Finger Positioning Guide (Draft Release w/ Written Commentary)
If you havenât seen on Twitter, I posted a poll to ask if people were interested in reading what I have so far for the finger positioning guide. Since Iâm not going to have time, energy, or general motivation in finishing this, I figure I should release what I have. If you missed that blog post about whatâs going on with me you can read it here: https://hobbylogics.tumblr.com/post/695067437062815744/an-updatereflecting.
However, even though Iâm posting what I have I want to make this draft more digestible to read so it isnât just a jumbled mess of ideas. Iâm going to type out some commentary explaining things in between to talk about my thoughts about particular sections or topics. Look for [] the square brackets for the commentary.
Hope you find this guide draft somewhat helpful or at least interesting!
Even if you havenât been thinking about finger positioning, itâs likely that youâve already taken steps to improve yours. Itâs common for people to copy the finger positioning of how people do a trick when they learn it. You might even have been doing so without realizing! For example, many people try to stick their pinky out during busts.
[I always like to structure my writing in a pretty standard and structured format, maybe itâs a little excessively wordy, but I like how itâs organized when thereâs an intro, middle, and end.]
So let me try to walk you through this topic of pen spinning, and hopefully you come out understanding how it works!
Need to know how to plan combos and freestyle.
Know a decent variety of trick families: twisted sonics, baks, arounds, etc.
[The next sections on the theory/concept of Coherence and Consistency are probably the most fleshed out sections in this article because they come with images.]
What is finger positioning?
The placement of all fingers while spinning or catching the pen.
Iâve previously written an article about this topic that was about the specific terminology in finger positioning.
To keep things simple, Iâm going to avoid complicating this guide by using the terminology Iâve made but if youâre interested, youâre free to take a look:
https://hobbylogics.tumblr.com/post/617227179235917824/style-clarifying-the-terminology-and-concept-of
Whatâs the purpose of finger positioning?
The purpose of finger positioning is to enhance the execution. Finger positioning is another tool to improve the visuals of your pen spinning.
What determines good finger positioning?
Only going by personal preference doesnât tell us what good finger positioning is. So, if we want to be as unbiased as possible, we canât just think about it in terms of âuglyâ and âprettyâ.
Instead, we should think about it in terms of consistency and coherence. (If you want it to be corny like some English class, call it the 2 Câs or 2 Degrees of finger positioning if youâd like!)
[Man, the two Câs sound so stupid. Iâm leaving it in there just cause thatâs how it was when I edited it, maybe you found some entertainment value in my corniness lol.]
Consistency in finger positioning means that the fingers are always moved or placed in the same purposeful way when performing a trick.
Unlike with practicing tricks, itâs not really about how much you drop the pen. Consistency in finger positioning is about how consistent and intentional you are with the finger positioning.
[This topic is contradictory to the idea of situational execution, but situational execution is sort of the exception to the rule. You got to know the rules before you break them when youâre first learning, after all.]
In practice, getting consistent finger positioning is pretty simple: You just need to keep practicing the same finger positioning of a trick to commit it to muscle memory.
Finger positioning consistency in all of the tricks you execute will help give your spinning a subtle feeling of confidence, even if the person watching doesnât notice it specifically.
If you do a bust twice (when trying to do the two busts the same way) and the finger positioning is the same, it shows good control of your fingers!
The finger positioning also needs to be coherent. Your finger positioning canât just look like a bunch of different things slapped together. Just like how a combo wonât work if you put random tricks together, the same goes for finger positioning.
The tricks you choose contribute a lot to the coherence because the finger positioning is part of how tricks are executed. Choosing the right tricks can actually help give coherence to your finger positioning!
Snapshots of HAL in JapEn 7th, 2011. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMBWBhaBwNA
[Pretty proud of these graphics, I sent the Makin and Hal images to RPD when I was working on it to get some thoughts.]
Sometimes, finger positioning can go so far as having a theme. For example, HAL has very flashy spinning and sharp-looking fingers. The way he uses his fingers helps support his flashy style, so if he started outstretching his fingers less, it wouldnât fit into his spinning.
Now that weâve taken care of the theory side of things, letâs move on to how to actually practice and use finger positioning to your advantage.
[That was probably the best written part of the entire article, get ready for some jank!]
Coherence: Uniform Fingers
Since consistency is a pretty straightforward topic, weâre going to skip right into talking about coherence in finger positioning!
Having uniform fingers means that your fingers have about the same âlookâ to them no matter what finger positioning you do.
There are times to break this rule, but itâs good to stabilize of your finger positioning before you start experimenting and changing it up.
In order to achieve more uniform finger positioning, we need to talk about: tensing your fingers, outstretching your fingers, and the space between your fingers.
Itâs possible you already have some sort of comfortable uniform finger positioning already, so this might be a quick review for you!
You might be thinking, tensing your fingers isnât exactly about the position of your fingers, is it? Is it even finger positioning? Well, I donât know. Regardless of how weâre going to categorize this, it is a very important factor in how your fingers will look when pen spinning.
[Essentially this idea of âuniform fingersâ is an attempt to say that you should stabilize your finger positioning the same way you stabilize your wrist movement or execution. A good example for a spinner that is VERY uniform is altema.]
Coherence: Making a Decision
What kind of look do you want for your finger positioning?
[There was a note to myself in the Word document that says âAsk questions similar to style guide on how someone might want to use these topicsâ, which is what I was planning on fleshing out a bit more in this section of questions.]
If youâre fairly new to pen spinning, then Iâd recommend just choosing the things that feel the most comfortable to you. Youâre free to be ambitious and choose something you want to strive for, but it can be an uphill battle if any of the choices you make end up not being second nature.
And last of all, there is no right way of doing this. You really need to just experiment until youâre happy with the way your pen spinning looks.
The goal for you in these following sections is to help you decide how you want your overall finger positioning to look. This is also one of the ways youâre going to be able to stabilize your pen spinning. These topics are to help you be more aware of how your fingers are acting while youâre trying to stabilize and correct your finger positioning.
Take the topics as guidelines to help inform you of your finger positioning choices, rather than hard rules about how you should keep your finger positioning uniform. Thereâs always a time to use curled and outstretched fingers together if it comes to it!
Relaxed and tensed fingers can be done to any finger positioning, (even if the finger is curled!) but it can also affect the look of the spinning if you decide to use it.
Relaxed fingers generally make your spinning look more natural because itâs how most fingers look when theyâre resting.
The downside is that it can have a bit of a âlazyâ look to it at times if itâs too relaxed, and you actually need to tense-up your fingers somewhat to perform tricks because not all tricks are fingerless!
[âshow beat red example as very relaxed spinningâ]
For the most part, tense fingers make your tendons on your hand and wrist stand out more, but itâs one of the ways you can make your fingers more stable. Thatâs because youâre forcing your fingers to be stiff and stable with the muscles in your hand.
The downside is that it can look unnaturally stiff or feel uncomfortable because it can be tiring for your hand to constantly be tense. But itâs still possible to make it work.
[ âshow example of tensed fingers that are curled and straight
makin/hal example, point out the tendons on the back of the handâ]
[This idea of relaxed and tensed fingers is heavily inspired by an article that Aimo posted mentioning different factors that affect pen spinning.]
In this case, relaxed and tensed refers to how outstretched your fingers are,
[â(picture examples would be helpful here)â]
Curled fingers: looks relaxed, almost lazy
Straight fingers: are in between
Outstretched fingers: can help exaggerate your tricks
Nowadays, most spinners have abandoned spinning with very outstretched and tense fingers. However, itâs something thatâs very common in 2012 era pen spinning where people like Nikoo, Hal, Seven really took advantage of having tensed fingers and spreading their fingers out.
The space between your fingers
Another thing to keep in mind while trying to keep your finger positioning uniform is the space in between your fingers.
The amount of space between your fingers is usually affected by the length of your mod, because longer mods make you spread your fingers to reach for the places on the pen that you need to do for a trick.
For example, when you spin a very long mod, you need to reach your fingers towards the end of the pen to do a bak. While if you spin a shorter mod, like a DC comssa, you need to compress your fingers together in order to keep your fingers on the pen.
[DC comssa is honestly not the greatest example, better and clearer if it was MX.]
[â(affected by mod length, HAL example mx vs kt)â]
Finger Positioning Guidelines and Examples
Finger positioning is very subjective and thereâs a lot to unpack, so I think we should start by talking about something that everyone is pretty familiar with: keeping your fingers straight.
Should you always try to keep your fingers straight as much as possible?
Absolutely not. Some tricks require you to bend your fingers, and certain finger positioning with bent fingers can actually look quite nice.
Taichi explains how stretching all your fingers out is not the golden rule on how to make your finger positioning look good.
[Definitely an incomplete section here, doesnât have examples and stuff that Iâve expanded on, thereâs some ideas listed in the âScrapsâ section of random notes I compiled at the end of this article though!]
Getting Started: Letâs try some common finger positioning!
Okay, weâre finally getting to the fun part! But thereâs still very important things to go through after these examples!
-Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â thumb, pinky, and index control (ppl pay attention to these the most)
Some easy places to start are with simple tricks like twisted sonics, baks, and arounds.
[You can tell that the grammar is getting sloppy cause these was an idea dump here. Using âpplâ and not capitalizing âtwisted sonics, baks and aroundsâ.]
[âTwisted sonic bust makin
-thumbaround the world reference see the different finger positioningâ]
[The notes above I think were basically describing examples I should use as image or video references?]
[LOL I didnât even finish this sentence apparently, maybe this is where I stopped writing?]
Generic Finger Positioning: Guidelines are only guidelines, and Common is only Common
As Iâve mentioned previously in the sections above, there are always exceptions to the rule.
[An incomplete section, Iâd often write out some big titles to represent the sections in order to help myself structure the entire written guide. Itâs important to me that the sections are organized in a meaningful way, and the topics flow into the next one.]
If youâre using new tricks itâs harder to find reference
If youâre using common tricks itâs easier to find reference
Regardless, thereâs some experimentation to be done
Watching pen spinning videos
Ask friends or the community for opinions
Practice with webcam on, consider the camera angle
Style: Trick Choice
Finger Movement
Luck of the draw: Managing your hand
Flexibility issues
Flexibility woes ktrinh? Google finger flexibility stuff
[Some more janky and incomplete sections I was laying out.]
Finger Positioning Choices: When do you adjust your finger positioning?
Choosing when to practice finger positioning is very important because of how it can affect consistency and the length of the learning process. Itâs possible you might have to relearn the trick completely!
There are three main ways you can practice finger positioning:
After fully learning a trick
Before fully learning a trick
1. After fully learning a trick
If youâve been spinning for several years, itâs very likely that you already learned how to do a trick and now you need to adjust the finger positioning. The problem here is that it can make the learning process a lot longer because you might be relearning the trick in a very different way.
[I originally wrote this in Microsoft Word, so the tables are screenshots]
2. Before fully learning a trick
If you have a clear idea of finger positioning you want to use for a trick, then itâs not a bad idea to practice it in that specific way you want before you fully learn a trick. The only problem is that if the trick and finger positioning doesnât come easy for you, itâs going to be a frustrating uphill battle.
For example, the popular linkage called âNeoSAâ. Learning most fingerless tricks or linkages that are already pretty difficult can potentially make your consistency a lot worse if you have the added difficulty of trying to get the proper finger positioning as well.
Of course, this depends on your finger independence, flexibility, and the difficulty of the trick itself.
The last, but not least, way to practice finger positioning is by using a hybrid. How you choose to make it a hybrid is completely up to you, but this is the most flexible category if the other options donât end up working out for you.
You can change your finger positioning in the beginning of the learning process, then slowly adjust it as time goes on.
You can adjust the finger positioning in the beginning and then decide to change it after you learned it properly.
Itâs entirely up to you, and you can adjust your finger positioning whenever you see fit!
[This section on when to adjust finger positioning has some extremely practical advice in terms of how to learn finger positioning, because itâs not often talked about and is something that Iâve personally went through a lot since changing my style drastically.]
Finger Positioning Choices: Natural, Safe, or Ambitious?
But before we get too deep in the weeds, letâs go through some more choices youâll make when you choose a particular finger positioning to practice.
There are three different âlevels of difficultyâ when it comes to finger positioning:
Natural: The most natural and easy finger positioning to get consistent with.
Safe: The finger positioning is different from the natural finger positioning, but is still fairly easy to get consistent with.
Ambitious: Finger positioning that is very difficult to accomplish with your current finger independence and flexibility.
Now, this might seem completely random or unnecessary to point this out, but you might remember that in the previous section, I talked about how you might have to relearn a trick to have your ideal finger positioning.
This relearning process will be easy or difficult depending on if the finger positioning is natural, safe, or ambitious.
Or in i.sukâs words, how much affinity do you have with the finger positioning?
For example, NeoSA is something that some people consider as a trick to constantly improve your finger positioning on.
[This section on finger positioning difficulty is kind of what Iâm least confident about showing, because itâs not really necessary for people to understand in order to explain much. The main reason why I included it is because the words âsafeâ and âambitiousâ were words that have been engrained in me from talking to Fideua (LPSA/GPC). I used those words of his to describe similar ideas in this article, but Iâve sort of used those terms to define them as finger positioning difficulty even though the word use is likely based on a feeling or effect.]
Finger Positioning Choices: Making Sacrifices
A lot of pen spinners make sacrifices depending on how ambitious the finger positioning is.
They might choose to go with a safe or natural finger positioning, try to hide certain fingers with the camera angle, or even just refuse to use the trick altogether.
Itâs just something to consider and think about as you keep practicing finger positioning.
[The only real reason to even explain finger positioning difficulty is for this tiny section that uses those terms, so I donât see a huge importance in these ideas. However, I think it shows that trying to teach pen spinning through writing requires me to come up with ways to categorize my ideas in order to teach them properly. In this case, I think the idea of finger positioning difficulty makes sense and I can see what I was trying to go for, but itâs not necessary for teaching finger positioning.]
[We made it to my janky, miscellaneous notes that I kept for myself trying to write this article!]
Rough drafts on my notebook [I had physically written ideas of this in my notebook that I thought would be fun to share in the extras section when I was done writing.]
Akai and I talking about it in discord
Natural safe ambitious comes from fideua, using it as a concept for learning rather than what he meant at the time
https://aimo.hateblo.jp/entry/2021/10/28/014108 lists out specific visual elements
ooshinraoo (tensed/stretched)
abc/xyz (tensed,stretched)
riason (middle, leaning towards tense)
eriror (middle, but leaning towards relaxed)
[This list of spinners were for examples to use in the article, that I thought would demonstrate an idea I wrote.]
[These images are when I asked Tigres on Discord to give me some advice to use for people who have fingers that are crooked or double jointed. Seeing as I donât have those issues, it made sense for me to ask him to get some valuable information to put into the article.]
Common examples â bust, tf charge rev, neosa
Bust example makin, kzzn, everchix clip of different busts
Iâve also made a theory article that points out how finger positioning fits into execution: https://hobbylogics.tumblr.com/post/662888263387856896/understanding-pen-spinning-execution-the-two
[This strikethrough point has a comment on the Word document that says: âAdd to extras maybe? not necessary for this articleâ.]
Bad quality camera/blurred â smooths out finger appearance
Sleeve â hides wrist and arm
Nails â feminine look and elongating the fingers or making the fingers look sharper
Exceptions - depends on your hand, how it looks, how flexible they are, etc etc
 Move this into small blockquotes in between guidelines section of article instead of taking up a whole section and having the article focus on misconceptions that will only become more well known because you brought it up
[Interesting that I thought that bringing up the misconceptions would only make them more popular cause I brought them up, I donât remember writing this down at all.]
Thank you for taking an interest in my writing, I hope some parts of this article ended up helping you in some way.
I still havenât quite decided how I want to involve myself in the community again, but I do think that itâs healthier for me if I post things in smaller doses.