by Crazy Ivan
Some people would argue that the Trickster Award is the most coveted award in all of Myachi. After all, it's primarily a game of skill and this is the only one of the Jammer of the Year prizes that recognizes somebody for their Myachi skills.
A quick perusal of the past winners will show that only top echelon jammers have won it before. Mantis has taken the prize twice, Kickstand, Dragon and A-Train once. All four of them true masters of freestyle Myachi.
But all that being said, the Trickster Award is not necessarily about who has the best skills. Mantis won in 2008 and 2010, but Dragon won in 2009. Does that mean that Dragon got better at Myachi that year and Mantis caught back up in the following year? Of course not. Because the Trickster Award is about something more than that.
Of course, I don't get to vote in the awards so I can't say exactly what people take into consideration when they're choosing the winner, but after watching the process go down for 5 years in a row, I can say with certainty that there are certain commonalities in the people that have won.
The most important factor, as near as I can tell, is INNOVATION. That's the one thing that all the winners have had in common over the years. Each one of them helped to take the game to the next level by creating new tricks, new combos and new ways of executing the classics. They took the next logical step in the game and created two Myachi versions of one Myachi tricks or three Myachi versions of two Myachi tricks (and in Mantis' case, four Myachi version of three Myachi tricks). They pushed the envelope. They test the boundaries.
Not only does this make them great Myachi players, but it also helps others to become better. The true Trickster is the one who brings everyone's game to a higher level. Our past winners have certainly personified that trait and I'm sure whoever takes the award this year will continue that proud tradition.
Good Luck to all the hopefuls!
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
The 500th Post on the Myachi Blog
by Crazy Ivan
This will mark the 500th post on the Myachi Blog. It's been around since February of 2011 so we're about to celebrate our 2nd anniversary as a blog. That means that on average, we're updating the blog about once every 1.4 days or so. That's a pretty good average if you just look at that number, but if we really break it down, it's not as good as it should be.
In 2011, the year I first started this blog, there were 444 posts. I only did it for eleven months, so that was an average of about 9 new entries a week. At that rate, I should have posted the 500th entry sometime in April of last year. But in 2012, there were only 54 updates to the blog in the whole year. That's only a little more than 1 a week.
Now obviously I have nobody to blame for this but myself. As the company has gotten bigger, it's also gotten busier and while I once had a great deal of time to dedicate to the blog, the forum, the FaceBook page, the Twitter account and the You Tube Channel, recently I'm lucky if I can find enough to time to eat lunch and breath regularly.
So if it's gotten a little bit dusty in here, blame me. I'm the janitor, after all. I'll be checking in as often as possible in 2013 and I hope that I can make that a lot more often than it was in 2012. With a little bit of luck, we can celebrate the 1000th post this time next year.
Friday, January 25, 2013
2012's Jammer Of The Year
by Crazy Ivan
It's been a tradition in Myachi now for 6 years. Every year in January and February we undertake a small process designed to recognize the contribution that Myachi Maniacs all over the country and the world make to our movement. Obviously Myachi Man, Kid, Maverick and the other Myachi Masters (including me) work pretty hard every day to spread the word of Myachi and keep the game going strong, but if it wasn't for the contributions of the Myachi Maniacs, we never would have gotten this thing off the ground.
That's why, way back in 2007, we decided to start this little annual celebration and in the intervening years it's kind of taken on a life of its own. I know that a lot of our long-time maniacs look forward to it all year and as the arbitrator of the whole ordeal, I can say honestly that it's one of my favorite responsibilities as a Myachi Master.
The coolest thing about the awards is that they're all decided on by the Myachi Maniacs themselves. It's up to you to pick the nominees and once the nominees are in, it's up to you to vote for the winner. And as MMFL has pointed out in the past, if you want to win one of these awards, it's up to you to earn it all year long.
The nominating process began yesterday on the Myachi Forum and is only open to members there. Of course, if you're not a member of the forum and want to nominate someone, it's not too late to sign up and send me a nomination via private message. Just sign up, go to "General Discussion" and look for the JOTYA 2013 post toward the top of the page.
Keep in mind, it's only the nominations that are restricted to forum members. Voting will be open to anyone who wants in on it. The more votes the merrier. I'll be putting plenty of info here on the blog as well so that even if you're new to Myachi you might be able to make an informed vote.
There are three award categories this year:
It's been a tradition in Myachi now for 6 years. Every year in January and February we undertake a small process designed to recognize the contribution that Myachi Maniacs all over the country and the world make to our movement. Obviously Myachi Man, Kid, Maverick and the other Myachi Masters (including me) work pretty hard every day to spread the word of Myachi and keep the game going strong, but if it wasn't for the contributions of the Myachi Maniacs, we never would have gotten this thing off the ground.
That's why, way back in 2007, we decided to start this little annual celebration and in the intervening years it's kind of taken on a life of its own. I know that a lot of our long-time maniacs look forward to it all year and as the arbitrator of the whole ordeal, I can say honestly that it's one of my favorite responsibilities as a Myachi Master.
The coolest thing about the awards is that they're all decided on by the Myachi Maniacs themselves. It's up to you to pick the nominees and once the nominees are in, it's up to you to vote for the winner. And as MMFL has pointed out in the past, if you want to win one of these awards, it's up to you to earn it all year long.
The nominating process began yesterday on the Myachi Forum and is only open to members there. Of course, if you're not a member of the forum and want to nominate someone, it's not too late to sign up and send me a nomination via private message. Just sign up, go to "General Discussion" and look for the JOTYA 2013 post toward the top of the page.
Keep in mind, it's only the nominations that are restricted to forum members. Voting will be open to anyone who wants in on it. The more votes the merrier. I'll be putting plenty of info here on the blog as well so that even if you're new to Myachi you might be able to make an informed vote.
There are three award categories this year:
- The STWAKOJ Award: This award goes to the Myachi Maniac who has done the most to help spread the word of Myachi over the country and over the world in the previous year. Past winners include Halestorm (China), A Guy Called Will (England), Mach 3 (England), DGH (USA) and Myachi Max (Switzerland). So as you can tell, this is a pretty international award.
- The TRICKSTER Award: This award goes to the Myachi Maniac who has done the most to help expand the game itself by inventing new tricks, games and styles in the past year. Past winners include A-Train, Dragon, Kickstand and the only two time winner, Mantis.
- The FORUM Award: This one goes to the member of our online forum who has done the most to help make it an inviting and hospitable place for veterans and people new to the game. Past winners include Jedi, Champ, Downtown and MMFL (The latter two shared the award once and won it solo as well)
Twice in the past we've also included a "Lifetime Achievement" Award, but this award is so coveted that we've decided only to give it out once every 5 years. The next time it will be awarded will be in 2017 (for the calendar year of 2016). Past winners include MMFL (2007) and Downtown (2012).
I'll be posting a lot more about the JOTYAs over the next couple of weeks, so be sure to check in regularly and get your fix.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
New Year, New Location
by Crazy Ivan
As many of you have already learned, Myachi headquarters has moved. As much as we loved our location out in Long Island, it had become increasingly impractical to have such a big HQ in a place that the majority of Maniacs couldn't reach. With so much of our business going on in and around the city, it made less and less sense for our HQ to be so far from the center of action.
While we'll certainly miss the location out in Glenwood Landing, the new spot is much more convenient for purposes of making deliveries, receiving deliveries, commuting back and forth from the House of Skills and getting back and forth from our two biggest retail locations.
Unfortunately, the new location does not include a retail spot. In our old HQ, of course, we had a little Myachi store and a big Myachi play area, but it wouldn't make much sense to do that with a new HQ in the city. After all, we already have two of the best retail locations a toy company could possibly want in NYC. So as much as we're all digging the new spot, it's not exactly a place where maniacs can drop by to visit. And even if you did, there wouldn't be much to see except piles and piles of Myachis.
So to all of you who got used to coming to see us out at the old HQ, we're sorry and we'll miss you. You made our time out there awesome and you're the reason we're sorry to leave the old spot behind. Unfortunately, these decisions often have to be made from a purely business perspective and it makes better business sense at this point for our HQ to be inside the five boroughs.
Of course, the new location is only one of many new things happening in the world of Myachi in 2013. Stay tuned to the blog to keep up to date on all the new, exciting changes awaiting us in the new year.
As many of you have already learned, Myachi headquarters has moved. As much as we loved our location out in Long Island, it had become increasingly impractical to have such a big HQ in a place that the majority of Maniacs couldn't reach. With so much of our business going on in and around the city, it made less and less sense for our HQ to be so far from the center of action.
While we'll certainly miss the location out in Glenwood Landing, the new spot is much more convenient for purposes of making deliveries, receiving deliveries, commuting back and forth from the House of Skills and getting back and forth from our two biggest retail locations.
Unfortunately, the new location does not include a retail spot. In our old HQ, of course, we had a little Myachi store and a big Myachi play area, but it wouldn't make much sense to do that with a new HQ in the city. After all, we already have two of the best retail locations a toy company could possibly want in NYC. So as much as we're all digging the new spot, it's not exactly a place where maniacs can drop by to visit. And even if you did, there wouldn't be much to see except piles and piles of Myachis.
So to all of you who got used to coming to see us out at the old HQ, we're sorry and we'll miss you. You made our time out there awesome and you're the reason we're sorry to leave the old spot behind. Unfortunately, these decisions often have to be made from a purely business perspective and it makes better business sense at this point for our HQ to be inside the five boroughs.
Of course, the new location is only one of many new things happening in the world of Myachi in 2013. Stay tuned to the blog to keep up to date on all the new, exciting changes awaiting us in the new year.
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