Very Cool Penspinning – Week 5

It’s been a surprisingly big week for some great penspinning! We saw some nice CV’s, and there’s been quite a bit of video activity on Twitter. This week’s edition will be completely normal – just some Very Cool Penspinning clips!

Naruse – FS #4 from ゆるめのまとめ2

Naruse is a really strong spinner, and he occasionally pulls out some cool material to go with his highly developed style and energy. This one in particular feels very relaxed while spotlighting some fun, showy links. 

Huwng/Falzed – Combo for Tết 15th

Yesssss another Huwng standup combo! This one perfectly blends Ponkotu’s sleek performance style and sense of space with Huwng’s pure sorcery material. One of the most complete-feeling standup combos out there, despite feeling so short!

Kres & Chiruru – Combos for Nachii* 2nd

VNPS went CRAZY this week. So many CV’s featuring amazing spinners young and old. Nachii* 2nd had some phenomenal stuff in it, especially these back-to-back stellar combos. Kres is continually getting better (and is wildly underrated!) and Chiruru is just coming onto my radar as a top 1p2h spinner. This combo in particular is really cool!

DArKT – Twitter clip

DArKT is literally posting new videos as I write this, so to say that he’s had an active week would be an understatement. Basically, he’s continually shown some of the craziest stuff I’ve ever seen, all casually handcammed within one week. Pinkybak cardoid to punkan to pinkybak cardioid?? Pinkybak cardioid 1.5??? Ridiculous. This one is a bit more fun than pure tech flexing. I hope we get to see some full-effort DArKT combos sometime in 2022 👀

DioBrando – Twitter clip #1

DioBrando’s activity has come and gone over the past few years, but he’s only gotten better and better somehow! An atmospheric setup, beautiful MX tat, and nicely paced, elegant material. Nice!!

Haton – Combo for Tuanz 2nd

This combo doesn’t showcase the upper range of Haton’s technical skill or dynamic visuals, but the last 4 seconds are especially nice, and it has a terrific structure and flow!

Petuy – wiiiidescreen Twitter clip

Japanese motion! Japanese motion!!!

RPD – Twitter clip

RPD’s “Passes Nor Behind the Thumb” video is one of the first things I remember from him, but those tricks can still make a big impact. Even in the Saltient era, extreme fc visual effects can be surprising! Beyond just the visual flair, though, this clip looks… horribly diffficult.

Very Cool Penspinning – Week 4

As I hinted on Twitter, where the aes/tech debate has re-emerged (“style vs. power” volume 318), this will be a special edition! I’ll include both this week’s highlights and a selection of my own (lengthy) thoughts on the interplay between aesthetic and technical skills. Let’s start with some highlights!

EffecT – Nope Field FS

EffecT is incapable of recording a bad video! Really! This one is pretty special, though. There’s some really cool material in this relatively short fs. These vertical handcam clips that EffecT films for Twitter almost certainly aren’t planned, but they have such a solid, confident feel and really engaging structure. For me, those aspects of an fs take a lot of planning and practice, but for EffecT, they just seem natural.

Ko – Twitter FS with perpendicular charges

Charges are hard to find modifiers for. We’ve seen figure 8 charge barely executed, blaze ring is a fun charge, and some half charges and quarter charges are very cool, but it usually seems like there’s not all that much difference to explore. After all, RPD’s book has taught me that there’s no such thing as inverse charge, and both mirrored and antipodal charges are simply charge rev.

But perpendicular charge! (That’s what I’m calling it) This is really nice – I’ve seen very similar things done several times before, but this looks nice and is integrated well! I’m a big fan.

Hector – Twitter FS

There are some intricate links involving some cool slots with the thumb. The concept is simple, of course, but the lesson here is that using unconventional slots can completely renew the effect of certain trick families. This whole FS is a really fun ride.

なな – FS for Baton CV – Black

Who is this?? I’m a little disappointed that I don’t know. Based on the name I wondered if it was Nanafushi, but that’s clearly not the case. Either way, they’re using great, MG-style material and this combo looks very good, especially for handcam. Someone send me a Twitter account for this spinner!

Herenz – Twitter FS

This man is too good at penspinning! Aaaa!!

Some analysis of aesthetic vs. technical skill in penspinning

Now I’ll get into my views on the current aesthetic vs. technical debate! Yay! I’ll introduce this by saying that I allude to points made by Monheim without reproducing his full arguments here. I added a bit of clarification to my original dm’s in order to add context, but there may be some gaps that I didn’t fill. Still, the main parts of my argument should be easy to follow on their own.

I should also note that I do not believe that aspects not related to penspinning skill should impact our evaluation of spinners’ abilities – this includes hand appearance and setup. I’m instead arguing that the greater part of my (and many others’) evaluation of “aesthetic” spinning is based on penspinning skill.

Here’s my input, for what it’s worth:

“I take extreme disagreement with the idea that aesthetic spinners in the high end have an extra degree of skill that cannot be pinned down” It can certainly be pinned down! In Goat’s spinning, for example, there’s a nearly obsessive hand form retained throughout the combo. Fingers deviate from this form to a degree that combines minimal motion (like Altema) with charge fullness (like Hash) and complementary motion with the tricks performed (like Herenz). Fingers always return to this form when possible, creating a sense of mechanical precision and delicacy. I say these are easy to pin down because they satisfactorily account for Goat’s style: by mimicking these attributes, I can do a pretty decent Goat impression with very simple material! I am able to replicate this aesthetic effect through practice and habituation. The fact that I can only achieve it with simple material shows that both mechanical effect and material difficulty are skills that similarly require effort and intention to develop. 

That’s all pretty boring and mechanistic, but it’s an accurate description of a phenomenon that contributes to skill and pleasant effect. One actually interesting point is that, as you would likely point out, Goat’s spinning may not look as good with other angles! That’s because the deftness of Goat’s effect has been developed strategically to create a certain effect with a certain set of presentation parameters. This makes his skill set less versatile for different settings than, say, EffecT’s skill set, but the degree of skill is just as difficult to attain. 

“even if we were to give you the same lighting scenario as say goat or aimo, saturation or even hue (because different hues have different values inherently) may change the overall effect of the composition” This is partly true! I am certainly not oblivious to these things, and on top of that they aren’t very difficult to discern and parse, really. Let’s inspect Esaya combos with vastly different visual compositions. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES3_ocNZIIA This combo looks beautiful! By my view, the setup enhances the smoothness of the hand and the contrasts of the pen, hand, and desk. The archetypal “carries” setup. I also think the spinning looks excellent, with my attention on finger forms, finger/pen/hand motions, and pacing dynamics. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfbL9zFDR3U Now let’s look at this combo. This setup doesn’t look great! The setup and lighting make it hard to see the pen clearly, the colors and shades of the hand don’t look very good, and the contrasts are all a mess. The shape of the hand is, at best, not enhanced by the composition. The point is that these are not hard to distinguish on their own. But, I can also discern that the spinning, down to very small details, looks just as excellent as the other combo. Probably even a little better!

The point here isn’t that Esaya is doing anything spectacular – this aesthetic level is probably equal to the technical level of fLow or Naru. But here’s the point in brief: you and i.suk have never made a combo that is nearly as pleasantly perfect as these combos. That’s my impression as a viewer: neither of you has ever done this. 

The important conclusion of this point is that both of you could. i.suk is able to achieve at least the aesthetic skill of Chicken. They have similar hands, but if you placed i.suk at Chicken’s setup today, he wouldn’t be able to achieve anything close to chicken’s aesthetic effect. It would take a few years of effort, at least. The same goes for you and, say, Kudo. 

The point is not that these spinners have necessarily put in as much effort as you or i.suk! Maybe their aesthetic achievements are over-glorified and misconstrued by some! But they have put in plenty of effort, real effort, to reach their current state, and these hard-won aesthetic details pay off to a discerning viewer in a way that can’t be mimicked by visual composition and “carries.” 

Look at spinners who copy Drowsy’s combos with very nice macroexecution and the same exact carries (slimmer hands, too) but end up creating fairly boring videos that aren’t worth watching twice, because the smaller details of performance aren’t there. There are probably newer spinners who think these copies are close to Drowsy’s originals, but this simply isn’t the case. 

So I think it’s very misguided to say with certainty that it’s easier to become Lumo than Vanilla. My view is that Vanilla could become Lumo with years of effort, and that Lumo could become Vanilla with years of effort. The fact that they both reached their current levels in only 2 years is similarly impressive for both, and indicates respective affinities for the things they worked to achieve. 

I share your frustration in one specific way: some active aesthetic spinners haven’t really improved over the past 4-5 years, and they get lots of praise and high status despite this stagnation. Spinners with a technical focus don’t get this luxury. If i.suk spun like his ’17 self, people would be so sick of his shit, myself included.

It used to be the case, I think, that technical spinners got away with this sort of stagnation, as well. It’s easy to remember just how stagnant some technical spinners were from 2011-2015, while getting tons of recognition for holding down their corner of material/style. Over the past few years, this has definitely changed, and technical spinners are expected now to consistently expand and improve their abilities, with people like i.suk, Iteza, Herenz, Noel, Katts, and DArKT responding to this demand very well. While some aesthetic spinners also improve their material, abilities, and styles regularly (including Goat, again), I agree that they don’t generally have the same pressure to do so.

Now I’d also like to address your analogy with visual arts, which is expressed well and is convincingly relevant, to some degree, to our ps discussion. But instead, I’m going to talk about instrumental music, which I understand better and which I think marries mechanical input with perceived effect more closely. 

I’m working on a specific piece on the piano, and it’s at the upper range of my technical ability, and stretches it a bit. Getting the notes down and developing the muscle memory to play the piece was fairly difficult, and it took around 6 weeks. 

If I played it today for someone who doesn’t play the piano, I could play it very expressively and they would be impressed to some degree by the technical level. At points, they would also probably appreciate the “grand gesture,” to borrow your phrase, of the expressive aspects. 

If I played it for someone who is more experienced than me at playing piano, they would tell me that it’s fine. It’s alright. More importantly, they would tell me that I have a ton of work to do on voicing, which, on the piano, refers (you may know this, idk) to precise differences in volume between notes, used to enhance melody and line. This is relevant to our discussion because this voicing is purely mechanical, nothing more than force differentials among the fingers. It’s also perceived differently depending on experience: a person who doesn’t play the piano may think that my playing is better and notice its expressive qualities more easily if my voicing control were better, but they wouldn’t likely be able to attribute this to my mechanical precision (roughly the opposite of your point about inexperienced painters misattributing effective expressive gestures to mechanical detail). A person with a lot of experience, on the other hand, would recognize the precise reason for this improvement. 

They would also recognize the difficulty of attaining this detail. I can say from experience that working on the subtleties of voicing has been significantly harder than learning the notes, and it only has to do with mechanical skill.

It also has nothing to do with “carries”! Someone who has never played piano could hear a novice playing on a very good piano with very good recording quality and say “wow! they sound so good!” Conversely, a more experienced pianist might listen to a skilled player on a mediocre instrument or in a room with poor acoustics and have no trouble discerning their skill in voicing. They would still, however, recognize that the skilled player sounds better on a good instrument or in a better acoustic space. So while “carries” like instrument, acoustics, and recording quality can make a huge difference on the outcome of the performance, a discerning listener has no difficulty distinguishing elements of mechanical skill, with or without “carries.”

Another interesting thing to draw from this is that it doesn’t take much time for someone to be able to play something very easy on the piano nearly as well as the best pianists in the world. It is a bit harder to learn how to play something very difficult badly. It is far, far, far more difficult to learn to play something difficult well. Similarly, it’s not too difficult to copy a very simple combo with high aesthetic skill. Goat’s material, on the other hand, or Drowsy’s, is much harder to copy with high levels of aesthetic skill, especially with their specific effects. 

Very Cool Penspinning – Week 3

This week, I’m doing something just a little bit different. Today’s edition will be a retrospective on the spinners who were most impactful and active in the CV’s of 2021, in various categories. Let’s get started:

“First Player” of the year: Sweg and Raijing

The “First Player” of the year is the spinner who was highly active and consistently created excellent combos, without necessarily being the most flashy spinner in the lineup. Sweg and Raijing both appeared in many top-tier CV’s this year, and while they occasionally outshone the rest of the cast, they most often provided very nice combos without being the main highlight.

“Interlude” of the year: Reamtea and Ence

The typical CV tends to have a quiet section in the music. Slower, calmer styles of penspinning (and most wiper-based combos!) fill these segments. When done right, they can make an even bigger impact than the louder, more exciting parts. The “Interlude” spinners of the year were both very active in CV’s this year and always – always – used a calm, down-tempo style to add dynamic to the cast.

“Beat drop” of the year: MG, EffecT, and Airi

Of course, the last player tends to be the most memorable spinner in the cast of a CV, but in most cases, there’s a comparable combo placed somewhere in the middle. That’s how the music is often structured, so that’s the best way to structure the CV itself. Some sort of flashy climax also keeps viewers engaged. These three spinners had enormous impacts on the CV’s they were in. Often, they were the final spinners in the cast, but they stood out even when they weren’t.

“Last Player” of the year: Goat

You all know what being the “last player” of a CV signifies. Goat was, by a significant margin, the most impactful spinner in CV’s this year. With a phenomenal combination of flawless, effortless style, brilliant combo structure, and a gorgeous setup, every Goat combo hit hard in 2021. Let’s hope he keeps it going in 2022.

Very Cool Penspinning – Week 2

I’m a little bit late this week, but that’s fine! It also just… wasn’t a huge week in the ps world? Don’t worry, I’ll have plenty to talk about, but there was definitely a major cool-off period after the CV frenzy of late December/early January. Nothing particularly major happened in the past week, as far as I know.

That being said, I think there are exciting trends going on and fantastic projects that will be happening soon. I myself filmed 2 (two!) CV combos in the past week that I’m really proud of. Hopefully you’ll see them before long!

But let’s get into the combos:

Magic* – Tag with Haton, FS #2

Magic* is very good!! He also had a great FS in the short Nope Field tag he did with Knight, but this one stands out to me the most. It’s a little rough around the edges, but the content is fantastic. A little of his usual style, a lot of MG, and overall terrific material for a simple tag video. I hope to see a lot of Magic* in 2022!

Zawa – Year End Cup R1

Shilomi vibes! JapEn 8th Hash vibes! I expect that Azuki will most likely win this battle (he’s also very good!), but somehow I… didn’t know Zawa was this good? Looking back to confirm, it is clear: he has improved dramatically over the past few months. Exciting stuff!

Like many promising newer JEB spinners who have developed beautiful technique quickly, he will need to work on developing more interesting material, more dynamic pacing, and tighter combo structure. Another JEB style prodigy, Lumo, succeeded in improving these things dramatically in 2021 (and is now one of the best), so I believe Zawa can do so as well.

Seiray – Twitter clip

Seiray is one of the main figures in PSH’s new A-team of active spinners, and his inventive material is the main reason. It’s just a Twitter clip, but the opening sequence of this FS is really fun to watch.

Great stuff! Exciting to watch.

Bite-sized highlights:

Nolys – Twitter clip

Gray Man started (I believe) what I call the “rolling vertical stall flip” about a month ago, which adds a really fun dynamic energy to the standard repertoire of vertical stall entrances. This week, Nolys filmed the backhand version:

ZeroZs – “I’m noob” (Twitter)

No you’re not!

If this is yet another MG/Cowabunga alt, I’ll be upset.

Debued – F…L…T…A… (Twitter)

Debued’s Twitter is private, so I hope this is okay to share (it’s very short!). Debued is an extremely underrated spinner, and has been doing effortlessly cool, original stuff for years. This clip is very simple – I just think it looks cool!

Agiota – fishing clip

By the end of 2019, there was a sense that fishing had reached a point of stagnation, and that it was a limited field of gimmick tricks that were unlikely to be integrated well. It’s 2022 and there’s still plenty of cool fishing content out there! Sututu and Han Nani also posted very cool fishing clips in this week alone.

Very Cool Penspinning – Week 1

Hi everyone! I’m trying to write a lot more ps content in 2022, and Eriror gave me the idea to go over the most interesting penspinning I saw every week and simply write about it. I’ll probably shift things up with a different type of content every now and then, but I’ll try to write a short new blog entry every week this year, going over the penspinning videos that stood out to me most.

I see almost everything that’s published in the ps world, but there are always things that I’ll inevitably miss. If you’re not included in my posts, it doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t deserve to be – sometimes, I’ll simply not notice some videos that probably deserve to be mentioned.

Let’s get started!

Fukrou – 咲

咲 is the CV of the year so far (and will definitely remain in the top 10 for the rest of the year), with some surprising combos. This one, however, wasn’t surprising at all, but it still stands out above Fukrou’s usual greatness. Personally, I wish Fukrou’s 2 camera modes were just a little bit closer to each other – there’s definitely a charm to slightly lower-quality videos, especially for CV’s like 咲 where Fukrou’s high-res videos wouldn’t feel as appropriate, but I think this combo would benefit from slightly better lighting and resolution.

That being said, just look at this sequence. Unbelievably good. I can’t stop watching it.

Nanafushi – 咲

Okay… this CV had too many highlights, and it was really tough to keep this blog from simply being a 咲 recap. So, instead of listing the fantastic entries from Four, Menowa*, Airi, Mania, Katts, etc., I’m just going to choose Nanafushi, since he’s an exciting up-&-comer and the highlight from his combo was really fun. I enjoyed his Japan Cup material from earlier in 2021, but his fs for 咲 was shocking to me. This link ends up being one of the highlights from the CV:

Chillpan – KIPS Instant CV

Chillpan is one of the best as it is, but presenting a solid 20 seconds straight with smooth cuts between clips is really cool and makes this instant CV stand out, in addition to some excitement from BlackCow, really cool shadow visuals from Tez, and overall lovely combos from Kune, Sol, and Balam. But Chillpan is a real highlight:

Akkey – PHPS 3rd

Akkey is awesome, and he’s only getting better. His performance and style has been improving every time he puts out a standup combo – at this point, I can hardly comment on it, because the performance aspect of his standup is notably stronger than mine.

But for this combo, the concept and success of the production was just as important as the combo itself. The changing outdoor settings are so surprising and smooth, I had to rewatch them 3 or 4 times before even finishing the CV the first time.

The rest of PHPS 3rd has really excellent spinning, as well. Barney, Ch, Kres, Kanami, and Zefia were all great. But Akkey’s segment is the reason this CV will be remembered for a while.

Freeman – f-f-f-freestyle

It had been 3 years since Freeman’s last compilation solo, and he’d actually built up quite a bit of great content since then, though not at the output level of the decade prior. Needless to say, we were due for another Freeman adventure, and the 2019-2021 installment sure didn’t disappoint. While most of his combos don’t have quite the same wacky, hit-and-miss ideas that they might have had 10 years ago, there’s a confidence and energy in Freeman’s spinning now that feels just as distinctive as his less refined, more conceptual stuff from before.

In this latest video, one of the highlights is the only brand-new combo in the compilation, a long and stylish freestyle at the very end. It ends on a failed triple bust, which is just perfect: when your spinning looks as natural as breathing, the failures are just as fun as the successes.

Bite-sized highlights:

Spica – super harmonic

I learned from RPD’s new book that this trick used to be called “super harmonic", which makes a lot of sense. I know there are many people who can execute it very well, but this video from Spica is just crazy to me.

DArKT – first of 2022

The entire year of 2021 was one enormous training arc for DArKT, and his Twitter activity played a huge role on the development of vertical stalls and flips in the current ps meta. His first video of 2022 was an instant highlight from this period, despite the sweltering heat of the southern hemisphere summer.

TUv4 – Unreleased 2021 Clips #3

TUv4 wasn’t too active in 2021 (more than 2020, though!), but he did make some serious waves with his 3 WT21 combos and his submission for hyp_notic_, my pick for best CV of the year. Unsurprisingly, this short collection of unreleased clips is also remarkable, and has some really exciting stuff. The best of the bunch is the third clip featured:

This is an incredible condensation of some of TUv4’s best material, along with some stuff we’ve never really seen from him.

BlackCow – KIPS Instant CV

I’m not very familiar with BlackCow, but I guess they’re yet another dark horse from KIPS with tremendous potential. Check this out, if you haven’t seen it yet:

It’s just a slightly more complete version of Beck’s 360° turn pp normal from WT21 R3, but it’s integrated nicely and looks nice. The first part of this short combo is great, as well.