Some Trick of the Day Math

by Crazy Ivan

So, before I get started, I should warn the long time reader that I'm going to be going over some old ground here.  This is a subject that I've adressed before here, among other places.  But it's come up several times in the last few days from the sudden influx of new maniacs along the southeastern United States.

The question is about the trick of the day and if you've been reading this blog for very long (or clicked the hyperlink above), you've probably already guessed what it is.  "How long can you possibly keep coming up with a new trick every day?"

And it's not just new maniacs that have posited that question.  I've gotten it from seasoned Myachi Masters who really know what they're talking about (Myachi Man and Maverick, for example).  I've also gotten it from a few jugglers and other skill toy enthusiasts that frequent our You-Tube channel.  They ask if this is a one year project or if I think I can keep it up longer.

Now, I could just reference the article above and wash my hands of the question, but as often as I get it, it's probably best to tackle it from another direction altogether.  So let's look at the math:

If you've read this article before, you know that there are (at least) 48 common stall surfaces in Myachi.  The graphic below (which is the wallpaper on Pinky's office computer) shows you all the basics and when you figure weak side and strong side in, you get 48 total surfaces.

Now, by the strictest definition, a Myachi move begins on one of these surfaces and ends on one of these surfaces.  Often time stuff happens in between, but let's start by simply looking at the total combinations you can get to just by going from one surface to another.  For example, Toe Stall to Melon Stall or In-Wing (weak side) to Mantis (strong side).

There are 48 surfaces and you can throw from any one to any other (including throwing back to the same surface such as Toe Stall (strong side) to Toe Stall (weak side).  So that gives us the first total on our little equation:

48 x 48 = 2304

So that means that if I never did anything at all but stalling on one surface and then tossing to another, I'd have 2,304 tricks.  Since I take weekends off, that would give me about enough tricks for the next nine years.  In fact, since you could also end a trick with a strike instead of a stall and you can strike with all 48 of those surfaces, we really have to quadruple that number.  After all, you can go strike to stall, stall to strike or strike to strike instead of just doing stalls.

2304 x 4 = 9216

But Myachi is a lot more than just going from one surface to another.  In virtually all of these instances, you could add an aerial move in between.  Illusions, 360s, Wolverines, Mirages, Double Illusions, 720s, Butterflies, Double Mirages, Double Wolverines and Reverse Butterflies can be added between almost every stall or strike.  Sure, it would be almost impossible to do a Wolverine while going from a Sole Stall to a Melon Stall, but if you give Maverick a couple of days, he'd probably hit it.

So let's suppose that those 10 aerials can be done between at least 90% of our moves so far.  That means that we can multiply the number we had by another 9:

9216 X 9 = 82944

Obviously I could keep going.  I haven't touched on Traps, Portals, Grinds, Flip Tricks, Under the Legs, Behind the Backs, Blind Moves, Two Myachi Tricks, Juggling Moves, Two-Person Tricks, Prop-Adds or any of the specialty stalls and strikes that don't show up on the chart above.  There's a lot more to Myachi that this number doesn't remotely represent.  But even just using a small fraction of what can be done, we have enough Myachi tricks to continue to tricks of the day for the next three hundred and seventeen years.

I try to stay pretty healthy.  I work out a lot (for a living), I stay active and I keep learning new stuff.  I intend to stay young as long as I can, but no matter what kind of miracle break throughs medical science makes, I have more than enough tricks to last the rest of my life.