2 push for ia release required a bit of practice to do without breaking pace.

Not sure about the name of this type of wiper, it is probably a hybrid of 2 wipers. A bit like figure 8, but figure 8 does not have any direction change.

I had to train curled pinkybak 1.5 for a few months to get 1.5 x 4 - 1.0 as foundation for using it as ending in this way. The critical part is the fact that the ?wiper from 14 leading into the interrupted neobak makes doing curled pinkybak 1.5 extremely difficult, because the wiper has conic spin that moves in a different plane to neobak.

Combo commentary:

In difficulty, mechanics, density, and linkage planning, this combo is worlds above anything else I’ve ever made. I planned this combo mostly in Jan/Feb and was trying parts of it occasionally at that time. I started focusing on it around June, and it took until August with several remarkable jumps in skill and 28 times landing this combo in total (12 on cam) to get the chosen draft.

It used more time to get these 10.1 seconds for R5 than it did to do my entire 10 year solo. As a rough guide to difficulty - the average difficulty of each block described below is similar to my entire R2 combo. Pen spinning difficulty works exponentially, so R5 is R2 cubed. Similarly, I estimate R5 is approximately R3 squared.

Previous posts about R1-R4 combos say things like ‘this is hardest link I’ve shown’ or ‘this is hardest combo I’ve released so far’ - which are true, but a bit laughable when considering the significant gap between those videos and R5.

Aims when making this combo for maximum density and integration:
Every transition from one trick to the next one must be a hybrid with some difficult mechanic
You cannot use the same mechanic for any transitions more than once - e.g. if you use a side sonic, you cannot use side sonic variations again.
Extra requirement: you cannot reuse any mechanics used in previous WT19 combos unless substantial modification has been made, i.e. any similarity would have to be limited to a single transition with different mechanics before and after.

There are 3 instances in the combo which may not fulfill the above requirements -
fist bust fishing: a bit like R4 ending, but has different tricks before and after
pd fl pa rev to 24 - pd ma rev 1.5: maybe not a hybrid but has a difficult mechanic
curled pinkybak 1.5 - curled pinkybak 1.0: uses a similar mechanic twice

Additional thoughts:

Despite the excess arm motion, the actual technique of the tricks is satisfactory when considering the interaction of the pen with the fingers, and the pacing is generally sustained. I’m not sure how much arm motion can be reduced for these tricks, maybe I’ll try it again in a few years’ time. The border between good chaotic effect and bad chaotic effect is very subjective.

There were discussions in WC12 about fel2fram’s execution, with many judges giving him high exec in WC12 (4-5/5). However, he was penalised heavily in exec during WT13 R4. His exec definitely could be cleaner, but the effect he created with more chaotic exec contributed positively to me. There are detrimental mistakes at times, e.g. pen going offcam; but many of the flaws helped to give the combo a unique impression.

One of UPSB’s WT13 judges (nickname: casual, who was mainly an mx spinner) said something like ‘fel2fram’s R4 is very underrated, it is remarkable to be able to do that material at all’.

I first considered having a full hybrid combo fulfilling aim 1. back in late 2018 when I was filming clips after SCT and PSO. It took about a year to improve my physical and mental skill to actually do it.

10 year solo was the realisation of a sentimental dream - to create a video that I could look back on fondly no matter how much time passed. WT19 R5 is the realisation of a technical dream - to fulfill conditions 1. and 2. to maximise density, integration and 3. for creativity. I wanted to execute it better and there’s still a lot further to explore, but this combo is one I can be happy saying I poured my soul into. Creating this combo has more worth to me than any win or loss result.

The type of combo that WT encourages is different to the types of combos that themed competitions, solo or CV creates. A solo is aimed at displaying a large range of skill rather than having 1 or 2 combos outclass everything else, so it is more practical to produce many combos with 2-3 weeks’ effort each. Only in WT (or possibly CV with established release date and elaborate preparation like JapEn) will a combo taking several months of work be encouraged.*

I hope this video was able to leave an impression on you. I will keep waiting for the one who will surpass me.

NB: if you can’t do any of the linkages, your exec is automatically zero. Come back after you’ve accumulated 5 million more drops** of practice.

*of course, if you have the discipline, you can try making a 3-month-effort combo regardless of situation

**if you drop once every 3 seconds and spin 2 hours per day, that’s 876,000 drops in a year, so it will take a bit over 5 ½ years to get 5 million drops.

WT19 R4 combo

Finally pulling out truly hard material this round. I haven't made any fl combo over 10 seconds for quite a while.

The difficulty is far higher than R1-R3
- hardest material shown in those videos is R2's ending linkage and R3 hardest linkage (R3 0:03 - 0:06)
- R4 can be considered as 4 sections as outlined below, 3 of which are of comparable difficulty to those sections

0:01 - 0:04
indexspin ~ index mid mirrored powerpass reverse ~ ring pop ~ arm bounce
- extra 0.5 spin on index

mid ring mirrored powerpass reverse - triangle pass 234 - powerpass 23-34
- a lot harder due to arm bounce entry
- maintaining control and speed for the triangle pass is probably hardest part of this link

0:05 - 0:08
hai tua ~ palm down fingerless pinkyaround reverse (fingers closed) - palm down fingerless middlearound reverse (fingers open) ~ mirrored fingerless middlearound reverse ~ ring spiderspin
- highlight sequence of this combo: proper integration of pd fl around rev into fl combo without any catches in between
- different mechanics in doing the pd fl around rev with fingers closed and fingers open
- mirr fl ma rev ~ ring ss requires hitting pen from other side (see slomo, it is far harder to do this than ordinary fl ma ~ ring ss)

0:08 - 0:10
index mid mirrored powerpass reverse - inverse mirrored powerpass reverse - fingerless indexaround - spiderspin
- the visual effect of the inv mirr pp rev contrasts with previous material
- the easiest sequence of this combo

0:10 - 0:13
fist bust fishing - fist bust x 2
- doing fishing like this requires changing angle of pen's rotation during difficult tricks (see slomo)
- fist bust typically rotates fairly horizontally, whereas the fishing part has pen spinning diagonally
- around 1/4 to 1/5 chance of doing fist bust x 2 successfully in this sequence (compared with just doing x 1)
- made more difficult by being ending

As far as I know, this is first time this material has been used in complete fl combo - only idea that has been used in previous tournaments was the wrist bounce. This is the first combo in this WT where fairly high proportional of my difficulty capacity has been shown (as opposed to R1 fourth root, R2 third root and R3 square root).

Aside from the difficulty, the variety of mechanics in the fl linking is quite large. To use this kind of material effectively throughout a combo, every sequence must feel like a highlight, while also displaying different visual effect.

Unfortunately there are several areas of relative filler (the powerpass 23-34 in first sequence, and the fl ia ss before the ending). Otherwise, the material shown has sufficiently high density for my current ability.

Sorry for hair on frame, hopefully I can pass despite that.
R5 is another step above this combo, so I am praying for victory.

WT19 R3 combo

R3 is a cardioid-based combo, aiming to use wipers in a different way to existing videos while increasing difficulty and density. Difficulty and mechanics shown are considerably more advanced than R2. 0:03 - 0:06 section was quite hard to learn, and is the most difficult linkage I have shown to date.

0:01 - 0:03 flush sonic + inverse side sonic wiper 14-24 - side sonic 24

- ring finger moving from out → in → out

0:03 - 0:04 Tb1 pushed palm down curled index-middle around ~ palm down fingerless middlearound to 24 (ring out) - 24 wiper

- different use of curled finger, no one has used curled PD around like this before to my knowledge

0:04 - 0:06 24 wiper (ring out) - curled index fxxk to 14 (catch mid in, ring out) - angled wiper 14-12

- fxxk cardioid, but with index finger curled for the fxxk

- caught in 14 with the finger position used increases difficulty significantly

- having this linkage right after the previous one also increases difficulty due to there being consecutive hard elements without filler in between

0:06 - 0:08 vertical plane wiper (clockwise) 12-14 (mid out, ring in) > fingerswitch to mid in, ring out > pass rev 23-bt2

- fingerswitch is subtle, not particularly hard though 

0:08 - 0:09 raimo bak rev + ipba rev 24-14 (catch mid in, ring out) > wiper 14 + pass rev 14-23

- hard linkage based on pinky bust cardioid to 14 + inverse side flush sonic

0:09 - 0:10 mid spread 23 > vertical plane wiper (counterclockwise) 23

- unusual linking of this type of wiper, based on mid spread cardioid idea

- this is power V6 compilation has a clip of pinky spread cardioid, but I am not good enough to use it in combo yet

0:12 - 0:14 pinky bust cardioid x 2

- first time this trick has been done cont in combo to my knowledge

- difficulty increased due to being ending

While I was practising, the success rate of 0:03 - 0:06 linkage by itself was worse than 1/20 initially, with improvement to around 1/6 to 1/7 at time of filming (about 200 tries of 0:03 - 0:06 section to determine this result).

The ending consistency was still absolutely terrible even when I had raised personal record of pinky bust cardioid, the success rate of training 0:11 - 0:14 by itself was around 1/20 (also used about 200 tries of 0:11 - 0:14 section to determine this result).

I tried filming the combo at several angles, with the submitted angle being the one I was most satisfied with (even though it probably looks a bit funny to some people). 

Exploring different trick families is really fun =D

WT19 R2 combo

This combo was created with aim of using the 8 main powerpasses with different modifiers for each of them.

In WT17 R2, my combo used 8 powerpasses but with very poor integration and no modifiers.

As such, WT19 R2 represents an advance in the way I consider spinning and combo construction, with increased appreciation of density, integration and visual effect.

Outlined below are the links and modifiers for each of the powerpasses:

0:01 - 0:04

1. pinky fxxk - angled pp
   - pp done in same plane of rotation as fxxk
2. ia rev ~ fl ma rev 1.0
   - around rev 1.0 concept used with pp rev - credits to key3 for around rev 1.0 method
3. ring pushed ss 1.0 - fl pa
   - mid ring pp with +0.5 rotation on first push

0:04 - 0:08

4. inv mirrored pp rev pinky-ring 34-23
   - inv mirrored pp (no additional modification)
5. inv side flush sonic 14-23 ~ palm down mirrored pp 23-T1
   - mirrored pp, but palm down

0:08 - 0:11

6. pd ta ~ pd fl ta ~ thumb inv pp T3-T4
   - thumb-pushed inverse powerpass - credits to taeko for t-powerpass concept
7. raimo bak to 24 ~ inv side sonic 24-14 ~ ra rev 14 ~> fl ia rev to T1
   - powerpass rev on ring and index (skips middle), initial force from push by 14 slot
8. palm down mirrored pp rev T2-2-3 - pd fl ta catch
   - mirrored pp rev, but palm down - applied as fl/power mechanics*

   - this trick requires the ring finger to hit the pen during its rotation, which makes it a lot harder than palm down around 1.5

   - hard to appreciate in normal speed, so here is a clip in 120 fps x 0.5 (i.e. slowed to 1/8th of normal speed)

But it's barely 10 seconds?!! The combo has basically zero filler or breaks, and is done at consistent tempo. Main personal criticism is the excess hand movement at start, otherwise I am largely satisfied with this being a reasonable draft.
Condensing material with consistent difficulty, removing filler segments and even most filler slots (i.e. attempting to have every transition be a useful hybrid) is far harder to sustain than longer, less dense combos.

This combo is harder than WT19 R1 and harder than my SCT18 R4, which was considerably harder than any of my WT17 videos.
Of course, I still have material and capacity saved for future rounds.

Hoping I will pass, best of luck to other participants!

*I am aware pd mirr pp rev has been done with varying cleanness by at least 3 other spinners. As far as I know, this is the first performance of it done as an fl trick (i.e. not caught immediately in a basic slot), and with acceptable technique and plane of rotation
If you have downloaded the clip with the link provided on youtube, you can play it frame by frame and see that the pen does correctly hit ring finger. You can also use the 120 fps slomo above.

WT19 R1 combo (2p2h theory)

Hello everyone, it's been a over a year since I last posted here.

The 2p2h concepts I'll outline in this post are largely paraphrased from what I remember about a post Zombo made back in UPSB V3 era (2007-2010 or earlier). As far as I know, there have only been several short clips or brief applications of these ideas in the past by s777, eriror and tmrw; but not really any complete combos that use varying degrees of synchrony.

Synchrony: happening at same time.

I'm still not sure about what the difference in asynchrony or desynchrony is, so I will be using 'asynchrony' to represent opposite of synchrony (i.e. different things happening).

As inspired by musical theory, there can be varying degrees of discordance (i.e. difference in effect) in what each hand does.

i. The most basic 2p2h is perfect synchrony (no discordance) - where each hand does the same tricks at the same time. This is fairly boring and quite simple, but it can be expanded with transfers like below at 0:27:

ii. Slight discordance - same palm orientation, similar tricks in same slots with slight variation  (e.g. doing inverse sonic 34-23 in right hand and sonic 34-23 in left hand). I made a combo with this concept in 10 year solo at 1:31

iii. Moderate discordance - different palm orientation, similar tricks (e.g. doing sonic 34-23 in right hand with palm up, and sonic 34-23 in left hand with palm down). I made a combo with this concept in PSO18 2 hands R1.

iv. Above moderate discordance - different palm orientations, different tricks but with similar changes in motion (e.g. having right hand go from palm down to palm up, and left hand go from palm up to palm down). I made a combo with this concept in 10 year solo at 0:43, tmrw's WC14 qualification combo also applies this.

v. High discordance - different palm orientations, different tricks, different changes in motion and pen spinning in different planes of rotation. This is probably the hardest form of 2p2h (assuming other factors are equal), and most difficult to achieve a cohesive effect with.

In my WT19 R1 combo, 0:01-0:03 has moderate discordance, 0:04-0:07 mainly has slight discordance; 0:08-0:13 has above moderate and high discordance.

It is tempting to consider 2p2h in terms of what each hand does separately, but this is just an initial consideration. Proper depth of 2p2h lies in understanding how the parts fit together.

Besides the consideration of structure, a 2p2h combo is far more difficult than its separate parts. If the breakdown for the right hand part can be done once every 1 minute (1 in 20 success rate) and the left hand part is once every 2 minutes (1 in 40 success rate), then the chance of doing the parts successfully one after the other is 1/20 x 1/40 = 1/800 (once every 2400 seconds = once every 40 minutes). However, it is more difficult to do the breakdowns at the same time, so the difficulty is even higher.

I also put some basic fingercross with left hand at 0:06 and 0:12, but it's just a minor addition to the overall picture.

I have very high respect for Zombo for documenting these theories so long ago, and I thank all pioneers of 2h concepts for giving me inspiration.

Looking forward to seeing people explore 2p2h more in the future! 2p2h does not usually do well in WT, so I hope I can pass to next round.

10 year solo commentary

After half a year of filming and practice, it's finally out! I'd planned to make 10 year something special in 2016 December, so it's been developing for a long time.

DL link + unedited clips

Usual abbreviations: mirr pp rev = mirrored powerpass reverse, fl = fingerless, PD = palm down, PV = palm vertical, ia = indexaround (ma for middle, ra for ring, pa for pinky) etc, RH = right hand, LH = left hand, fc = fingercross etc.

In order:

Mirr pp rev power RH and PD fl ia LH: In 2016, fel2fram asked me to put PD fl around in fl sequence. Besides learning the tricks on each hand separately, the transitions are hard since the tricks have different plane of rotation. .

Arm bounce x 5: Used x 1 in WT17 R4, took 10 min experimenting then 30 min filming to get x 5. Difficulty rises steeply after x 6...

1st grid: PD fl arounds x 10 (ring, thumb, index), thumb clip is from early 2016, index from late 2017, and ring from early 2018. I'll show real record of PD fl ia later.

2nd grid: index fxxk and curled index bust x 10, PD fl ma and curled mid spread x 12.

1p2h combo: some ideas from OhYeah, and different variations of my WT17 R5 and R6 material. Became pretty consistent at this combo, filmed over 2 dozen times with second filming session having 14 drafts in 40 minutes - main issue was pacing.

['inverse' mirr pp rev - pun kan] cont: only rank A+, but it looks cool so I included it. I want to use this pp in different ways soon.

Async 2p2h: 2p2h with mirrored effect. Because 'chance of not dropping' is squared in 2p2h (e.g. success rate of 1/5 on each hand becomes 1/25). and you have to retrain stuff you already learnt, async 2p2h is way tougher than just the separate breakdowns. Trained this daily for about a week, so I think far better 2p2h combos are possible.

pinky fxxk - basketball spin: You tell me 'but pinky fxxk and basketball spin have different angles, how is that possible?' Well, fuck logic, PS is about bashing head against brick wall until wall breaks. Despite saying this, this took only 30-40 min to learn and film, but it's a pretty surprising transition so I wanted to show it.

pun kan aerial - wrist (?) spin: Pun kan pop spin variation perhaps. Not much to say other than 'I want to do it in cont some day'.

Forward to reverse combo: Was reminded of this concept by Ennis' WT17 R3. Timing was hard to adjust since I had to deliberately do some tricks faster, but it turned out pretty well. Filmed this for 1 1/2 hour for many drafts, on first day I made error in reversing the breakdown which confused me when timing was always off .-. Recorded on December 14 2017 shortly after WT ended - oldest clip in this solo.

PD fl around fall-rise-fall: Not much to say other than 'really hard' and 'I will make these tricks spin less diagonally in future'.

DC comssa fl: Inkless, tipless, gripless as usual. The cheat aerial is a bit big, but lazy to refilm (clip from 2017 November before I developed better technique for mirr pp rev stuff).

'Sync effect' 2p2h async: 2p2h with visually similar variations - inspired by Zombo's old async 2p2h wiki article.
RH parts: inv sonic 34-24, index-pushed RA rev 13-23, midbak to 24 > PD ma, pp rev 23-12-T1, pass rev (under mid, over ring) T1-34, sonic (over ring) 34-T1, PD fl ta rev T1-T2.
LH parts: sonic 34-24, thumb-pushed RA rev T3-23, midbak to 23 > PD ma, mirr pp 23-12-T1, pass rev T1-34, sonic (over ring and middle) 34-T1, PD fl ta rev T1-23.

2p1h fl idea: Pen first held in T1, then shifted to 23 quickly while main mod is in air.

3rd grid: aerial minicombos of PD fl ta, curled index bust, index fxxk, and PD fl ma. It'd be a lot harder to do PD fl around aerial with pen spinning completely horizontal, maybe later...

2p1h combo: Using ideas from gollumsk8 and fizz. Really hard to control, I want to see 2p1h developed further but I can understand why hardly anyone does it.

2p2h + 1p2h fl: Overall the hardest clip in solo. RH: mirr pp rev - pinky pop, LH: fc square pass fc aerial (the aerial is pushed by crossing middle and ring, then goes right into another fingercross); followed by LH fc21 tpass rev 124. Rank SS followed by rank S+, trained the not-aerial version of the 2p2h for 1 1/2 weeks, then the aerial version for 1 1/2 weeks, and the 1p2h transition for a few days, minor miracle to land this clip in only 30 minutes...expected it'd take hours.

RH combo: You can fit a lot into 9.5 seconds (RESPECT?). The linkage with indexspin, curled indexmid bust > thumb-mid cross sonic T3-12 > sonic rev 12-34-T4 was from adding my touch to mesi and dary's material, but their execution is worlds above mine. Thumb-mid cross PD around > thumb-mid cross pinky fxxk > thumb-index cross inv tpass rev from adjusting my WT material. Had really good day filming this, was landing it once every 70-90 seconds consistently...

Rev minicombo: Fxxk - ss rev (too noob to use in 9 year solo), PU fl pa rev - ss rev, and bakriser - arm bounce - fist ss rev. Rev fl has a lot more stuff possible, it's not developed much.

1p2h combo 2: Start inspired by OhYeah's WT17 R2 ending, applied to square pass (not that hard). Fc23 around LH + 1p2h twirls RH inspired by OhYeah and Sirapob, next bit is 1p2h twirls both hands PD using RH index + LH ring and mid inspired by katts WT17 R3 starter; PD to PV transition inspired by something Kay did in 2013-2014, 2h pass variations from OhYeah's stuff again. Fc21 LH to bust RH for ending, should've made it more obvious. Took months of practice to train this combo, way harder than the 1p2h combo near beginning.

LH fc combo: Ideas from zarne and scream, pacing of fc is hard.

1p2h twirl aerial fall-rise: rank S sequence for 1p2h. Daily training for a year to get not-aerial fall-rise one in my WT17 R6, then a bit more practice to put aerials on every part. Not as smooth as I want.

mirr pp rev pinky ss +0.5 spin pinky ss + wrist bounce: making it into 'real spiderspin' is ridiculously hard, the 2nd one actually isn't done properly but I didn't want to delay release any more. I'll start training this trick seriously now.

1p2h combo 3: Not much to say, just making a powerful impression of 1p2h with fc23 on LH, pd fl around on RH. Ending is really annoying with left arm bounce.

RH combo 2: Some ideas from f2f and dary. Start idea from coffeelucky's PU - PD sonic stuff but applied to fxxk, breakdown is: pinky fxxk ~ devil's shadow to 14 (mid in ring out) > ia 14-13 > pass rev 13-23 + fingerswitch thumb-mid cross 23-T3. Also tried doing b1b2 fxxk variation, but pen leaves hand too much. Moonwalk sonic ~> mid ring mirr pp rev > thumb-index cross fl TIA to T4 > T4 charge + fingerswitch to thumb-ring cross > PU fl ra ~ fl TIS rev.

Mirr pp rev power RH + LH indexspin rev 2.0: Under 3 seconds, hardest individual fl sequence I ever filmed by far. Over 3 hours spread out on 3 days to get this clip (I was trying easier variation with LH basketball spin-ish trick a month before going for this clip, and it felt like I was trying to hit bullseye on dartboard in a dark room without knowing which direction walls were). Indexspin rev with index angled upwards is way harder than basketball spin. Doing this clip again would be tougher than refilming all of my WT17 combos in total, I give it a high rank SS+. if I ever do this in cont I can quit happily hah.

Decent numbers of PD fl pa, mirr pp rev pinky ss, mirr pp rev - pinky pop: I've filmed PD fl pa x 8 and mirr pp rev pinky ss x 17, but they weren't as clean as these clips. Good way to conclude anyway.

Random thoughts:

Well, finishing major project that begun 1 1/2 years ago and involved more practice+filming than WT17 feels a bit strange, as though part of brain is suddenly unoccupied. Don't worry, I have some cool stuff planned later, and I'm starting to orient my practice towards making combos for WT19.

I hope this solo will leave a lasting impression on your hearts and minds, and inspire you that there's always more things possible. A lot of people say 'there's nothing left to do in PS', 'PS is dying', 'PS has reached its peak already' and stuff like that - I want to show them that limits of human skill still have much further to expand in this amazing artform.

trick difficulty 'theory' and fl trick ranking

tl;dr - Difficulty rises exponentially, so rank SS is incomparably harder than rank S, same for rank S to rank A, see first 4 videos of this playlist.


There's a many fl variations so I made letter rankings to explain difficulty to other spinners. Estimates comparing different tricks listed later (based on my own experience).

Pen spinning is hard, because doing a combo of multiple links/tricks generally has difficulty rising exponentially, i.e. combo of link A > link B > link C with 1/3 chance of doing each link, chance of completing is (1/3)^3 = 1/27. It's also why you need many drafts to get decent execution.

In first learning cont, chance of progressing to next one (going from bust x 3 to bust x 4) is low, maybe 1/10 or worse. For someone who can do 10 busts, the difference in bust x 5 and x 9 is big. As you get better, this chance improves, so the difficulty rise becomes more linear (someone who can do bust x 200+ finds bust x 20 and bust x 40 easy), because chance of doing next bust successfully is high.

Trick difficulty is related to how many 'points of failure' that can occur when doing the trick. For bust and spread, there is one motion/point that can lead to failure, and that point has big margin of error. Fl ia ss, fl ma ring ss still only have one point, but that point has smaller margin of error. Mirr pp rev pinky ss has 3 or 4 points of failure, each of which has very small margin of error.

There's time when I felt trick getting from 'exponential' to 'linear' chance as I improved. For tricks with one point of failure (bust or even a harder trick like fl ma ring ss), that happened around x 10-12, so doubling from x 12 to 20+ was a lot easier than doubling from x 5 to 10. For a hard trick with multiple points - mirr pp rev pinky ss I've raised to x 17, I still don't feel this.

So, in comparing trick which keeps rising exponentially with one that has become linear, the exponentially rising one is incomparably harder at higher numbers. Mirr pp rev pinky ss x 5 is comparable to fl ma ring ss x 30 in difficulty, so mirr pp rev pinky ss x 15 is comparable to fl ma ring x 70-100, right? This isn't true because mirr pp rev pinky ss rises as exponential from 5 to 10 and 10 to 15, whereas fl ma ring ss rises linearly after x 30-40.

Roughly: fl ma ring ss x 5 similar to fl ia ss x 15-20, fl ma ring ss x 10-15 similar to fl ia ss x 50-70.

Rank A fl ma ring ss: decent spinner with foundation in fl trains daily 30-60 min for 6-12 months can expect to get about x 10. Rank S mirr pp rev pinky ss x 5 is comparable to fl ma ring ss x 25-35.

Rank SS: difficulty of mirr pp rev pinky ss x 10 (x 9 to 13) in sequence of < 3 seconds (2 or 3 tricks).  Rank S+ is fair bit harder than S but not quite SS, so it's quite variable. Logically, rank SS sequence of ~ 3 seconds makes fl ma ring ss into trash, because it has difficulty of 100+ fl ma ring ss in 3 seconds.

The benchmark rank SS is mirr pp rev pinky ss (+0.5 spin pinky ss), x 2 is harder than mirr pp rev pinky ss x 10, and x 3 is comparable to mirr pp rev pinky ss x 17-20.

SSS will have the difficulty of mirr pp rev pinky ss (+0.5 spin pinky ss) x 6-8 in 3 seconds. I'm not anywhere near this yet, but I hope that in future, I can use rank SS as finishers, put multiple SS in one fl combo, reach rank SSS and higher, so I'll keep practising.