Crash course on approaching pen spinning (technical focus)

This article will explain how to approach pen spinning in a general sense (with a focus on ‘technical spinning’). I consider ‘tech spinning’ to have 2 ultimate aims (some overlap), and it is up to the individual to determine what elements of these to pursue and what they enjoy/are interested in. Analysis and practice are both ways to find more ways to appreciate the depth of pen spinning and should be enjoyable, even if there is frustration at times.

#1. Integration (related to creativity and execution): exploring possibilities of different variations - power, counters, wipers, fingercross, 1p2h, 2p1h, 2p2h, and implementing these possibilities effectively to create various effects - elegance, order, chaos, abnormality.

Padrace has written a post explaining how to consider the use of tension and release in creating effect here.

#2. Density (related to difficulty): maximum skill level in margin of error/precision by using various trick mechanics

- power-based difficulty: most tricks that have mod leaving hand for any period, hard to do consistently, ability tends to rise notably over time

- timing-based difficulty: easy to do badly, hard to do smoothly, can be done with high consistency once adequately practised, ability rise is very gradual, e.g. fingerpass, 1p2h twirl fall, moonwalk inverse side sonic, moonwalk inverse twisted sonic

Monheim has written a post explaining the significance of density to technical spinning here.

Framework for approaching PS/article summary

1. Learning tricks in logical fashion by adjustment of core parameters
2. Making linkages by applying modifiers and hybrids
3. Levels of consideration to gather the desired elements of spinners you have seen, then applying these deductions to your own spinning
4. Assorted general advice

Learning tricks - core parameters

Every success and failure, as well as the visual effect of every trick and combo can be thought about using core parameters

Trick related core parameters

• Force amount and direction
• Position of mod in relation to fingers
• Finger movement and position of fingers directly used in doing the trick
• Angle of rotation of mod 

Effect related core parameters - some overlap with trick related parameters, less related to scope of this article

• Finger movement and position of fingers not involved in doing the trick (wrist and arm motion also)
• Changes in speed of rotation of mod
• Setup factors - mod and background colour, lighting, camera angle, exposure

Spinners should pay attention to what core parameters are used in videos they watch, as well as their own attempts. Trick related core parameters are relevant for ‘technique derivation’ (tech deriv - ability to derive a technique for doing tricks/links). 

Tech deriv has 3 forms:

• Subconscious - as part of natural motor skill learning, brain automatically picks up on various changes in core parameters with current attempts.
• Deliberate - systematically adjusting core parameters to see how this determines outcome of future attempts, then using this information to make further deliberate adjustments.
• Retrospective - if a previous attempt is successful, which core parameters were different - this is hard to apply immediately, so it is more practical to apply long-term. If succeeding in links that were impossible weeks/months/years ago, consider what core parameters were changed that lead to this. This can give useful conclusions, e.g. ‘this trick requires less force than expected, maybe this is true for other similar tricks’ or ‘slowing down may help in doing this difficult linkage smoothly’.

While deliberate tech deriv is a higher level of thinking than subconscious tech deriv, improvement in consistency sometimes occurs without awareness of any changes in core parameters. This does not mean that deliberately paying attention to core parameters is less useful, as doing so is vital to systematically learning rather than blindly trying and hoping something lucky happens.

Making linkages by applying modifiers and hybrids

On the simplest level, one can consider spinning in terms of exactly what trick/links were performed. Linkages can be made by applying modifiers, with more detail on pages 31-35 (37-41 on google drive viewer) of RPD's book. I highly recommend reading through the entirety of this resource.

Credits: Pen spinning history and notation, second edition (2021, Diego Gonzalez 'RPD')

This can be applied more generally, e.g. making 1p2h, 2p2h and 2p1h versions of 1p1h ideas, or to solve certain questions, e.g. fishing to link traditional power tricks with palm down fingerless around reverse; using knowledge of planes of rotation to create subtle direction changes or 2p2h transfers without releasing either pen. Systematic application of modifiers can also be seen by fel2fram with japanese motion and twirls.

General aims and how to approach them

How does one determine what direction they want to take in spinning? Watch videos of different spinners and determine what is appealing or interesting, and then consider what is being done to achieve that. 

Levels of consideration (simple to complex)

1. What tricks/links were done?
2. How does that trick/link and the rest of the combo contribute to the effect created?
3. What intention or aims are conveyed through that trick selection and effect?
4. Do the combos made by that person point towards a broader aim or vision? How can these aims be applied to one’s own spinning?  (this is not about copying the tricks, although copying some tricks is likely one of the earlier steps)

After determining what elements of #1 integration aim and #2 density aim to pursue using the above considerations, the question is then how to better approach this vision. The optimum way is to create combos with deliberate content - where each trick/linkage contributes in both material and visual effect, and have these combos aim to represent some element of that broader vision - a gradual process that can take dozens of planned combos over many years. There may be changes in that vision and evaluation of how to better approach it during that process. This does not mean every combo made has to take several weeks/months, but that every combo should try to show something deliberate (whether it be how a certain modifier can be used, what effect certain tricks have and so on). Each combo is like drawing another dot to help join the dots to approach the ultimate aims; so the resulting combo does not have to be perfect because it represents a step along a long path rather than an end goal in itself.

For my own aims, I set #1 integration aim as ‘integrate all 1p1h, 1p2h, 2p1h and 2p2h ideas’, and #2 density aim as ‘skill level that would be competitive at world level even if spinning were a major sport/artform’. The limiting condition for #1 is that fingercross is excluded because of flexibility issues, and for #2 is that a variety of difficulty mechanics are prioritised rather than using all effort into one trick family. The intentions deduced were based on fel2fram (density, systematic modifier application, chaos as an effect), dary (density, illusion as an effect), ohyeah (creativity in 1p2h), menowa (grouping links to create impactful themed combos). The effects I aim for based on these inspirations are chaos and illusion through application of frequent different unpredictable mechanics. These various aims and elements can be seen in various forms in my material from 2017 to 2020, most of which is described in previous blog posts.

See you all in WT21! If things go well, I will be able to show ‘that combo’ which demonstrates how I connected the dots over the past 3-4 years to achieve some form of these 2 aims.

Additional tips

Useful things to consider during practice

• Hand texture (moisturiser, warmth, stretching)
• If training same trick, use same mod over same background that you can easily see
• Play music to adjust mood

Useful things to consider prior to filming

• Adjusting angle to show certain planes of rotation (and/or planning breakdown based on this)
• Which direction hand tends to move during certain tricks (and then adjusting angle and body movement to prevent offcam movements)
• Mod colour and background colour - visibility to yourself and audience; how long mod appears, how obvious errors are
• high contrast makes the spinning effect (and errors) more obvious e.g. white mod with black background
• mod with grey/pink/orange/light blue/light green ends over a light-coloured background looks shorter
• mod with black/dark blue/red/dark green ends over a light-coloured background looks longer
• Practice material at filming location, with camera on - does not matter if you are seriously trying to do the entire combo, the aim is to get you mentally accustomed to doing the combo at the place you aim to record it at, while knowing you are being recorded
• Practice later parts of the combo primarily, then gradually add on preceding tricks once you are consistent enough (because you will have less chance to reach the later parts when you actually begin recording)
• I try to land these blocks once every 5 to 10 minutes before adding next bits; and before filming I prefer to be able to do the entire combo in regular practice 4 times in 30 minutes. Of course, these numbers are just rough recommendations.
• Decrease the difficulty of the material and then film some successful drafts with that easier material - helps to reduce the mental pressure of not having any drafts and also helps getting used to the material and doing it on cam, then upgrade the material back to whatever you wanted previously

Useful things to consider (besides core parameters) if you keep failing on certain material

• Try other variations that are related to that trick/link
• You can always entrust that material to your future self - remember what the difficult link is (write it somewhere if necessary), then improve bit by bit day by day and try it again in a few weeks, months, or even a year - you may find that what was entirely down to luck a year ago can suddenly end up being very consistent when you attempt it again with your improved level now
• Change the mod - some links that people expect require large amount of force or large amount of momentum do not require anywhere near as much force/momentum as expected (or vice versa; but it’s usually the case that things require way less force), it’s logical to adjust core parameters but sometimes it helps to change the tool being used too
• Inherent natures of power-based and timing-based difficulty are quite different, so it may help to practice them with that in mind (once again, this is just a recommendation)
• for power, you can train 2-3 ideas to make up ½ to ¾ of each practice session and generally expect some noticeable progress in 2-3 weeks or so
• for timing it may help to train 2 ideas for 5-10 minutes each for a long time (a month or more), doing the links slightly slower than your usual pace and then trying to make the separate motions into one smooth motion after a while

Power trick learning and difficulty categorisation

Just thought I'd discuss approaches to learning power trick and group common power trick sequences in difficulty. Of course, this post is purely my opinion and should be taken as recommendations or guideline only, you can learn in whatever order you wish to.

A lot more power variations exist that haven't really been mastered by anyone, as you can generate endless amount of 'power tricks' by mix and match fl around and/or topspin variations.

Playlist of my power clips and tutorial and slow motion clips

In watching these videos, other people's tutorials and your own practice, you should pay attention to: COP position relative to fingers and pen's angle of rotation. Consistency, control and higher personal record are basically the same (improving one will improve the others).

Preferably, you should get a COP marked mod (easier to track pen's movement visually) that is easily visible over your background; length more important than excess weight - 21.5-23cm 16-20g would be good for people with 17-20cm hand length. 

In doing fl, you can consider tricks/short sequences as 'highlights' (harder), and 'filler' (easier material to extend length, maintain and regain control). 

^Old video of some simpler power trick sequences, part 2 here.

Learning order:

If you are aiming to make decent length (10-15 second) fl sequence as your main focus, then your priority should be:

1. fl ta rel (i.e. fl ta ~ index spread to air) - the most important filler trick to extend length of fl combo, used to recover control if you mess up previous trick or highlight material. If you master fl ta rel, it is easier to do 10 [fl ta - ss] aerial than 10 [fl ta - ss] cont without aerial, so fl ta rel is very useful. fl ta rel without using index cannot really be used for regaining control, so it's recommended to learn fl ta ~ index spread to air method.

2. mid and pinky spread - filler material, and for linking into slightly harder tricks (like spread - fl ta - palmspin or spread - fl ta - spiderspin).

3. 1+2 - Once you can do x 5-10 fl ta rel and mid/pinky spread, practice doing spread sequences with fl ta rel in between the spreads at various intervals (e.g. [fl ta rel - pinky spread] cont)

4. After 1-3, add aerial hai tua, [fl ta - palmspin] as highlights; with fl ta rel+spreads as filler for control and length. [spread - handbust - spread] is also useful; you should also learn fl ta cont and index bust cont at this point.

5. After you have learnt tricks and sequences described in 1-4, you can spend more time on harder variations. Generally, linking with hai tua is harder than similar linking with aerial hai tua, which is harder than similar linking with spread, (e.g. hai tua - fl ta palmspin harder than aerial hai tua - fl ta palmspin which is harder than spread - fl ta palmspin).

Example of short sequence with tricks listed in 1-4:

Note: hai tua is not as useful when learning to make fl sequences, as hai tua is more of a highlight linking due to its difficulty (e.g. [fl ta - palmspin - hai tua] cont is far harder than any spread/aerial hai tua sequences). Learning aerial hai tua - hai tua is recommended as it gives a pretty nice visual effect and ending feeling.

If you are aiming to make a condensed strong finisher, your learning priority will be different.  For example, you can ignore 'logical progression', and skip learning spreads or fl ta rel, because spreads/fl ta rel will not directly help in making a short condensed hard sequence; instead you might choose to train pun kan, hai tua and [pun kan - hai tua] cont. 

Rough difficulty grouping

Easy - for beginners, got to start somewhere: fl ta rel, fl ta, spreads, index bust, fl ta, powerpass; fl ta rel and spread sequences, powerpass and spread sequences

Normal - for most spinners: fl ta - palmspin, index bust aerial, mid bust, aerial hai tua, hai tua; spread and handbust sequences, aerial hai tua - hai tua, fl ta rel - fl ta palmspin, powerpass - palmspin

Hard - for those who do fl a fair bit: index pun new, fl ta - spiderspin, pun kan, ring bust cont, hand bust cont, [fl ta - palmspin 1.0] cont; [aerial hai tua - fl ta palmspin], [hai tua - fl ta palmspin], fl ta rel - fl ta spiderspin, index pun new aerial

Lunatic - for people who are a little crazy: fl ta - ring spiderspin, fl ia - spiderspin, mid/ring/pinky pun new, [fl ta - ss 1.0], [fl ta - palmspin 1.5/2.0] cont, aerial hai tua/hai tua - hard category trick (e.g. [aerial hai tua - index pun new aerial] cont; fl ta spiderspin - hai tua - fl ta spiderspin, [pun kan - hai tua] cont etc).

Extra - give up now, what are you doing to yourself?: fl ma - ring ss, mirr pp rev - ring ss, special variation aerial of fl ia ss/fl ma ring ss/mirr pp rev ring ss, [fl ia - ss 1.0/1.5/2.0]; [fl ma ring ss/mirr pp rev ring ss - hai tua] cont, [pun kan - spiderspin] cont, fl ra - pinky ss, pun kan 1.5......

??? - [unexplored level?] for things currently possible only in imagination. Of course, I intend to change that eventually.

Further discussion

Spinnerpeem established that ultimate aim of power tricking mastery is to give sense of stability - the impression that you are in total control of the mod and that even if you filmed x 200 of the trick, audience gets the feeling that you can do far more (even if x 200 is your personal record).  

For some trick variations, skill in one variation translates quite well to other variations (e.g. mastering index bust helps mid bust; index pun new helps mid/ring/pinky pun new; fl ta - ring spiderspin helps fl ta - index, mid or pinky spiderspin). However, there are some places where you might expect previous skill helps where it does not (e.g. fl ta ss mastery does not help fl ia ss, fl ia ss does not help fl ma ring ss, fl ta palmspin does not help index pun new - I talked to ppm [TWPS] and he thinks same as me for these tricks).

For adding extra rotations, I've concluded that for palmspin fl ta and index pun new: making the palmspin 1.0 rotations instead of 0.5 gives 4-5x cut in record number (x 251 vs x 51 for palmspin fl ta; x 120-150 vs x 25-30 for index pun new). 

For spiderspins, the difference will be larger because there is less room for error as spiderspin literally has less physical area to be done on than palmspins, so difference is about 10x cut. (200 vs 22 for fl ta ss; 202 vs 20 for fl ia ss). For ring ss variations, the difference is greater than 10x. 

Adding rotations to aerial portion has a smaller change in difficulty (for my variation that doesn't use thumb in doing aerial for fl ia ss, fl ma ring ss and mirr pp rev ring ss, below), I estimate the difference in 0.5 rotation aerial and 1.0 rotation aerial is roughly 2x.

Of course, you can do something like [fl ia - ss 1.0] aerial 1.0 which would raise difficulty by enormous amount (especially because the worsened control from the higher aerial will greatly impair ability to enter into the extra rotation spiderspin after it, and vice versa).

The 'cheat method' of doing certain power tricks by using small aerial instead of topspin - pause windy's vid below at random intervals, and you will see mod entirely leaves hand - doesn't change difficulty much for usual fl ta palmspin or index pun new, but it reduces difficulty by a fair bit for spiderspin variations (and looks uglier unless you can control it perfectly at minimal amount like spinnerpeem does).

Some spinners choose to practice harder variations over simpler ones to raise the harder variations to higher numbers than the simpler ones - A13x disliked the appearance of his [fl ta - palmspin] cont, so he trained index pun new and [fl ta - ss] a lot. Spinnerpeem did not learn mid/ring/pinky spreads because he simply doesn't need to use them. I really like [fl ia - ss], [fl ma - ring ss] and [mirr pp rev - ring ss] so I trained them lots and lots, so my technique of [fl ia - ss] is better than my palmspin/pun new variations; and my [fl ta - ring ss] is far weaker than my [fl ma - ring ss] and [mirr pp rev - ring ss].

I apologise somewhat for the slight showing off in certain areas of this post, but I hope you learnt something from it ^^

difficulty in PS

Wrote this after thinking about the pure idiocy in difficulty judging (and public perception) of difficulty of various combos and tricks in WT and WC. Like really, of course mediocre judge will consider things which are not that difficult to be 'difficult beyond imagination' because the scope of their skills and imagination are both mediocre; and since trick A and trick B are both hard 'beyond their imagination', judge will give both 10/10 difficulty even if there is enormous difference between them...

OTL. Anyway, time for actual discussion. *Sorry for wall of text rambling, but it's interesting I promise!*

For lazy people, tl;dr version is: difficulty determination should be based on practice time rather than rarity of the trick/linkage, but there's heaps of variables affecting practice time, so best thing to do is practice more to get better personal evaluation xD

Strongest finisher by fel2fram (2-hand interlaced around/twirl fall variation? unsure of naming conventions)

What are the most impressive feats or tricks in PS history? From before 2008: sunrise's perfect thumbspin 15.5 with pencil is probably craziest trick every recorded (I still am unsure how much practice or skill would be needed to replicate it), and cloud traveller's midbak 1.5 x 12 with mx deserves honorable mention. However, before 2008, index bust x 10-15 was considered incredibly difficult, with hunlanlin holding world record of x 17 before spinnerpeem joined the scene.

From peem's erasing of the boundaries of difficulty which everyone else was constrained by, his explore M fl combo and his WC10 finals combo stand out most. From 2010 until 2013, fel2fram rewrote the comprehension of creativity and possibilities in linkages entirely, making many variations and concepts that are still barely understood, much less explored. A13x's dual pass T4, fel2fram's interlaced 2-hand around variation, menowa's spiderspin variations, xound's fingercrosses in WT15 also stand out.

However, consider this: since 2008, why has no one even come close to sunrise's thumbspins, but many many spinners are able to do bust x 10-20 or more (with fair numbers of spinners reaching 25+ or more busts in their first year)? When TEK uploaded peem's video of 50+ palmspin fl ta, other hard trick experts at the time were still in the < 10 range, but it did not take long for spinners who'd spun less than 1 1/2 years to reach 300+ palmspin fl ta (tony from HKPSA and yaoss from MYPSC).

Is the typical 1 year spinner of now better than the experts of 2008? Does the typical 1 year spinner of now have some magical technique of training busts or have more practice time on that trick? Most likely not, but the seeming 'degradation' of power trick difficulty for more basic variations (index bust, fl ta, spread, fl ta palmspin, aerial hai tua, hai tua) is probably associated with world's 'belief' of what is possible and impossible; i.e. if spinners believe certain feats are achievable with certain practice amount, then it contributes to becoming self-fulfilling prophesy (and vice versa, if certain feats are believed to be impossible, then this belief is strong enough to deter people from trying or even increase their actual failing rate). Of course, more available resources (decent quality demonstration videos and tutorials) plays a part, but generally I do not consider the majority of tutorials to be that helpful or well made, and many spinners are unable to elicit maximum details from slow motion videos either.

The key point of contention in difficulty is 'practice time required to master the trick' versus 'how many people can do the trick' (or linkage) in question. Personally, 'how many people can do the trick' is not that relevant when considering tricks of high difficulty, and is further obscured by trends/popularity (e.g. rex trick is quite simple to do, but was considered amazing when rex showed it in WT11 R1; similarly menowa's WT15 R3 combo gained much attention for its angled around variations but is far easier than his WT15 R2 combo or even his WC14 R2 combo). Furthermore, if people believe trick is too hard, few people will attempt it, which reduces estimation of 'how many people can do the trick', leading to overestimation of the trick's difficulty. Therefore I prioritise 'practice time required to master the trick' as being of far greater importance in difficulty consideration than merely 'how many people can do the trick'.

Difficulty can also be considered in terms of spinners' ability to devise techniques for tricks that are not yet in their mastery. This is highly linked to the spinner's current skillset, and the similarity of the trick/linkage they are trying to learn. For example, pinkybak 2.0 cont is quite similar to pinkybak 1.5 cont, so mastery of pinkybak 1.5 will help greatly. This can be applied to linkages and more extreme examples, such as applying fl ta cont technique to do PD fl TA (which allowed me to reach pd ta > pd fl ta x 4 in my 5 year solo with less than 30 minutes experimentation, and increased to pd ta > pd fl ta x 7 in 'THIS IS POWER V5' despite me never devoting deliberate practice for this trick in the past few years). Certain tricks which are more different to existing tricks commonly done are harder to devise techniques for, but may not actually require as much practice time as expected (e.g. dual pass T4, which I managed x 13 of after training for 30 minutes; whereas fel2fram's 2-handed interlaced around variation seems impossible to do smoothly even though perfoming it sketchily is not that hard).

On the other hand, slight variations which are fairly common to mastered linkages are difficult because hand's muscle memory defaults to the common linkage instead of the desired variation (e.g. east sonic and west sonic variations used by iteza - see below video 0:04-0:05 linkage, and hash, slofis' inv shadow+arounds in Pearls 6th combo). Of course, spinner with very good ability to control fingers will not be set back by the defaulting muscle memory phenomenon, but generally even experienced spinners have trouble with understanding and performing these slight variations immediately, so they might take a while to master them completely. However, this raises the question of whether a spinner who was not as constrained or influenced by trends to do common material would find east and west sonic variations etc to be hard (we can probably never fully resolve this question, just as innate considerations of appeal in art and music are influenced the moment we learn language, by every comment and every person we interact with and so on).

Regarding practice time, it is possible to stumble across efficient technique quickly (usually by accident) which allows mastery of trick in short time (e.g. Vora's palmspin fl ta supposedly reached 100+ in several weeks or less, which might be a joke on his part; or nadhif's rapid learning or pinkybak 1.5 and palmspin fl ta). Practice time is also probably influenced by belief of what is possible, as said before. However, practice time varies greatly not just between spinners (even if generally we can come to agreement of what tricks/linkages are hard), but also within the same spinner in tricks he/she considers difficult.

While many spinners (and myself) consider dual pass T4 and say, fl ia - ss cont or fl ma - ring ss cont all to be quite difficult and rare tricks, the practice time required for these 3 is very different. For me, dual pass T4 to 10+ took half an hour, whereas fl ma - ring ss to 10+ took daily practice of 40 minutes for nearly an entire year (both tricks being trained in 2014-2016 period, after I'd spun over 7 years), so clearly there is vast difference in difficulty despite both tricks being rightly considered 'hard'. Of course, maybe someone else would not find the difference as large as I do, but it would require more spinners to master both these unusual hard tricks, which is unlikely to occur to any significant extent.

Of course, placement of trick/linkage in combo impacts difficulty, as doing harder trick/linkage later is more difficult than doing it earlier. Logically, one should practice the hard trick/linkage itself separately quite well before trying to use it later in combo (if you do not, you will have less chances to practice it when recording as you reach later point in combo more rarely than earlier point, and your mental stress will also be increased).

The role of innate finger flexibility and muscle memory in difficulty is also interesting. For example, mastering one or two flush sonic and side flush sonic variations makes learning other linkages in 14 slot far easier. Furthermore, as a spinner with below average middle and ring independence (I cannot make spock sign which separates middle and ring finger properly on right hand), I can still perform most flush sonic and side flush sonic variations in 14 without thumb 'assistance' cheating, so innate flexibility is not necessary for these, even if it is helpful. Also, fact that left hand which hardly trains deliberately can do many 24 and 14 linkages by using muscle memory of right hand reinforces idea that 24/14 linkages are based on muscle memory rather than finger flexibility. Of course, training to acquire the muscle memory and appropriate pen rotation angle/speed/finger movement requires significant time.

In contrast to this, fingercross most likely requires innate finger flexibility (which can be trained by stretching, but risk of injury and takes long, long time) and also muscle memory, but I cannot fully comment on this as I cannot do fingercross of ring+pinky or middle+ring on my right without my left hand forcing the fingers to cross.

Anyway tl;dr version is: difficulty determination should be based on practice time, but there's heaps of confounding factors and other variables affecting practice time, so best thing to do is practice more to get better personal evaluation.