The appeal of inventing a trick is pretty obvious. Not only is it an awesome exercise that challenges both your skills and your creativity, but it also offers you a chance to achieve a small level of Myachi immortality. In fact, a cool enough move could earn you a significant place in Myachi history.
But coming up with the trick is really only half the battle. Many great tricks have been invented without their inventors ever getting much credit for them. Now sometimes that's just because the move never got popular. Some tricks are just before their time, others are so tough that few people can do them and still others just don't look cool enough to make it worthwhile to use them in a shred.
If that's the case the best thing you can do is go back to the drawing board and try to come up with another trick while asking yourself why the other one never caught on. But there's another problem that often shows up as well. Sometimes a trick fails to gain popularity simply because it doesn't have a cool enough name.
It's very important that you not glaze over the part where you assign the trick a monicker. If you have a cool move with a lame name that's an insult to the trick. It's also a guarantee that the move, even if it does become popular and widespread, probably won't be remembered as your invention. Instead, people will more often associate it with whoever came up with a cooler name for it.
There is no real "trick registry" in Myachi. You might be the first person to put a move on You-Tube, for example, but that doesn't really mean you were the first to do it. Many people post "new moves" only to discover that they're actually reinventing a trick that's been around for years. In most of those cases, they were unaware of the move because it didn't have a cool name.
I can't overestimate the importance of coming up with a cool name that will be remembered in association with your move. I've come up with a couple of quick pointers to aid you in fashioning an unforgettable title for your trick, but in the end it's going to come down to your creativity.
#1) Ask Yourself What the Move Looks Like
Clearly, the name needs to be cool. If you name your move "the Happy Balloon", I'm guessing nobody is going to want to call it in MYACH. But a cool name isn't enough. If you called your move "the Razor's Edge" it might be cool, but it could also fall flat if there was nothing about the move that made people think of razors or edges.
The name should be easy to associate with the trick. If at all possible, the name should have an ironic or witty connection to the move so that when you see the trick you can't help but think of the move. Think of tricks like the "Blind Squirrel", the "Punisher" and the "Atlas" for examples of appropriate (and cool) names.
#2) Don't Name it After Yourself
Adding your name or your nickname to a trick is usually a bad idea. I know that sounds disingenuous coming from a person who is actually named after a trick, but there was a big difference in my case. First of all, I was named after the trick; the trick wasn't named after me. Secondly I wasn't trying to popularize a new move with that name. The name for the trick had already caught on and I was just borrowing my nickname from it.
But far too many people name moves thing like "George's Hammer" or "The Charlie" and those ones almost never pan out. Even if you have a cool Myachi nickname, if the trick doesn't remind people of whatever your nickname is, it probably won't catch on.
#3) Don't Use an Obscure Name
We name a lot of our tricks after superheroes, movies and pro athletes so those are really good sources of cool names. But it's important that when you go that route you don't use something too obscure. A move named after the Green Goblin is going to evoke images of Spidey's nemesis but a move named after Wyatt Wingfoot people are going to respond with a blank stare.
(He was a minor super-powerless sub-character that was first introduced in Fantastic Four and later crossed over into a bunch of different Marvel franchises. I add that in case you've got more important stuff to Google)
#4) Keep it Short
Two or three words is the maximum for a Myachi move. A move that starts sounding like the technical name of a piece of classical music is not going to catch on. Whenever possible, you want a one word name like "the ____" but you can also get away with a single modifier if it makes sense. A move called "the _____ing ____" will work if it makes sense. The "Flying Fish" is a great name for a move, but the "Bicycling Fish" probably won't catch on.
In some circumstances you can get away with a three word name, but only rarely. Moves like the "Duck and Dive" or the "Flying Space Cowboy" are definitely the exception rather than the rule.
#5) Stay With the Theme
Many moves are going to be subtle variations on existing moves and when that's the case it's always best to keep your name close to the name for the existing move. For example, when you do an Under the Leg catch without lifting your leg, it's called a Spider. If you do it Yoga style it's called a "Daddy Long Legs". If you do it in a Subter-Fusion pattern it's called the "Tarantula". If you do it under both legs it's called the "Black Widow".
If you came up with another variation on this move, you'd probably be best off giving it a "spider" related name that fits with the existing family of tricks. If you called it the "Scepter" it would seem really odd fitting in with all those arachnid names.
There are many themes like this that serve as undercurrents through whole families of tricks. Which bring us to our final point:
#6) Learn Popular Trick Names
This is perhaps the most important piece of advice I can give you. If you didn't know, for example, what a Spider Under the Leg was, you wouldn't know to name your moves after the Spider theme. If you didn't know that flip tricks are usually named after skateboarding moves you might give a move a radically off-base name.
It will also help save you the trouble of inventing new moves that have actually already been invented. Try to look at as many tricks as you possibly can. Not only will they give you good name ideas, but they will also give you good ideas of new tricks and combos to try.
Also keep in mind that some of the tricks you come across might be waiting for better names. Even if you didn't invent the trick, offering a relatively unknown trick a really cool new name might bring it out into the open. In that case, it might not be a trick you invented, but it might still earn you that little slice of immortality.
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I know this goes without saying, but if you have any additional advice you'd like to give, please leave it in the comments section below.
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