UPSB v4
Pen Spinning Relations / [4.10] Shift towards "Spinning" instead of "Pen Spinning"?
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Date: Tue, Oct 11 2011 07:03:38
(I'll write up a full article soon, this is just my brainstorming session) EDIT: If tl;dr, at least read the bolded part below to get the general idea So I've been thinking, in terms of PS as a manipulation art, what's keeping us from just moving past the whole pen concept? Is there anything inherently wrong with just accepting the moniker of "Spinning" as our title, and dropping the whole pretense? Like it not, a Buster is simply not a pen. The majority of the pieces aren't even from a pen. What's wrong with admitting that IMO. To me there's no inherent value in saying the word pen when it's obviously not. I'm not saying there's not value in spinning a pen, because aside from the fact that it's our roots, doing the manipulation with an everyday object is just pretty awesome. But in terms of the art, and specifically competition, what's wrong with what we do just being called "Spinning", and using whatever we want? Contact juggling uses their own type of object. Yo-yoing does too. Lots of manipulations CAN be done on everyday objects, but it doesn't cease being that manipulation if you use a different object. If I pick up an aluminum rod that's LIGHTER and SHORTER than a buster, and do PS tricks with it, am I really not pen spinning? That's stupid and we're kidding ourselves. I'm interested in actively pursuing a shift from the art being "Pen Spinning" to just being called "Spinning". [B]People can still spin whatever the hell they want, but: A. 90% of people aren't really spinning pens and B. If I do it to something that's not a pen, it's still the same goddamn manipulation, why have a name that's object specific? [/B] Any thoughts?
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Date: Tue, Oct 11 2011 07:46:52
Awesome topic Strat! I agree with your opinion but I think that calling it "spinning" alone isn't a very good idea. For one thing, that word is quite generic in itself. Imagine if you some one asks you what your about PSing. "hey that's cool what's it called" "it's called spinning" "okay thank's for pointing out the obvious" Also with respect to yoyoing, they are able to use other objects other than the 2 discs to yoyo under the 5B class I believe. However they did not change the name to object-string manipulation. What I feel is that spinners themselves should not have the limit themselves to what they are "allowed" to spin. I would probably usher in a whole new aspect of PSing that we've never imagined. Personally I've been working on something along this lines but I'm keeping it to myself if I get into the WC.
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Date: Tue, Oct 11 2011 19:22:42
EDIT: @kam I'd actually be pretty curious to hear your input on this, you can just read the last paragraph of this post to get the general idea of what I'm saying
Hippo2626 wrote: Awesome topic Strat! I agree with your opinion but I think that calling it "spinning" alone isn't a very good idea. For one thing, that word is quite generic in itself.
I actually disagree with you there. I think we as pen spinners are just accustomed to the word "spinning." I'm willing to bet that if you showed 10 strangers who'd never heard of it, less than 5 would describe what you're doing as "spinning" the pen Either way, I think it'd make for the most smooth transition if we just drop the word "pen" from the name of the manipulation, since really what you're manipulating doesn't matter (that's the whole point of this idea). Yo-yo'ing wasn't a good example because it actually is pretty object-specific, but in general I think the point is still valid And I'm not talking about anything new to the way we do the manipulation or anything, so I'm not sure how this could manifest itself in the WC or whatever, I'm just saying in the culture of the manipulation, I think it's about time to move past the "Pen" stigma. In actuality, pen spinning is finally to the point that it's big enough and complex enough that it's right up there with contact juggling and stuff like that, where if we'd move past this "grassroots" culture of having to use pens, there could be DVD's produced and have products in hobby-shops and stuff like that, just like other manipulations [FONT="Verdana"][U][SIZE="4"]It's our own culture that's holding us back[/SIZE][/U][/FONT] -
Date: Wed, Oct 12 2011 00:03:44
Sure bro, why not :D I'll back you 100%, I love dispelling naivete and ignorantly holding on to traditional views that simply aren't needed anymore. I do believe the term "pen spinning" is kinda iconic, and just "spinning" isn't enough though. Spinning is a verb, and it sounds more like a jackass remark I'd agree to someone not familiar with it if you tell them you're spinning, as it sounds like just a verb rather than a Noun referring to the manipulative art. Whatever it is, spinning or manipulation is a necessary keyword in the term you come up with, but just spinning isn't enough imo. I propose the name Fingering :D jk, but I hope people are open to this man! (don't expect much majority support, remember what the overall PS community demographic is with regards to age and such >.>)
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Date: Wed, Oct 12 2011 01:22:48
Iota wrote: Sure bro, why not :D I'll back you 100%, I love dispelling naivete and ignorantly holding on to traditional views that simply aren't needed anymore. I do believe the term "pen spinning" is kinda iconic, and just "spinning" isn't enough though. Spinning is a verb, and it sounds more like a jackass remark I'd agree to someone not familiar with it if you tell them you're spinning, as it sounds like just a verb rather than a Noun referring to the manipulative art. Whatever it is, spinning or manipulation is a necessary keyword in the term you come up with, but just spinning isn't enough imo. I propose the name Fingering :D jk, but I hope people are open to this man! (don't expect much majority support, remember what the overall PS community demographic is with regards to age and such >.>)
I think what I'm going to do is write up a "petition" type thing, an article of my concept and circulate it among respected PSers to get them to sign off on it before I release it If there's enough support among those people I'll release, if no one likes it/is interested, then I'll drop it -
Date: Wed, Oct 12 2011 01:43:02
I see I see. I'm for it as well. I think kam's input on this would be good. If he'll give the thumbs up it'll probably get more spinners to accept the change as well.
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Date: Wed, Oct 12 2011 01:43:32
It all depends on what you define as a pen. I think a pen is something that can be used as a writing utensil that utilizes ink to make marks. So a regular Buster CYL in my opinion would not be a pen but a Buster CYL that has been modified to house an inktube would be. And I'm pretty sure the parts that you use to make a Buster all come from various pens unless I interpreted what you said incorrectly. Now I do think what you're saying has legitimate grounds but in my opinion I honestly do not really care whether it's called pen spinning or just spinning. I mean if you talk to people on the sb you'll notice people don't refer to pen spinning as explicitly "pen" spinning all the time. Many times people will ask things like "How long have you been spinning?". That's not to say that people never say "Are you still penspinning?" or similar comments but they both exist. I really never noticed or was bothered by the fact we call the art "pen" spinning until you brought it up. When you come down to the hard facts, you're right. We aren't spinning pens but rather simply pen modifications. And yeah it's possible to spin other objects but are those other objects really that significant that we should make the name of the hobby much broader than what it was? I understand if half of our community is spinning metal rods that we change the name but personally I don't have a problem with calling the art pen spinning or just spinning. If anything maybe we should call it "Pen and Pen Modification Spinning". Since people do still spin pens (granted you agree with my definition of a pen). There are plenty of pen mods out there that write in ink.
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Date: Wed, Oct 12 2011 01:46:40
I didn't read everything, but I will after I post this. My initial thought is, while it is a good idea, couldn't it be confused for spinning, the cycling/work out? Or, any other kind of spinning, top spinning, cotton spinning, pottery wheel spinning, spinning around in a chair etc. If someone came up to me and told me they'd just spent their afternoon spinning that's what I would assume. If someone asked you about your hobbies, saying you spin, is a lot more ambiguous than pen spinning. Just today someone asked me about my spinning and i was able to tell them to look up [B]pen spinning[/B], if we could secure the name for the manipulation, sure, it would help with PR and moving forward. In the same notion of moving forward, not all pen spinning is actually [B]spinning[/B]. We already unofficaly use spinning in the context of pen spinning to refer to pen spinning, but the "pen" helps identify what the spinning (verb) is and gives context. Universal Spinning Board vs Universal Pen Spinning Board Again, spinning could be confused for something else, a more accurate name would be great, but spinning in itself seems too broad to me. I get how the item specificity is really strange, I can't think of anything else which has worked like that, one semi-close example could be with contact juggling, in that the archaic "crystal ball manipulation" is sometimes used as an inaccurate way to describe it (or accurate, depending on whether or not the person is actually using a crystal ball), before the term contact juggling was coined... Another might be glowsticking, in that they ARE item specific and their name reflects that, you don't glowstick/string with twigs, although you "could" it wouldn't technically be glowsticking and the gsing community would probably have a problem with it if you called it that, (@Iota correct me if i'm wrong) Another example could be rubiks cubing, in that they have a name shortened to speedcubing, non-brand specific... and therefore more reflective of the actual action. Then you have manipulations which are even less organized with multiple names. So with that in mind, pen spinning does seem to be an exception, but it's also unique to the community and the growth of the manipulation, I think if another name was better we would have adopted it by now. ' Since the manipulation is the same for say, twirling a drumstick, to twirling a ruler, Perhaps Contact Spinning? or as Dan so kindly suggested, Fingering, with pen spinning still referring to the action of manipulating a pen.
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Date: Wed, Oct 12 2011 01:49:42
Nachoaddict wrote: It all depends on what you define as a pen. I think a pen is something that can be used as a writing utensil that utilizes ink to make marks. So a regular Buster CYL in my opinion would not be a pen but a Buster CYL that has been modified to house an inktube would be. And I'm pretty sure the parts that you use to make a Buster all come from various pens unless I interpreted what you said incorrectly.
Right, but either way you're doing the same manipulation to it, whether there's an ink tube in it or not.Now I do think what you're saying has legitimate grounds but in my opinion I honestly do not really care whether it's called pen spinning or just spinning. I mean if you talk to people on the sb you'll notice people don't refer to pen spinning as explicitly "pen" spinning all the time. Many times people will ask things like "How long have you been spinning?". That's not to say that people never say "Are you still penspinning?" or similar comments but they both exist. I really never noticed or was bothered by the fact we call the art "pen" spinning until you brought it up. When you come down to the hard facts, you're right. We aren't spinning pens but rather simply pen modifications. And yeah it's possible to spin other objects but are those other objects really that significant that we should make the name of the hobby much broader than what it was? I understand if half of our community is spinning metal rods that we change the name but personally I don't have a problem with calling the art pen spinning or just spinning.
Yeah just in terms of the name it doesn't really matter, but the culture of it is damaging IMO. People are currently restricted to making mods into "pens" or out of "pens" so that it's still "Pen spinning." What I'm saying is it's the same manipulation no matter what we do it to, so the culture needs to change. The whole pen dependency is absurd at this point. -
Date: Wed, Oct 12 2011 01:51:27
So you're trying to encourage people to go beyond spinning just pens and try spinning other objects?
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Date: Wed, Oct 12 2011 01:52:02
@shoeman6 Yeah the name isn't a huge deal or anything, the main idea of this project is just moving away from the dependency on pens, in terms of the culture of PS. And if you do contact juggling with a baseball it's still contact juggling, the acrylic ball is just to make it look cool lol, it doesn't change what you're doing
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Date: Wed, Oct 12 2011 01:55:00
@Nachoaddict That can be a part of it, but it's not really the focus. The focus is that right now we're pointlessly restricting ourselves. We as a community feel like if we do the same exact manipulations to an object that's not a pen, we're not "Pen Spinning", which is absurd. It can open up a whole new frontier if we just drop that stigma Will there be any tangible difference between spinning a Buster and spinning a non-pen-based-mod? No, probably not, but I think the art/manipulation as a whole can take a huge leap forward if we drop this absurd pretense
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Date: Wed, Oct 12 2011 02:02:29
We don't consider non pen, pen spinning, pen spinning?... If I was spinning a stick and someone asked i'd tell them it was pen spinning. Should we call it baton twirling? Because that's essentially what it is. Perhaps stick twirling to try to show that the object is shorter. A pretty big overlap would be glowsticking and pen spinning, each involve the aesthetic manipulation of similairly shaped objects, yet they have barely any overlap. We could ad an identifier to spinning for non pen object spinning but otherwise it comes back to the general term "object manipulation" If you're not spinning a pen, or a direct pen derivative, or using the skillset of pen spinning you can say you're object manipulating. :|
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Date: Wed, Oct 12 2011 02:07:31
You're getting a bit meta on me here lol. Obviously we're trying to stay away from the theoretical and a bit more towards the practical. Theoretically you can do "pen spinning tricks" to anything, so it needs to be called "object manipulating" Practically, the "pen" part of pen spinning is restricting growth of the manipulation, so I think we need to move past it
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Date: Wed, Oct 12 2011 05:33:18
@shoeman you didn't get my sarcasm about calling it fingering, did you? I mean-er- yeah that was totally a serious suggestion go campaign for calling it that in general RD article release section :)
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Date: Fri, Oct 14 2011 19:46:00
spinning is a well known term to denote indoor bicycle exercise, since both pen spinning and spinning are activities, it would lead to confusion.
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Date: Fri, Oct 14 2011 20:08:40
Indoor bicycling isn't a manipulation, in what possible scenario would someone confuse the two? Either way, name isn't that important right now, I'm still developing the concept
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Date: Fri, Oct 14 2011 20:54:24
my hobby is spinning -> indoor cycling or pen spinning? and cycling as an art form/manipulation do exist [video=youtube;w2cngUil5AM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2cngUil5AM[/video] wouldn't be surprised is spinning is a trademarked term
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Date: Fri, Oct 14 2011 22:09:38
It's still not a manipulation and in no way could be confused between the two ... again, either way, not what's important at this point lol
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Date: Thu, Jan 5 2012 03:34:28
What do you all think of the word Minerva? It's latin, with a couple meanings, but Pen Minerva, or just Minerva, would be pretty unique...
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Date: Thu, Jan 5 2012 03:44:23
shoeman6 wrote: What do you all think of the word Minerva? It's latin, with a couple meanings, but Pen Minerva, or just Minerva, would be pretty unique...
Erm, no. Just no.