Pen spinning

Although it is often considered a form of self-entertainment (usually in a school or office setting), multinational competitions and meetings are sometimes held.

Pen spinning has quickly gained international popularity through online video sharing and forums.

[citation needed] The earliest record of pen spinning comes from a student in pre-WWII Japan.

[2] Others in Japan spun pens at least as early as the 1970s; however, the tricks performed were only basic ones, such as the ThumbAround and Sonic.

[4][6] Kondoh began pen spinning in the 1980s, and by 1998, he compiled and could perform 24 tricks,[7] many of which he developed after learning techniques from other people.

[8] In the United States, Fernando Kuo, better known by his online alias "Kam", was inspired by Kondoh's website to advance pen spinning and broaden its audience.

As the popularity of the website and its forum grew and their limits became apparent, Kam closed Pentix and redistributed its information to a sequel website (which would also close) and to a new forum titled the Universal Pen Spinning Board, opened on January 19, 2004.

The pen spinning community is present mostly on the Internet through forums, video hosting platforms, and chat services such as Discord.

Forums are often centered in specific countries, such as Japan, France, Germany, India and China.

Forums may also be international, as is the case with the Universal Pen Spinning Board and Reddit-based communities.

While forums are operated largely as separate entities, cross-communication occasionally occurs for international events.

Due to pen spinning being considered a highly subjective activity to judge, scores and comments concerning a single video can vary greatly.

Symbols and slots can be expanded to include other parts of the hand, body, and surrounding atmosphere.

Other slot systems have been invented in order to describe complicated positions, but these are usually only used when necessary to avoid ambiguity.

[20] For example, a ThumbAround executed fingerless in the forward direction with the pen starting and ending in the thump flap slot would be fully notated as "Fingerless ThumbAround Normal 1.0 TF-TF" or, with some information abbreviated or omitted, "FL TA TF-TF".

[26] Hideaki Kondoh is generally accredited with giving the Sonic its name, which he did because of the rapid speed at which the pen would move compared to the ThumbAround.

The Charge forms the basis for all tricks that rely on conical movement, including the Sonic.

A Pass combo similar to a FingerPass was performed by the character Boris Grishenko in the James Bond film GoldenEye, using only three fingers instead of the usual four.

In the Wiper Normal, the pen, held from one of its ends pointing downward, rotates 180 degrees upward in the shape of an arc.

When an Around Reverse is executed fingerless with a turn of the hand or wrist, it is known as a BackAround, or simply "Bak".

Baks were invented by David Weis, an American spinner, in order to create a combination of tricks in which the pen would follow a smooth continuous motion without explicit finger pushes,[31] and they have since become a widely used trick today.

For example, the Twisted Sonic is made of a Charge motion followed by a Pass, unlike the original Sonic, which is made of a sole Charge motion combined with the pen switching between finger slots (called a Fingerswitch).

[32] Out of the hundreds of pen mods, prevalent ones include the BICtory, Metallic Comssa, RSVP MX, Waterfall, Dr. KT, and Buster CYL.

This allows the spinner to put a printed design called an insert into the barrel without affecting the tactile quality of the mod.