Hi everyone, I am starting this thread in the hopes it will become a sticky post and become a starting place for anyone in the UK/Ireland that wants to learn the art of penspinning.

Please feel free to add your tips on the best place for buying pens, tips for modding pens, the basic moves, and anything else you feel a total newbie would need to get started.

fundamental penspinning tricks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfNWTNE-1t8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS5f6AA8hS4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88CZ_hrsZLU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSca-JWmpOA

well known online pen stores:
http://jetpens.com/
http://www.penwish.com/ - spinner friendly.
http://penspinstore.com/ - pre made penspinning mods (expensive postage to uk)

well known pen mods can be found on the UPSB wiki : http://www.upsb.info/wiki/index.php/Cat ... ifications
penspinning tricks can be found on the UPSB wiki :
http://www.upsb.info/wiki/index.php/Category:Tricks

good luck!

Simple tricks that are good to learn once you can do the fundamentals:
Twisted Sonic - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj_JhEGVxfk
Infinity - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvKZqUc7mm0
IndexAround - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBO2KAU0RgU
BackAround - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q5OHP7u_KE
ThumbSpin - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6n9pdOBSa08

I'd say if you learn the fundamentals and then all or most of those tricks, I think you are about as well set up as you can be to learn any trick, and you already have enough tricks to put together some pretty decent combos too!

wow, pimping eso's vids eh?
i'm always surprised at how long they are for simple tricks but all his advice is spot on. i do think that for most tricks a good quality slow motion video is what you need, and just watch it over and over.

how're you getting on with the fundamentals voyager?

Thanks for these links guys,
Asakawa, I have been trying so hard my hand is aching lol, I think my "freeky" pen might be far to heavy, but I am persevering with it.

I did a sample of me practicing today, take a look, remember I didnt start till I joined up here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NRCBSpGwqI
I'm not realy sure what Im doing yet, just trying to get used to the pen.

well, you've got a decent infinity already. good job.
don't skip the fundamentals too much though, learning a good charge will make learning 80% of PSing tricks easier.

it could be that your pen has too large a proportion of it's weight in the middle. this could make a TA difficult though it shouldn't affect sonics too much

If this is an infinity, it came about by accident while I was trying to do a TA, because as pointed out, the CoG is out, everytime I tried a TA I ended up with an infinity in order not to drop the pen.... Well at least it is a start lol.

lol, that's prety funny but either way you've mastered a trick ^_^

my advice with the TA would be not to worry about dropping it at first. concentrate on getting the rotation around the thumb, keeping the hand, and particularly the thumb, as still as possible.
you might drop it 20 times but you'll get it on the 21st try and when you've got it once you'll know, from then on, how it feels when it goes right and what you need to do to get it to happen again.
also, remember that, as with any 'around' trick, the pen is completely out of control for the majority of it's rotation so dropping while learning the trick is bound to happen. this happens all over again when you start learning tricks with 1.5 rotations like TS1.5 and shadow.

Whoooo I got the basics of the TA now, I manage about 4/10 thus far so this is going to be my practice move for the day
thanks for the encouragment!

How many tricks had you mastered by now?

Hi Anton, I only have the infinity down at the moment, I am learning the TA and fingerpass, though they are not fluid yet. I guess when I get a decent pen it will make it easier.

That's cool.
Erm,I don't think you need a decent pen to learn TA or TA rev,since they're the easiest trick of all.
As for Fingerpass... Then you'll need a nice pen mod for it.
Well,keep up the good work,Voyager.

AntonWebsters wrote:That's cool.
Erm,I don't think you need a decent pen to learn TA or TA rev,since they're the easiest trick of all.
As for Fingerpass... Then you'll need a nice pen mod for it.

I must disagree with you here. I was doing a pretty good FingerPass during college today with a fairly short (perhaps half size), sharpened pencil. A pen with more momentum will help, however, I do not think that it is key for FingerPass.

As for TA Rev being on the easier tricks, I must disagree very strongly! I would say there are at least 50 tricks more easy than a TA Rev!

i can do a good fingerpass with pretty much anything lol

hmm i practiced most tricks on chop sticks and drums sticks when i first started spinning about 4months ago, but now i know my pens like i know where my private bits are, its easy to practice new tricks on them now