Penspinning: the art of pen rotation

Penspinning is the art of rotating a pen, consisting in performing a variety of trickswith a ballpoint pen (or another writing tool) with one or two hands. Penspinning originated in Japan, where he was especially popular among the ronin (as in Japan are called school leavers who failed the entrance examinations, which are waiting for the next year to enter).

Who and how contributed to the fact that penspinning has become a widespread hobby, can not be reliably ascertained. But it is known that one of the first websites dedicated to penspinning was opened Hideaki Kondo, a Japanese penspinner.

You might think that penspinning is an idle pastime that does not bring any benefit. But actually tricks with manual help to develop fine motor skills, dexterity of fingers, mindfulness. Penspinning can be useful to people whose professions require sleight of hand, say, to musicians.

All you need for penspinning is the pen. But with the usual pen, performing tricks will not be very convenient, you need a special pen, called "mod". The name is derived from the word "modified", because in fact the mod is a modification of the ordinary pen.

In Asian countries, where penspinning is veryis popular (even special workshops and competitions are held there), the production of pens with an ideal balance for penspinning is put on stream. We have this more difficult, but if you want you can make a mod yourself. The easiest way is to put another cap on the other end of the handle to balance it.

A good mod should be balanced. At the ends of fashion is heavier than in the middle. The length of the fashion can range from 18 to 23 cm. Modes can be heavy and light. For the study of tricks heavy modes are used, it is easier for a novice to manipulate them, and if it is necessary to work out the speed and smoothness of the trick already studied, take an easy mod.

Penspinning has its own system of notation for fingers and gaps between them. Counting starts with a thumb, it's called "tamb" (from the English word thumb) and is denoted as T. Next, the fingers are numbered from 1 to 4 (that is, if the index number is number 1, then the little finger is number 4). The gaps between the fingers are called "slots" and are indicated by the numbers of two adjacent fingers (that is, say, the slot between the middle and ring fingers is 23).

If you want to master penspinning, you should know that all tricks are divided into two main categories - basic and advanced. Beginning to learn penspinning stands with basic tricks: they are simple enough and then serve as a base for mastering more complex, original and spectacular stunts.

One of the simplest basic tricks, for example, is called ThumbAround. Penspinner pushes the pen with his middle finger so that it turns around the thumb, and then catches it between the thumb and forefinger. It turns out that the pen makes a 360-degree turn.

Advanced tricks - more complex, but also more entertaining. For their successful implementation, you need trained fingers and a certain preliminary preparation. Some of them are complicated basic tricks, some of them are absolutely new tricks.

Besides, every trick usually has a few variations. For example, almost any trick can be performedAs in the normal version (Normal), and in the opposite direction (Reverse). Do not confuse Reverse with Inverse, the second variation is doing a trick on the back of the palm of your hand. Varied variations can be quite a lot.

Penspinning is an interesting and, importantly, an accessible hobby. It can be done at any free minute, and it's quite easy to make a mod. A bit of training - and you'll amaze friends and acquaintances with spectacular stunts!