UPSB v3

Board Help / A Quick Tour of UPSBv3 (FOR UPSB MEMBERS)

Zombo
Date: Sat, Oct 13 2007 05:52:13

Hi and welcome to our new, improved board!

It's been nearly two years since UPSBv2 has closed down and we're finally back!

For those of you who haven't followed the PS scene very closely for those two years, here' a quick run-through of what happened:
- UCPSB: It was created as a temporary replacement while waiting for UPSB. Because of its ephemeral nature, its atmosphere was very casual and loose compared to UPSB. But because UCPSB subsisted for 2 years now, it has developped a community of its own, with faces which have never frequented UPSB before. Now that UPSB has re-opened, we can expect most UCPSB members to migrate here, but the UCPSB board will stay open for those who enjoyed a more relaxed atmosphere.
- Localization: It might be incorrect nowadays to consider the UPSB as the board for the whole world. It now mostly serves the rest of the world. After UPSB closed, the more populous nations of UPSB have formed their own board and eventually outgrew their UPSB roots. This is why we now have so many established boards: FPSB (France), GPC (Germany), PDS (Korea), JEB (Japan), KitCat (Hong Kong), PenZone (Hong Kong), SweSpin (Sweden) and many more developping communities such as PSerHome (Mainland China), PPP (Poland), RPSC (Russia), ThaiSpin (Thailand), etc... UPSB will primarily serve pen spinners who are not in those communities, such as the rest of Europe, Asia, America, Australia and Africa (although there's not many african spinners!).
- Media coverage: In certain countries, such as Korea and Japan, PS has been covered numerous times in the media already. The same is happening in several European countries such as the UK, France and Germany. The art is gaining exposure worldwide.
- Trading / Shops: Because of this increase of popularity, we now see stores which sell pen spinning material. Due to this, it has become increasingly easier to find the pens that you need. Two example of online stores are JetPens and PenWish.
- Technical Spinning: The level of spinning have vastly improved over the course of the last two years. Spinners can achieve proficient level after only months of spinning due to the sheer quantity of tutorials and articles on the net. Pen Spinning has become smoother, faster and harder. The focus of the so-called "Performance Spinning" emphasizes strongly on combos and linkages in order to chain tricks together. Hybrid is a key concept in modern spinning; in order to create smoother combos, tricks are often "cut" short to gain time or better positioning.
- Creativity: It is often debated that the very high level of spinning present in videos has somewhat "standardized" the tricks used in the combos. Because the emphasis is on linkage, pen spinniners will tend to focus on finding the best way to chain known tricks in the most efficient way. In this sense, not much emphasis has been put on creating new tricks or thinking "outside the box". One possible explanation is that marginal tricks are still unpolished and so it's hard to integrate them into combos without sacrificing smoothness/speed. Nevertheless, it's important to work on those ideas and show them to others, because they will eventually be refined enough that they will slip into "mainstream" spinning. For example: Triangle Spin was an old and rarely used trick because it was hard to smoothly execute in a combo but a japanese spinner by the name of bonkura managed to perfect it and use it fluently in combos. Its popularity has now exploded and the Triangle Spin can be commonly found in combos.
- Research Department: In order to promote innovation in pen spinning, the Research Department was founded by Zombo. Our goal is to push the boundaries of pen spinning further and work on ideas that inconventional. If you're interested in serious pen spinning discussions and have a lot of ideas for pen spinning, please send a PM to Zombo.
- Modding: Concepts of the past are now attainable. We now have several working retractable and LED mods. Pen mods have gotten heavier and longer and generally easier to spin. Pen modding have become so good that in fact some people are debating if spinning those mods should be considered "Pen Spinning". In other words, they are arguing that there should be a limit to how much modding can be done to improve one's spinning. It is a very controversial and still divided subject.
- World Tournament: Pen Spinning is now an international phenomena and as such large-scale events are now organized. One succesful example is the World Pen Spinning Tournament '07, organized by Crash. We hope to have more international events in the future. FYI, the winner of this first tournament is KTH, from Pendolsa.
A lot have changed but Pen Spinning is prospering. It may be difficult for someone to catch up, especially skill-wise, to the current standards, but with perseverance everything is possible.

What I am hoping for however, is for UPSB veterans to come back and share their knowledge and experience with Pen Spinning. I think if some of you that had great ideas or want to work on research can prove to be beneficial to the forum.

My ideal vision of Pen Spinning is a symbiosis. On one hand, we have those so-called "creative" spinners; ones who possess great imagination and insight, but may lack physical talent. While on the other hand you have the "perfomance" spinners, who are great spinners and possess the practical knowledge required to create interesting linkages and polish new ideas and tricks into combos. And then we could all work together; ideas of new tricks could be shown to the public, and spinners could then work on it and find ways to use them in popular spinning.

With that being said, enjoy UPSBv3!

Check this thread for a list of features available on the forum.

PS: Here's a short list of recommended recent PS videos (many videos are released nowadays):