School is not only a time of pressure, it is also a time of boredom, where people will do random insignificant acts to pass the hours. These things usually constitute the idea of ADD consuming the masses of our preteens to young adults.
But in reality, they are nonsensical time wasters to take students' minds off of the seemingly redundant and monotonously routine schooldays.
Some people tap on desks. Some people bite their fingernails. Some people sneakily text and/or play simplistic cell phone games.
But there is one that spawns its own entire subculture.
I'm sure you have witnessed many a classmate placing their writing utensil between their thumb and index finger, then flicking it with their middle finger, making it revolve around their thumb and comfortably stopping in the original position. Kids will do this all day until they seem to flawlessly complete this task over and over until the bell rings.
But there is an underground of people that take this to a new and amazing level. Dive into the contact juggling sport know as Pen Spinning.
The novice trick mentioned above is know as the "thumb around" and is the basic most stunt in the pen spinning category. Here is a tutorial:
Which evolved into an intermediate:
Possibly originating in a pre-WWII Japan, what is considered by many to be a form of self entertainment has spawned a large following, even initiating live tournaments. Though for a while exclusive to Japan, the hobby has begun popping up in many other nations.
The sport has gotten so specified, that modified pens are now used. The infamous Kam of Japan (who founded pentrix) was the first pen spinner to modify a pen. Now there are dozens of models available, such as the RSVP MX, Comssa, ZT, MSXA, and many more. Each pen is categorized by length (long, medium, short), weight (heavy, light) and style (single sided, double sided, retractable, extended, or mechanical).
For tricks, spinners have developed a way of mapping out the hand to make descriptions of stunts easier. The thumb is "T" and the rest of the fingers are listed as numbers with the index as "1" and the pinky as "4." The in between section of the fingers are labeled as the two touching fingers. So in between the thumb and index would be T1 and in between the ring and pinky would be 34.
This allows for the easy sharing and analysis of different spins. From fundamentals such as the Finger Pass or Charge to the intricately advanced Inverse Extended Triple Infinity Reverse, which in the finger slot explanation (as expressed in the previous paragraph), looks like this:
"Pass Reverse T1-12 > Wiper Normal 12 > Charge Reverse 12 > Pass Reverse 12-23 > Wiper Normal 23 > Change Reverse 23 > Pass Reverse 23-34 > Wiper Normal 34 > Charge Reverse 34 > Pass Normal 34-23 > Wiper Normal 23 > Pass Normal 23-12 > Wiper Normal 12 > Pass Normal 12-T1 > Wiper Normal T1"
Spinners even create their own tricks. For example, kangandgeon created The Shadow:
The tricks get very complicated and seemingly impossible. You end up having to contort your hand into gestures you never thought reasonable to create the necessary motion to complete the spin. Even the simplistic trick above was impossible for me to get down, even after an hour of trying.
These guys really know what they are doing.
They even have started their own World Tournament where the top elite spinners compete in the live judging of their digit-based abilities. The winner for the 2009 competition was Spinnerpeem.
And I was surprised when I heard there were Yo-Yo tournaments.
And to think that quite possibly one of the most commonly used human creations, the pen, has this type of unimagined worship. There truly is nothing that certain humans will not manipulate and obsess over.
I will leave you, my friends, with a final compilation of epic pen spinning by the aforementioned Kam for you to drool over:
