How to be a Myachi Master: Lesson One

by Crazy Ivan

In the increasingly complex quest to succinctly define my job, I've decided to present a series of entries that guide the Myachi Maniac through the path toward Myachi mastery.  This is not, strictly speaking, a formula for getting great at the game of Myachi, but rather of obtaining the coveted rank of "Myachi Master".

Apparently, MM, Animal, Monk, Mav and I were on the white team this day.

For most people, the idea of playing with toys for a living has a certain appeal and I'm constantly bombarded with questions about how one becomes a Myachi Master.  In truth there doesn't seem to be any single answer.  Every Myachi Master has achieved his or her rank in a different way so no single path can be claimed as the correct one.

There are, however, certain similarities; universals that we all encountered in our efforts to earn a living doing something we loved to do to begin with.  This series will focus on those things because whether you follow the path that one of us did or forge your own, there are certain attributes that every aspirant will have to focus on.

The most important aspect of becoming a Myachi Master (and the focus of this first lesson) can be summed up in a single word.  To the surprise of many, that word is not "practice".  It is a common misconception among Myachi Maniacs and other followers of the game that being a Myachi Master is all about skills.  Now, clearly skills are a common thread that binds all Myachi Masters, but it isn't the only one and it is by no means the most important one.

Practice is extremely important and it is one of the pillars that Myachi is built upon, but ultimately practice is something you do with an inward focus.  You practice to improve yourself.  Myachi is about constantly striving to get better, but Myachi is not a solitary game.  The first word on the mind of an aspiring Myachi Master shouldn't be "practice" or "skills", it should be "share".

The mantra of a Myachi Master is not "hey, look what I can do", it "hey, look what you can do".  For us, it's all about spreading the word.  In the infamous Myachi salutation "STWAKOJ", you'll notice that spreading the word takes precedence over jamming.

It's a running joke amongst the Myachi Masters that you spend every day learning ever more complicated tricks so that you can go to work every day and do Half Pipe, Cold Fusion, Under the Leg and 360 for 8 hours.  It's a bit of an exaggeration, but in many ways it's true.  We don't want to go out there and throw down our toughest tricks.  That would intimidate people and make them feel like Myachi is a game that is too hard for them.

Instead, we try to focus on building the skills of people around us.  The crazy tricks just act as a lure to get people looking in our direction.  Once they are, the most spoken words in Myachidom come out: "Have you seen this game before?"  We each say it several hundred times a day.  We say it more often than "Hello", "Excuse me" and "That couldn't have been a UFO because it said Good Year on the side" combined.

That's the opening line of the official Myachi Pitch that all the apprentices learn on day one.  "Have you seen this game before?"  If they say "yes", you simply say "awesome," and toss them in.  If they say "no thanks" it gives you a perfect opportunity to explain why it is the coolest thing on this side of the Arctic Circle (excluding the Antarctic).

So if you think you see Myachi Mastery in your future occupational plans, I have an experiment for you to try.  Go out to a public place like a busy park or a mall and start throwing down a solid shred that includes plenty of the stylish basics like Fu, Flow and Cold Fusion.  As soon as you catch somebody gawking in amazement, make it your mission to prove to them that they can do everything they just saw you do and you can teach them in five minutes or less.

The first job of Myachi Master is teacher and the biggest obstacle to teaching people something like Myachi is getting over their instinctual belief that it's something they can't do.  People will always make excuses like "I'm not very coordinated", or "I'm not good at stuff like that".  After a while you learn ways around every excuse.  In the above examples I'd use "Well Myachi can help you with that" for the former and "dude, there's no 'stuff like this'" for the latter.

Now, you might think that people would be really uncomfortable with you suddenly trying to teach them how to play Myachi out of the blue, but you'd be surprised what a great reaction you get.  Well, maybe you wouldn't.  After all, it's pretty likely that you learned the game when some random stranger asked you "have you seen this game before?"

Share your stories!  If you have a great story about teaching someone to play, leave it in the comments section below.  Remember, a blog isn't an article, it's a conversation.