Are you new to Pen Spinning? Don't know where to go after you've picked up a pen? Then this article is for you. It tells you how to get you started and where to go after you've learned your first trick.
So, you somehow found your way to this site, and are eager to get started in Pen Spinning, right? Well, in this article, I'll attempt to make things easier for you. It is often confusing for beginners when they see all the tricks the more experienced pen spinners can do, and don't know where to even start. To help prevent confusion and frustration, take your time to read this article, and the articles that are linked from it.
Well, let's get started... shall we?
First, you should know a bit about the activity you're trying to learn (which is called Pen Spinning, if you haven't figured that out yet). Go on and read the Pen Spinning section of our About page. It contains a good insight about what Pen Spinning is, and what you can expect to get out of it.
One of the greatest barriers for any pen spinner when they are starting is the huge frustration when the pen spinner fails to accomplish a trick. Though frustration will start to disappear as you get better, it may never disappear completely, and learning to deal with it certainly plays a huge part when you're starting.
When you're dealing with frustration, try thinking positive thoughts instead of negative ones. For example, each time your pen drops, instead of treating it as a failure, try thinking of it as a hint that allows you to learn from your own mistakes. But although frustration can be controlled through focused mental thoughts, it is often hard for the beginner to do so. This is why you want to avoid as much frustration as possible in the beginning. Here are some ways you can do it:
1. Learn how to choose the right pen for you. The article gives some tips on how to go about choosing a good pen to start with. The pen you choose won't make you a good pen spinner, but at least it can reduce the number of drops, which is often a cause for frustration. You may also want to consider making practice tools that will help you learn new tricks.
2. Setup your Pen Spinning Practice Environment. By reading this article, you'll be able to reduce drops, distractions, and many other annoyances that lead to frustration.
3. Choose the right tricks to learn. If you are just starting, you certainly do not want to start with tricks that are too difficult to learn. That will most likely cause you to give up instead of enjoy pen spinning. To know what tricks I recommend, check out this Tricks Learning Order.
When you're ready to learn, get your pen, practice environment, and learning material (whether it is a tutorial from this site, or a video from another site) ready. Then set aside a time for you to learn your trick and start practicing. Sounds extreme? Maybe...but believe me, taking an exclusive time to learn a trick is much easier than trying to learn a trick during class.
When you are reading through a tutorial, or trying to come up with a new trick, make sure to take your time to understand how the trick works. This has always been very valuable to me. By breaking each trick into steps, and understanding what and how the pen does each movement always allowed me to learn each trick faster. Some people may have a different opinion about understanding each trick in depth, but I have found it to be very valuable throughout the years.
After a few weeks of learning, you may be curious to learn more. Although you most likely haven't learned every trick you could find, this would be a good time start getting yourself familiar with what's going on with the world of PS. To do that, I recommend registering a free account at UPSB, the Universal Pen Spinning Board, which is another great resource for pen spinners besides this site.
At this time, you may also have learned enough tricks to help you start learning combos. If you know at least two or more tricks that link well, you can start learning combos. Read my Learning How to Do Combos article.
Now, I don't expect you to learn all the combos possible with the tricks you know before moving on, because that can prove to be a huge number, even if you only know a few number of tricks. Plus, if two combos look very similar, is there really a point in taking the extra time to learn both just for the sake of completeness? Well, this is up to you to decide, but I opted to move on with other things and learn the combos as I need them. Note: it is important, however, to remember that combos are a huge part of PS. Even if you don't learn many combos, make sure you learn the combos you know well.
Well, after you learned some combos, and have a good repertoire of tricks to create new combos, you can consider yourself more than a beginner, but that's more than I will cover in this article. Look around at other articles on this site, or start learning on your own. I hope you this article will help you get started with Pen Spinning, and have fun with it.
*Original resource
