WhaT a HAbiT!!

M

masse

Joined
Oct 5, 2000
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Ok, we all know how addicting these toys of ours are...and many of us try to support the habit by keeping our hands busy anytime it wouldn't be appropriate for a bali to be in them. i'v heard "pen twirling" a couple of times, and by this i assume you mean twirling up and down between your fingers; from between the first two fingers, to between the next two, then the last pair, then back the other way?

If so, i'v gotten hooked on this, both with pens and BIC lighters. I started out with pens, then tried the lighters. I actually got better, faster with this lighters, but now that I do them both, it hardly makes a difference. I can go "forward" with my right hand very quikly and very smoothly. My left hand is about as smooth, just not quite as fast. I can go "backwards" with both hands now, but it sure looks a little awkward. its hard to train your fingers to do that. I do this in the car a lot, aside from everywhere else i step foot. I drove up to NY from NC earlier this summer (10 hours), and didnt put a lighter down the entire time. I think my speed probobly doubled on that one trip.

Just like the bali flipping, this is always immpressive to people, but not quite as dangerous;) So what i'm wondering is who else has this "problem", or any other bali-associated hobby?
 
Well I attribute my "problem" to genetics. Both my Mom and dad were smokers and so I've always felt the need to play with something. In high school it was drum sticks (horrible drummer great twirler) now it's balisongs. And when I'm around people and can't twirl my belov`ed Ami around I use my Leatherman.
 
RARAnney: Interesting idea, allthough that would make the whole thing a lot heavier (twice as heavy to be exact:D ), and you'd also have a hard time keeping them lit...

Mykl, that drum stick thing reminds me; I twirl up on the counter of my restaraunt a whole lot, often times as I'm taking the customer's order. At least twice a day I get asked if I play drums.
 
Masse:
That's great excercise for your finger dexterity,to strengthen them to do finger twirls like their nothing,but "pen twirling" is actually something different.
Pen twirling is when you start with the pen in between your ring and middle fingers and the top of the pen sitting in the web of your thumb and index finger,then you kinda of apply pressure to the pen and it kind of "snaps" around the back of the middle finger and ends up between the middle and index finger.I've actually seen people who can start with the pen at the bottom,in between the pinky and ring finger,then "twirl" it twice in succession until the pen is in between the middle and index fingers.
I've also seen twirling that the pen twirls on the back of the thumb knuckle,which looks really cool when the person gets it to do like 3 full revolutions or more.It kinda reminds me of the balisong manuver,"extreme tabletop" accept it's a pen and the spinning is on the back of the thumb.
There's a bunch of other differnt pen twirls,i'm not going to list them all,but there's way more you can do with a pen besides "walking" it through each finger.
There's actually a Balisong website that has these pen twirls on video as balisong finger exercises,I can't remember the web address right now,but maybe somebody here know's which site i'm talking about and can post the link to it.
 
I do the same thing. You should try twirling one of those yellow wiffle ball bats. It's mad fun yo.:D
 
I've actually been flipping my pen around since, I believe, 8th grade. Which made finger twirls easy to learn.
I saw Goldeneye (one of my favorite Bond movies), and there was Boris flipping around his pen, so I picked up on it. Then I got the same model pen :D

I'm always flipping my pen around in class
 
WHOA! dude can do some crazy stuff with a pen! I can only do the thumb twirl (it's like the staple thing of our school- everyone knows how to do it)
 
Stagger, I know the pen twirling you're talking about. i'v had lots of ppl show it to me, but i'v never really gotten it right, nor tried to. Spinning over the back of my thumb i can do mindlessly, with both hands. I picked that one up in highschool, where, just like Darth's school, everyone can do it.

Both of those tricks are fun, and look good, but require a whole lot less skill and control then "walking" the pen through your fingers. When the walking is really smooth, you can look at one end of the pen and it should just be going in circles, with no hesitation; and that requires some work. All the fingers have to be moving with perfect timing, and smoothly. When twirling the pen around the back of your thumb, it seems to be a matter of getting the speed and balance right, and after that its just a matter of giving the pen a little flick and it does the rest. just my .02:)
 
David Letterman spins and flips his pencils all the time on his show. Hmm, I wonder if he has a bali. :D
 
How does Guillaume do that one pen twirl,the combination one.
I've watchied it a bunch of times and I still can't figure out what's going on,how he keeps the pen spinning constantly.\How ever he does it,it sure looks cool,wish I could do that.
 
yea man! i saw that twirl thingy too.. haha i can do all the pen tricks on his page except that one :)
 
I was a "fiddler" way before I was a bali-nut. I've been trying to study more about the human hand for about a year now, and it's unequalled ability to learn and retain specific movements. When it's not "kosher" to be flipping a bali around, like Masse, I just try to play with a disposable Bic lighter. I used to just twirl it down to my pinky and back, but I grew kind of tired of that. Now, I just let the lighter drop in my hand, and I try to keep it moving, but never letting it follow the same path for vary long, kind of random. My goal is to never be caught with something in my hand that I can't manipulate, just because of how it sits in my fingers. And to me, there's something damaging about learning a single move to the point where, when caught in a situation (backhand between ring and middle), you ALWAYS do the same routine to get out of it. But, then again, I take most things too far.

Try finger twirls with something thick, like a 2" shipping tube. It just feels weird.
 
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