The Trick of the Day

by Crazy Ivan

The thing about the Internet is that it's a pretty big place.  Myachi tries its best to reach out and engage our online community and make the most out of all the resources the web provides.  This blog is obviously one example.  Our contests and content on Facebook is another, as is our constant attempt to provide ever more quality You-Tube content.

The thing is, since it's such a big place we have to spread ourselves pretty thin.  The Myachi Website, Forum, Blog, FB page, Twitter feed and You Tube channel are all independent.  The end result is that a lot of people who subscribe to us on You Tube are unaware of this blog.  A lot of people who read this blog aren't on our forum.  A lot of people who are on our forum don't follow us on Facebook.

So consider this entry an attempt to bridge one of those gaps.  We promote the blog pretty heavily on FB so I'll assume I'm talking to a lot of our Facebook followers as well.

I was having a conversation with Myachi Man back in December and we were talking about how many tricks there are with Myachi.  I am an avid skill toy practitioner and I often brag that I know more tricks with Myachi than I do with juggling balls, rings, clubs, cigar boxes, contact juggling, footbag, devil sticks and diabolo combined.  I should also add that I've been doing all those other props for far longer.

I boasted that I could probably present a video for a new trick every day for the rest of my life and never run out of new stuff.  Myachi Man took the bet.  The result was the Trick of the Day.

So first let me admit that I don't actually present a new trick every day.  This is more because I need days off than because I don't have enough tricks, though.  We do the Trick of the Day five days a week, Monday through Friday.  If you subscribe to our YouTube channel or follow us on Twitter you'll get alerts every time we send out a new video.

To keep things interesting, we do a theme every week.  One week we'll do foot stalls, one week we'll do T-Shirt tricks, one week we'll do aerial tricks.  This coming week we'll be doing 2 Myachi swap tricks (and yes, that'll include the Matrix).

When I first set out to do this, I was hit with a bit of a dilemma.  I didn't want to do all easy tricks because I wanted veteran players to learn something from this video series.  I also didn't want to do too many tough tricks because I didn't want the videos to be useless to beginners.  The solution was to try to do a steady mix.

The way we accomplish this is by increasing the difficulty level through the week.  We'll start with a relatively easy trick on Monday and each day the trick gets a bit harder.  By Friday it's usually a really challenging move.

Now, this isn't to say Monday tricks are always easy and Friday tricks are always hard.  If the theme is, for example, Juggling Tricks, there won't be anything easy to do on Monday.  The week will start hard and end ridiculous.  If the theme was Basic Spins, on the other hand, the tricks could get harder all week but never really get that hard.  Even the Friday trick might be something a veteran could hit on their first try.

I've gotten a lot of feedback since I started doing these videos at the beginning of the year.  Most of it has been positive and there have been a lot of requests for particular tricks or particular themes.  I want to thank everyone who has emailed or messaged me with a suggestion and I want to let everyone know that I make every effort to accommodate every request.

If you have a suggestion, an idea or some criticism, remember that we love to hear feedback good and bad.  The bad helps us get better and the good inspires us to keep working.