UPSB v3
General Discussion / Offline PenSpinning
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Date: Wed, May 19 2010 18:49:21
Offline Penspinning
With Spinnerpeem’s appearance in various events (Thailand TV shows PDS tournament, HK APM Mall tournament, Chinese TV shows, etc), pen spinning is becoming more and more public. As many of us has experienced, whether it be performing for our friends or on TV, we have to change the way we think about which tricks we do a little bit. While some of what I’m going to outline is common sense, I wanted to create a summary for how we should be adjusting our thinking when spinning for an audience offline.
First off, we need to determine who our audience is:
-Pen spinners
-Non-Pen Spinners
-Mix of both
Now, the most important thing in my opinion in an offline performance is to NOT DROP.
Consistency – I believe this is the most important thing to spinning in public no matter if it’s for a group of spinners or non-spinners. While drops are understandable, I believe we are taking a step in pen spinning where drops will be less and less okay to do. Like in figure skating, while a fall is understandable when someone tries to do a triple jump spin (I have no idea what they’re really called) because it’s a difficult maneuver, an obvious fall is pretty much equivalent to a loss.
While I don’t know if we’ll ever reach that point, we are coming closer to making it a necessity to avoid drops. So what can we do to improve our offline performance…?
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-Consistency is important, and the only way to increase that is to practice. If you can do a trick…maybe 7/10 times at least, it would be a safe trick to use.
-Risky tricks. Are they even worth it? Okay, you can only do an indexpinkybackaround reverse 2.0 say… 4/10 times. Now here are some things to consider… how long does the trick last? Will the audience be very impressed with it if you pull it off? Can the other person do it (if in a battle)?
Well, okay, IPBA rev is a pretty neat trick, but it only lasts about half a second. Consider how long a trick lasts to see if the audience will even notice it…sometimes, they might not notice a really difficult trick if it went by very fast.
The trick better be very flashy if you’re willing to take the risk to do it. Don’t take the risk if the audience won’t even be super impressed with it in the end. The audience will not know that it’s a difficult trick for you and that you’re taking such a risk to try and pull this off for them; if they won’t be impressed, it’s not worth it…stick with stuff you’re comfortable with, because even if those seem spammy to you because you do it and see it all the time, the audience will be impressed.
Say you’re going second in a battle, and you see the opponent do midbak 1.5 x4. You want to prove to the audience/judge that you can do this too, but you only have a 3/10 success rate for a midbak 1.5 x4+… There’s really nothing set in stone, and all of this is just my opinion really, but it’s up to you to decide. Is it worth it to prove to the judges that you can do the highlight of their combo too? If your success rate is very low, avoid it, and impress the judges with something else – something that you’re more comfortable with and know is also equally strong. If your consistency with it isn’t bad… consider going for it. Doing what the opponent’s strongest trick was AND doing your own strong tricks looks so good, but know that attempting the opponent’s trick and dropping looks extremely bad.
-Linkages? After filming a combo for hours and placing all these intricate linkages all throughout the combo, we can be content knowing that people will appreciate them and will slow down our videos, rewatch them, break them down, and rewatch them again. This is similar to doing risky tricks when considering whether or not they’re even worth it. Most people will only see the highlights of your combo (power tricks, aerials, large hand movements, difficult tricks)… how you link to each section isn’t very important in my opinion. Look at how popular Peem has gotten offline… even though the in between tricks for his aerial busts or his haitua cont. are mostly charge/pass/twisted sonic combos.
Off course, more interesting linkages are better than boring ones, but is it worth it? Depends how comfortable you are I suppose. But if you’re going to risk a drop to try and pull off a linkage you started working on last week, don’t bother doing it, it’s probably not worth it.
Don't forget though, most of your spinning will probably still be seen online, so don't throw away practicing them altogether!
-Know your strengths and weaknesses. This is something you have to do beforehand, even though for the most part, you probably already know it from spinning on a daily basis.
Know what your strengths are, and pick out a couple you would want to highlight in a combo you’re doing even if you’re just doing it for your friends. The rest of the stuff in between can be nice twisted sonic variations to keep their jaws open waiting for the next highlight.
Know what your weaknesses are… for obvious reasons, know what to avoid. Don’t be rash and try to do a trick where the result isn’t worth the risk. Again, nobody else realizes the risk that you have with doing that trick, and you’ll be disappointed when they aren’t as impressed as you had hoped.
-What does the audience like? Again, what should you be choosing for your highlights? Certainly not some interesting hybrid twisted sonic variation or something. Busts, FL TAs, Aerials, Spins, Cont. FL tricks, 2p2h, 1p2h, 2p1h, etc… are all good choices. Spinless tricks can go either way… it depends on what you do and whether or not you make it look really dumb..or really cool. For the most part, I think if most people did it, it’d end up looking really dumb.. but I dunno.
-Packaging and presentation is the icing on the cake- It’s not as important as everything else, but hey, dress nicely if you’re going on stage and especially if it’s on tv. Casual, professional, sharp, etc… It’s up to you how you want to be seen, but don’t dress like a slob. And if you want, have your pen match your outfit, or have your pen contrast it so it stands out more.
Use a long pen so the audience can see it more clearly. It also looks flashier that way. Plus, a longer mod will usually help you do tricks more easily anyway. And if you don’t like the weight, change the tips or something. If one person does a combo with a buster, and another person does the same exact combo with a pencil… online, the pencil will seem more impressive, but offline, while the pencil combo is still impressive, the buster will look more appealing and thus win more points in the audience’s eye. (Perhaps it would win with the judges, but again...consider who your audience is)
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I think that’s all I have to say. More experienced spinners can probably figure this all out on their own, but for those who aren't used to offline pen spinning, I think this would help at least a little bit. Pen spinning is about to take another step, and hopefully I helped pave a little bit of the road for you all to now walk on. -
Date: Wed, May 19 2010 19:16:33
Well first of all, good job on writing this :] seems well thought and everything.
I wish I could get to some offline tournament like the GPC tournament or w/e.... It's an awesome concept, and should be done more :] -
Date: Wed, May 19 2010 19:26:19
Pretty interesting stuff for me to think about. Since I'm the only one who spins in my school i get asked to spin a lot. I want to impress people
in my school so they will spin too. So hopefully this will help me. Thanks -
Date: Wed, May 19 2010 20:37:27
Nice tips
I hope that there will be tournaments in the us some time eventually. -
Date: Wed, May 19 2010 20:43:02QUOTE (poisoned @ May 19 2010, 03:37 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Nice tips I hope that there will be tournaments in the us some time eventually.
agreed because in live battles spinners can off days or unusual often mess ups. Where online if you mess up or have a bad day, you can just try again and again and again untill you finally get the combo perfect. Thats what I like about live battles/tournaments. -
Date: Wed, May 19 2010 23:28:05
offline pen spinning is totally different from online, especially in competitions and collabs.
the focus is put more on flashy tricks and longer combos. Planning is not very important, so go with freestyle.
offline pen spinning rely on your improvisation skills to impress your audience more than online. -
Date: Thu, May 20 2010 02:02:44
I think that spinless tricks and artistic manipulation, body language and complete involvement makes a really good live preformance, I don't think I've ever seen anything to this extent with penspinning, but there are so many tricks/manipulations that could be integrated into penspinning that would look absolutely stunning, of course anything preformed poorly will look silly, but larger actions and movements to express your penspinning ? body spins / stalls (preformed well) use of props, multiple pens, juggling, glow in the dark, pen extensions, choreographed music, dancing w/ penspinning to an extent, larger aerials and bigger spins, also eye contact, not being completely focused on the pen yourself may also improve the overall reception of the performance.
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Date: Thu, May 20 2010 04:22:40
another thing to consider is that offline there's no camera angle to worry about, so ur less restricted in that sense
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Date: Thu, May 20 2010 13:09:55
Thank you JC for this post! I have done a lot of thinking and some experiments in this area recently and I agree with most of what you say here are my views:
1. To get a good feel of what offline spinners like, some of Minwoos, spinning on TV and public appearance can help us there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZluWtFycUMg
there's another video of him spinning at a wedding but I can't find it. That video is better for analysis. In that video, the audience applause only goes to aerials, and power tricks.
2. I did several experiments on my friends to get a feel of what type of spinning they enjoy with the world cup videos and these are their responses=
Speed - They love it a lot. Generally all offline spinners prefer speed to smoothness. Friends often ask me to spin faster becasue they can't really appreciate smoothness or slower spinning.
Creativity - nil
Smoothness - they would enjoy these videos if it was insanely smooth like supawit but they were still more impressed with the power tricks.
Two hands - definitely it is appealing to everyone
Difficulty - they generally like it because of the power tricks
Spinless - nope. I showed them Stuhls video against twister and they didn't really like it. It seemed that they thought it was something normal in pen spinning. I think it's because it's very closely tied to smoothness. I showed them BaiMai's R2 video and they were slightly impressed. I guess it's a big risk to take considering it is hard to pull off.
Control- They don't appreciate
Aerials - They love this one. They would rather see and entire video of aerials than normal spinning.
Variety -they don't appreciate
Body and environment - They like this theme because it encompasses throwing and flashy stuff. I don't think it's that worth it to show of the E past because it is hard to pull of. Several B stuff can be used because it is real easy such as the elbow pop.
3. My thoughts: Basically when I thought of this stuff, I was trying to recall what it was like when I was still and offline spinner or in the mix off both. When I see pen spinning, all I can see is the pen moving and the highlights of the combo were stuff that I could understand the motion or trajectory of (especially palmspins of palm up spinning) things that require a lot of hand motion like swivels or paralux type spinning (snaking hand motion), long mod spinning.
4. when spamming power tricks, it's not important to have insane linkages but the consistency of the spam. All you need to do when showing off is do many fltas, pinky spreads, busts haituas but not mid bust, bust 1.5, spreads going rise and fall because when they see a bust and a midbust its practically the same thing. what would be more appealing to them is if you change power tricks more often.
5 aerials are very good to use on offline spinners. here are many aerials that are easy to pull off like the bakrise, flta to air bust release, infinity release. these stuff can amplify your spinning to them.
6. Topsin can really catch their attention but it can be a risk to use it. It is a good tool if you can get consistent numbers of revolutions but top spins are mostly on the more the harder side of the tricks spectrum so you might not wanna' do it.
7. If you can pull it off, speed up your combo because it normally has more liking py the offline spinners.
sorry for the messy post and hopefully this helps. -
Date: Fri, May 21 2010 08:27:45QUOTE (Zombo @ May 20 2010, 12:22 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>another thing to consider is that offline there's no camera angle to worry about, so ur less restricted in that sense
you say there is no camera to consider, i say otherwise
if its a big event, or a tv appearance, there will be one or two cameras
you would need to know the location/positioning of the camera, and what the shot composition is (close up of hands, whole body shot)
then you would have to work to those constraints, like not going out of frame, not blocking views
in that sense, its more difficult to spin, compared to "home" spinning, where you can set up the camera however you like
even in the case where you are just showcasing it to a small group of people, they too will be at a fixed angle, so you would need to concider the constraints of that
how i see it, you have to spin to 2 audiences: those with little experience of pen spinning, and the actual pen spinners
but the proportion of spinners to non spinners is 1-to-lots, therefore, your non spinners should take priority
the non-spinners wont see minor detail
if you compare spinning to ice-skating, you see the impressive triple-whatever jumps etc., but you dont take into account the minor details, until the commentator points them out.
so, concidering that fact, powertricks and aerials are the most visually appealing to non-spinners
as jc said, consistancy is a huge part
dropping the pen is (obviously) seen as a big mistake
when i've been spinning to people at school, they would usually taunt "FAIL..." when i drop the pen
but now, because of the angle and the nature of only viewing the combo once, small breaks/pauses are not as noticible or are the biggest concern
my views on spinless/slowspinning
yes, its slightly less flashy than "hi-i'm-supawit-kthnxbai" style spinning, but its comparable to the slow songs on the radio
yes, all those dance/electro/auto-tune songs are nice to dance to, but the slow song is a nice change
if you do slowspinning, and do it, say, pyralux style with lots of hand movement, its a change from the powertrickers
@hippo: you said stuhl's r1 combo was less impressive than baimai r2
i would say that backs up my point about hand movement
stuhl's, although we (spinners) would see it as impressive control, i would compare this to the dressage in equestrian
the people who do the sport will know how hard it is to maintain that sort of control, but normal people would just see a guy on a horse walking slowly
baimai's combo incorporates hand movement, which is more flashy than stuhl's combo
tl;dr: your non-spinning audience is your biggest concern, hard linkage tricks, which aren't visually stunning wont do much in the way of votes
big hand movements=good -
Date: Fri, May 21 2010 08:40:46QUOTEanother thing to consider is that offline there's no camera angle to worry about, so ur less restricted in that sense
imo that's a problem...
i think my spinning looks very ugly, when you look at it sideways...
so, for some aesthetic reason, it is very important to have a nice camera angle!
generally i'm not very good in live-spinning. i'm a planner. i always think some time about my combo. in a live tournament i'm confronted with pure freestyle... hm, but what can i do? tw. bust x3? lol
so, i need time for my combos. i can't do any creative thing while i'm under pressure/nervous (in a live tournament you are always nervous)
edit:QUOTEbaimai's combo incorporates hand movement, which is more flashy than stuhl's combo
i know that problem. i think non-penspinners would always, really always say that for example baimais combo is CRAZY and mine is ... so slow!
a lot of non-pser think, that speed = good/hard/difficult.
even my friends (non-psers) say that. everybody wants to see THE HARDEST TRICK, THE WORLD RECORD, THE MOST DIFFICULT MOVE.
but who cares
non-pser just have no idea xD
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Date: Fri, May 21 2010 09:19:38
In response to Hippo's post, I think it's high time that we try to educate non-spinners on some things of Penspinning so that they might be able to really appreciate all the elements related to PSing rather than focusing on certain elements (e.g. speed, etc). IDK if what I said seems baffling but w/e.
However, to do this, one must either...
1. Convert a non-pser to a PSer (?)
2. Explain it to non-PSers carefully
3. (insert other suggestions)
I find it a little bit disappointing that most non-PSers (though this should be) are always at awe at Power tricks and Aerials and have no comments on creativity, like Hippo said. Besides, PSing is not all Power and Aerials.
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just some thoughts. Sorry if it seems confusing, apparently I'm not one for discussions like this
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Date: Fri, May 21 2010 09:53:59
spinning live is very hard...we were on stage and we cant do finger pass LOL.....
i think spinning offline is harder than filming a combo because there are lots of people watching you..and on film you just worry if it would look good... -
Date: Mon, Jun 14 2010 19:32:26
^ can anyone list me some nice, impressive tricks to perform to non-spinners.
Something that makes them go wow?
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Date: Mon, Jun 14 2010 19:38:09
I think spinning "offline" is easier.... if you're confident in your ability it feels really good to receive complements and spin well, especially if you get in the "zone" and then you can pull of tricks with more consistency than maybe at home by yourself. For me less people or 1 person will make me nervous but having a group or a crowd, that'd be very cool, and of course we're all talking about normal penspinning what we think of right now, but there are also so many other possibilities, and in a large setting it's probably more about showmanship and personality than the actual spinning ;].
@ prince, Arounds & backs, Continuous tricks, twisted sonic & hybrids, aerials, spinless tricks and involved movement. -
Date: Tue, Jun 15 2010 15:20:19
The view of an experienced performer
There are three different worlds of offline spinning:
1) Spinning for the public
2) Spinning for competition
3) Spinning for other pen spinners
1) Spinning for the Public
People in general like to think of themselves of being fairly clever, or at least, not stupid and so they tend to think that they know what is and isn't difficult by looking at it, even if they have never done, or even seen, the skill before. Therefore, any trick in pen spinning that looks hard, they will think is hard and anything that looks easy, they think will be easy. General public will be impressed the same amount by a Thumbspin 3.0 as they would a pinkyspin 3.0, even though the later is much harder. The general public also know one thing. If you drop, you've messed up. They also notice fumbles most of the time, but a fumble is not as obvious or as bad an error as a drop.
Another thing to consider is variety. People who don't pen spin cannot distinguish between tricks. Tricks must be put together in a way that makes the combo look interesting to someone who can only tell apart tricks that look very different. One idea, might be to do a few combos with one pen, first a combo with not a lot in, then one with lots of aerials and fairly big spin tricks mixed in, then swapping the pen to the other hand and then finally moving on to having two pens, both spinning at the same time.
The last (and perhaps most important thing) will be how you present your spinning. YOU need to look the part (don't wear scruffy clothes). The further from 'normal' you look the better people will think you acts are. Don't wear scruffy jeans and a t-shirt, try maybe a bright smart shirt with near trousers, something to make you look apart from everyone else. You will need to have pauses in the pen spinning, for the audience to applaud, or at least to take in what they have just seen. No-one will want to see 3 minutes of non-stop spinning without a break. Also, consider your own body movements and posture.
So, when performing for the public, difficultly of tricks does not matter, only how hard they look. Make sure you and the spinning and well presented and that there is plenty of variety in what you're doing. Practice what you're going to do and make sure it is consistant. Ideally, you want a drop free performance that is presented very well with much variety, although, audiences are generally always forgiving of up to two drops.
2) Spinning for competition
Simple. Look at the competition requirements and meet them as best you can. If the competition says presentation does not matter, just focus on technical spinning, if presentation matters, work on that too. Whatever the competition asks of you, work towards.
3) Spinning for other pen spinners
Similar things do apply as to the general public. Other pen spinners will like to see you look the part and like to see few drops and a well presented performance. However, the big difference is that they know what is hard and what isn't and they have seen all the basics a hundred times before. They will also be much more forgiving if you drop hard tricks. So, when performing for pen spinners, it is better to put together a more risky combo. You can probably get away with up to ten drops and people won't mind. They would rather see something difficult/creative/different than something that is basic but solid.
Some advice
If you're going to be performing:
Have two different outfits that are different colours and a few different colours of pen. You never know what background you're going to be against! Imagine wearing a green outfit and having a blue pen and then finding out you're performing against a green and blue background! Horrible! Much better to have a red outfit and yellow pen spare! If you're using music, bring a few copies! It is so easy to lose/break CDs etc that have music on. Make sure you know your routine (if you're not freestyling) very well so that if you get nervous you know it totally inside out. Practice in the outfit you're going to be wearing before hand and if performing in a studio/theatre or something similar, ask if you can run through with the lights how they will be (they might even let you adjust lighting levels to suit you) when you perform. Lastly, never attempt a trick more than twice! It's awful to drop a trick three times in one go (remember how audiences usually only let you off two drops in total anyway before it starts to damage the routine significantly).
Sure I missed some good stuff out, but that's a general idea. -
Date: Wed, Jun 16 2010 02:45:06
this is very useful. i hope this thread doesn't die or is stickied.