Pen spinning

Pen spinning is a form of object manipulation that involves the deft manipulation of a writing instrument with one's hands. Although it is often considered a form of self-entertainment (usually in a school or office setting), multinational competitions and meetings are sometimes held. It is sometimes classified as a form of contact juggling; however, some tricks do leave contact with the body. Pen spinning is called pen mawashi (compare for example mawashi-geri, "round-kick") or, more disparagingly, rōnin mawashi ("rejected student spinning") in Japan, where the pastime has been popular since at least the 1970s and where the Pen Spinning Association Japan is now dedicated to promoting the aspiring art form. While its origins remain unclear, pen spinning has quickly gained international popularity through online video sharing and forums. According to Masaki Tsukada, chairman of the Japanese pen spinners, pen spinning now has dedicated movements in South Korea and the United States.

The earliest record of pen spinning comes from a student in pre-WWII Japan. Others in Japan pen spun at least as early as the 1970s; however, the tricks performed were only basic ones, such as the ThumbAround and Sonic. Hideaki Kondoh is considered the first pen spinning pioneer in Japan and is recognized with creating the first pen spinning website, released on December 1, 1997. Kondoh began pen spinning in the 1980s, and by 1998, he was able to do 24 tricks, many of which he developd after learning techniques from other people. 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. Kam, who started spinning in 1993, created the website Pentix in January 2000 in attempt to create an easily accessible database and message board for pen spinning information and communication, and, as the popularity of the website grew and its limits became apparent, Kam redistributed its information to two new websites, the first one of which, Pentrix, would eventually close indefinitely. On January 11, 2004, the second new website, the Universal Pen Spinning Board, was released and would act as the successor to the Pentix board to be the first pen spinning website with the goal of creating a centralized forum in which pen spinners from any website or location could communicate. PenDolSa, an unrelated Korean pen spinning board released in 2003, acted as the first large-scale pen spinning forum in addition the later released Universal Pen Spinning Board. One American pen spinner, David Weis, while trying to develop a combination of tricks in which the pen would follow a smooth continuous motion without explicit finger pushes, invented the BackAround, which evolved into the Korean BackAround, a widely used trick today. The number and variations of tricks has since grown into at least the hundreds, with newer tricks such as the Shadow, PalmSpin, and Bust. Since the early 2000s, video hosting websites, such as YouTube, and a growing number of other Internet forums from various countries have been used to share videos and to centralize the community, which has contributed to a rise in popularity of pen spinning. In 2007, the World Tournament acted as the first global pen spinning competition, and pen spinners from communities centered across the world could join.

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Wikipedia