2019 reflection

So, another year has gone by. I'll talk about some stuff that is not just about how technical the combo is for once.

I will emphasise that I do not have talent for learning pen spinning. In 2008, I used about 3 hours a day for over 6 months to get from 3 busts to 8 busts. I used 3 hours a day for an entire year to get from palmspin fl ta x 3 (in late 2009) to x 11 (in late 2010) and to x 33 (in late 2011). There were a lot of spinners with fast progress in their first year of spinning, like luxray (6 months), mist (6 months), tigeroat (6 months), A13x (8 months), mksft (1 year), s777 (1 year), vitaly (1 year 1 month) and many more. As a beginner, I was very jealous of these spinners. Mist 6 month solo (linked previously) nearly drove me to quit, if not for a friend (who was not a spinner) saying 'I think you're amazing too'. I was very immature as a person and also had absolutely no idea of PS back then, so I thought a lot of stupid things. 

When I first started pen spinning in late 2007, my first dream was to enter world tournament. After spinnerpeem rose to prominence in 2008-2010, my second dream was to match his lead over the rest of the world in power tricks. I was able to enter WT in 2011 and got an idea of how distant truly skilled spinners were (supawit, s777, sponge, snow etc). In WC12, I faced fel2fram in R6 and was even more surprised by the distance of a true genius from everyone else. I continued joining competitions after that (WT13, WC14, WT15) and improving gradually, however my understanding of PS did not change much in that period. Some time in the middle of 2016, I had around 30 power trick world records, which meant the realisation of my second dream. A few months later, when I was filming for 'this is power V5' in October 2016 and struggling with tricks far more difficult than ones I'd tried previously*, I came to appreciate that true enjoyment came from pushing the boundaries of this artform and using this to inspire other spinners.

*October 2016 was probably first time I spent dedicated effort into using 30-60 minutes to film short sequences of hard tricks lasting 4-8 seconds. WT17 taught me the importance of early preparation, and losing WT17 taught me the importance of distributing material. Filming for 10 year solo encouraged me to expand my skillset and allowed me to make a project I had truly put my heart into. Around May 2018 after watching dary vine compilation, I realised the significance of focusing on density and the implications this had for technical spinning. From July to August of 2018, I participated in SCT (tournament organised by PSH), PSO 2 hands while preparing for my final exams of medical school. I was able to hone my preparation and time management skills well. 

From October 2016 onwards, my interest in victory or loss in competitions has decreased steadily. When I saw the results for WT19 R5 and R6, I did not feel anything at all. Ironically, I had far exceeded any dreams I had for this hobby, but by the time I had gained the ability to do so, I came to value different things. All of my most treasured memories of spinning are from exploring different tricks or approaches to spinning, and from meeting my friends in other countries. Nonetheless, I will probably still join WT21 because 'it is more fun for me to join than not to join'.

I feel that the aim of competitions, collaborations and other events in PS are to encourage development and stimulate discussion in the community. A lot of people think that WT is meant to 'find the best spinner' or something like that, which I disagree with. There are far too many variables (what aspects people prioritise, how judges interpret the criteria, the type of spinning that is more common that year, luck in matchups and so on) for WT result to mean much. This does not mean that the efforts of competitors in WT are meaningless or that WT results are entirely meaningless. However, one should consider these various factors before they decide how significant the results are.

Incidentally, I noticed I am first full time worker to win a world tournament. I've been working as a junior doctor in the hospital with the worst rating for wellbeing and workload in my state, and somehow managed to keep sleep deprivation at a moderate amount only while maintaining decent spinning practice. As far as I know, previous winners were high school or university students.

A lot of people see pen spinning as 'just a hobby'. To me, it is just a matter of resource distribution - if you make good use of your time, you can put sufficient time into full time work/full time study, one 'deliberate' hobby where you use active practice, one 'passive' hobby that does not require dedicated practice, and have enough free time for other life commitments. You use these different things to take breaks from each other (for example, I would take break from pen spinning by reading novels).

To make good use of time, setting up daily routine is essential - e.g. waking up at same time, shower in the morning to get hands warmed up for spinning, studying while on public transport, spinning before sleeping, and sleeping at similar time every day etc. Reducing the amount of time done doing things that do not contribute is vital (like randomly refreshing social media every few minutes).

Admittedly, the time and effort I put into pen spinning is higher than what most people would put into a hobby (I usually woke up at 4:20-4:30am to practice before going to work), and managed to maintain 6 to 6 1/2 hours sleep on most working days. In the week before WT19 final round deadline, I had 2 overtime shifts (working over 13 hours, from 8:00am to after 9:00pm) - to ensure I had decent training time, I woke up at 3:30 am to spin 2 sessions (total 2 to 2 1/2 hours). I have no regrets. In fact, I wake up around 4:20-4:30am to practice even when there is no WT. Average daily practice time on working days would be around 3 hours. 

To any spinners aiming to enter prolonged tournaments, early preparation is the strongest strategy (it becomes more important if you have more life commitments/other things to do). By rough estimate, a combo that took me 3 weeks to reach early this year can be beaten by one that takes 3-4 days of practice late this year. As such, you can exceed the level of a stronger spinner by preparing earlier, and also reduce recycling material.

WT19 taught me that there are always more things to explore in PS, no matter how much I improve my skill and knowledge. I get enjoyment from improving and exploring, so I practice to increase my enjoyment. 

Once again, thanks everyone for their support. I hope my videos were able to surprise you.

I will be a bit less regular in uploading videos for the first few months of 2020, to prepare for solo video. See you again soon!

WT19 R6 combo

Well, it's finally the end of this tournament! There was a lot more material I wanted to use for this round, but it was not developed enough in practical skill or mental foundation, so I ended up sending a backup combo (sorry, haha). The theory behind the 1p2h concepts used is not that remarkable, but the difficulty has been increased a lot.

Nothing is wasted, anything that was not developed enough will be trained further for solo and future videos.

In terms of notation, ' denotes non-dominant (left) hand's finger, i.e. 4' is left hand's pinky, 3' is left hand's ring etc. Apologies for no 120 fps videos, the phone I use to record them has screwed up despite factory reset.

0:01 - 0:03: ?charge 44' - ?inverse twirl 44' - inverse twirl aerial 33'

I've used a similar idea to transition from both hands PU --> both hands PD in previous 1p2h combos. In this combo, it is done with both pinky fingers. In order to get this sequence usable, the order of skill mastery should be:
1. twirl fall (takes 3-6 months of dedicated practice at a minimum) and easier form of the PU --> PD transition using thumb (3-4 weeks to do without breaking pacing)
2. inverse twirl rise (2-3 months of practice) and harder form of the PU --> PD transition
3. combining above skills to usable level (1-2 weeks practice)

0:03 - 0:04: twirl 11' - twirl 42' - pass T2'3' - TT'1' - (palms facing each other) twirl TT' - 22' - 2h wiper release 22'

Fairly easy sequence with twirls and passes. A fast way to transition from having pen held near centre to being held at end (i.e. from regular material to 1p2h wipers).

0:05 - 0:06: 2h wiper release 22' to 11' - RH mirrored powerpass rev + LH inverse powerpass

2h wiper to ?counter/direction change 11' to transition from perpendicular (?) plane of rotation to anticlockwise plane of rotation. Also not particularly difficult, but shows that 1p2h can allow a large range of effects beyond those in 1p1h.

0:07 - 0:10: left hand palm down fingercross square pass - right hand interrupted inverse mirrored powerpass rev

Hardest ending in any of my WT19 combos (approximately as hard as second half of my R5 combo). Of note is the entry into the ending powerpass: it starts as a mirrored pinky spread reverse (i.e. by hitting back of pinky). Usually this powerpass is entered after a full fingerless pinkyaround, which is far, far easier.

Palm down fingercross square pass learning path:
1. pass reverse 23-14-23-14
2. fingercross 23 around (several days)
3. fingercross square pass by combining 1. and 2.
4. palm down fingercross square pass decently (3+ months)

Interrupted inverse mirrored powerpass reverse learning path:
1. inverse mirrored powerpass reverse (in basic form with fl pinkyaround entry, several weeks/months, depends a lot on how strong your technical skill foundation is).
2. interrupted entry - ?years? I started doing this trick around February, and was practising it quite regularly throughout this year - if your technical skill is comparable to mine at start of this year, then it can be expected that you will take 9-10 months to be able to use this idea consistently enough I guess.

I learnt a lot from this WT, see you next year!