When I teach people how to play Myachi (and I do that an awful lot), I have a certain method; a series of tricks that I teach them in a certain order. Now, this will vary a bit depending on who I'm teaching. I'll keep it easy if they're struggling and I'll ramp it up if they're doing really well, but the vast majority of the people I teach learn these 4 tricks first:
- The Half Pipe
- The Cold Fusion
- The Under the Leg
- The 360
As I go down the line of tricks, I'm waiting for the game to click. There'll be a look or a smile or a sound of muffled victory. It's a sign that they "get it"; that they now understand what it is that makes Myachi fun. For some people this comes right away. As soon as they get that first catch, they understand the game and see all the possibilities. Some people get it one the Cold Fusion and for others they need only to hit that Under the Leg for it to click.
But if they're not already there by the time I get to the 360, I'm not worried. There's something about hitting that trick that always makes it happen. Getting a solid 360 is pretty tough for most people, but they usually get it after a few drops. The internal reward of nailing that trick is almost always enough to inspire them to take a Myachi home and learn more.
The Aerials usually dominate an early Myachi player's practice and I think this is why. Hitting a 360 or a 720 is so rewarding that it tends to be everyone's focus as soon as they break open they're new Myachi. Illusions, Wolverines and Butterflies keep them interested and before long they'll know 30 tricks and more than half of them are aerials.
But then, for some reason, they start to drop off. Body Crosses are usually the next big focus along with Swaps and then most avid players shift to filling in deficits on the High Body and Low Body Stalls. Centrifugals pop up here and there along the way and that's how people develop into balanced players. It's obviously not the same with everyone, but with most people it progresses along these or similar lines.
Along the way, Aerials tend to get relegated to a smaller and smaller position until they all but disappear. They might eventually show back up as variations on common High Body patterns or as fix-breakers in swaps, but with the exception of an occasional dramatic Double Wolverine, the Aerials might get left out of shreds altogether.
The same tendency can be seen in MYACH games as well. Two players who've been in the game for a few weeks play a game of MYACH and you can expect to see 360s in several combos. You can expect to see a Wolverine or a Double and possibly a 720. Odds are good that you'll see at least a couple of sets that use nothing but Aerial tricks. But watch those same two players six months later and there's a very good chance that neither of them will use any Aerials at all, even as a closing trick on a tough Body Cross combo.
So why? What's wrong with these tricks that we love so much as novices and ignore as veterans? What changed about the triumphant feeling we used to get out of a Triple Wolverine? There's clearly no end to the combos that we could do, so why do so few players really push the envelope when it comes to Aerial tricks?
I've set this up with a bunch of drama, as though there's some mysterious cause that we'll need to deeply explore to understand, but I think the truth is actually pretty simple. Once you get past a 1080 (or a Triple anything), it's all just a blur. We've all seen a friend claim to do a 1440 and really do a 1080 and a quick hand wave that's supposed to be the 4th circle. We've all seen a You Tube video somewhere were some newb thinks he has a Quintruple Wolverine and just chucks the Myachi 10 feet in the air while he flails his hands in a vaguely Wolverine-like pattern.
I've got a pretty clean and consistent 1440, but I don't think I'd ever use it in a game of MYACH. Why? Because it's so easy to do a poor, "sort-of" 1440 and there's no really objective way to measure it on the spot. Am I going to nitpick at somebody's 1440 for not really going all the way around on the fourth orbit? If we disagree, there's no instant replay to turn to, so it's just my opinion versus my opponent's.
Most of the time this is no big deal, but I think everyone who's played a lot of MYACH has played against somebody who insists that they're Triple Wolverine is really a Triple Wolverine while you're not sure it's even a double. You could argue with them, but they'll vehemently defend the integrity of their trick and even do it again in the same half-right way. It's not necessarily that they're being dishonest, they might just not realize they're not really hitting the trick and you don't want to have to argue and give a whole big lesson on proper Aerials, so eventually we all start leaving these moves out altogether.
But even if that explains how they disappear from MYACH games, that doesn't explain why they disappear from shreds, does it? One could argue that it's an "out of sight, out of mind" thing and that once you stop using it in competitions you simply don't think to use it in a shred, but I don't think that stands up to scrutiny. After all, not everyone who shreds plays MYACH. I'd venture to say that the as many as half of the really dedicated freestylers have never played a game of MYACH at all.
So why do these people trend away from Aerials as well? It may well come from the same place. The fact that a Quadruple Wolverine doesn't impress an audience much more than a Triple means that there's a point of diminishing returns when it comes to Aerials. It's extremely hard to learn the 1800. Only a handful of players have ever truly mastered this move properly. It requires a lot of practice and if you think you've got an 1800 and haven't practiced hard to get there, you don't have a true 1800. But is an average observer going to appreciate just how much harder an 1800 is than a 1440? Will they even notice?
Don't get me wrong here. I think that Aerials belong in every shred. I think they're over used by new players but that doesn't matter. They're fun and there's a lot of them to learn so it's probably a good thing that new players focus on them first and foremost. I'm far more concerned about the fact that veteran players underuse them in shreds.
I'm as guilty as the next person of forgetting to add the Aerials. I can challenge myself a lot more with moves in other categories so that's where my focus lies. A Triple Wolverine might wow my audience, but it's not challenging so I don't even think about it. But I know deep down that a solid shred should employ a solid mix of every type of trick in the game. So next time you're having some fun and throwing down and you notice that some people are watching, offer them up your cleanest Double Wolverine. You owe it to them.
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