Whoops!

by Crazy Ivan

I Started doing the trick of the day back in December, but at that point I was just linking videos that Myachi had already uploaded.  We already had a few dozen moves so I figured I'd mix them in with some of the maniac-submitted videos and we'd be able to put together a new trick every day.

That didn't last long, of course, so before long I had to start recording new videos.  That began on January 12th of this year so I've been at it 5 times a week for 238 days.  That's a total of nearly 170 moves altogether.

I'd love to say that this has been an error free streak, but I'd be lying if I did.  There have been (to my knowledge) 4 errors thus far, the most recent of which was yesterday:

• The Samurai: I never even mentioned this, but after I recorded the Samurai video I looked back and saw that I'd messed the trick up.  My brain had fuzzed out or something and I did (essentially) a Drop of Death from a Cradle.  The Samurai is supposed to grind down from a Mantis.  I've got a video up showing a completely different move.
• The Missing Trick: On the week I first returned from Tennessee we were doing one-fingered tricks.  With all the driving, unpacking and catching up, I completely missed a day.  I promised to make up for it over the weekend but I didn't have my camera.  By the time I did it was too late to get the trick up in the same week so it never went up.
• The Grasshopper: Just spaced on the name on this one.  There's a move similar to the Grasshopper called the "Flying Guppy" and when I did the trick I misidentified it.  I said it wrong on the video, I titled it wrong and even loaded it into You-Tube wrong.  Went back and changed what I could, but it will still serve to confuse anyone watching it.
• The Melon Stall: This was yesterday's trick.  When I was putting together the update on the Tricktionary I noticed that I still didn't have a video for this basic move, which was why I did upper body stalls this week.  I put up the Melon Stall video yesterday just to be reminded that I actually have already put up a video for that move a few months ago.  I filmed a rerun.

I suppose that 4 mistakes in 238 days isn't the worst record we could have.  That's an average of one mess up every 8 and a half weeks.  Once every couple of months.  With these numbers I could easily just brush it off as human fallibility and be on my merry way.  Except for one thing: 3 of these errors have been in the last 19 days.

After a single error in 8 months I manage better than one per week!  I can only imagine how chaotic this whole thing is going to get if I let this slide continue.  I'll wind up posting tricks backwards or something before it's all over.

So here's the deal: I'm going to redouble my efforts here and turn over a new Trick of the Day leaf.  No more errors from here on out.  I've got a super busy week this week so I probably won't be able to enact this right away, but I'm going to fix the four errors listed above.  I'm going to refilm the Samurai video, add another one fingered trick and refilm the Grasshopper and call it by the correct name.  Too late to do anything about the Melon Stall video, but since I repeated a trick I suppose I owe everyone another move this week anyway.  I hope to have this all done by week's end but with a big school event coming up Thursday and Friday I may have to wait until the middle of next week.

...Hopefully I won't have screwed up again by then.

Matrix; Evolutions

by Crazy Ivan

There was a time when the Matrix was largely considered the toughest hand trick in Myachi.  Man, that seems like a long time ago.

Since then moves like the Jedi, the Spidey Sense, the Super-Yoga, the 4 Myachi juggle and the myriad variations on the Matrix itself have long supplanted it, but the Matrix itself still holds a unique place in the pantheon of Myachi moves.  Whether it's the hardest or the 113th hardest, a quick Matrix will stop most people in their tracks.

It's no wonder then that the Matrix has spawned such an enormous family of moves.  Each new Myachi Master is eager to put their own personal twist on the move, to push the boundaries of what's possible, to carve their names into Myachi history by fashioning a new version of this classic move that might live in perpetuity.

Understandably, the names of these various moves have gotten unwieldy over the years.  Because each move is rooted in the Matrix, and because the Matrix is such a beloved move within Myachi, the names always seek to wed themselves to the original.  That worked well for the first few variations, the Matrix Reloaded and the Matrix Revolutions, and our creativity kicked in after that.  Moves like the Matrix Rebooted, the Matrix Rerouted, the Matrix Unleashed and the Glitch in the Matrix joined the more vanilla names like the Behind the Back Matrix, the Under the Leg Matrix, the Bandit Matrix and the One Handed Matrix.

Soon the army of Matrix variations would swell to the point where many went unnamed.  Names like the "Mantrix", the "Slingshot-Trix" and the "Wingtrix" never caught on (for understandable reasons) so there seems to be an unending supply of new Matrix variations awaiting more clever names.  Every new Myachi Master tries to come up with their own take on this move so ever more complex and challenging concepts keep getting crammed into this already forbidding move.

When I announced that this week's Trick of the Day videos would be Matrix variations, the other Masters at the House of Skills got pretty fired up.  I was instantly bombarded with a plethora of questions as to which variations I'd be using.  Would I be using the Matrix Rerouted?  How about the Matrix Recharged?  Maybe the Matrix Rebuked?  I was also inundated with emails (okay, maybe not inundated exactly) asking about this or that Matrix variation and whether it would be included in this week's tricks.

Of course, the answer to most of these inquiries was (by necessity) "no".  There are far too many Matrix variations for me to squeeze them all into a single week.  Heck, even if I did a whole month worth of Trick of the Days dedicated to the Matrix theme I would still have to leave some out (and some good ones at that).

So for those of you hoping to see this or that variation and disappointed when it doesn't show up, I can only promise that another week of Matrix variations will come again in the future.  I can't promise that your favorite variation will be included that week either, of course.  Heck, by the time I do another week on Matrix moves there will probably be at least 5 new variations that I'll have to leave out as well.

Balancing the Trick of the Day

by Crazy Ivan

One of the first things I had on my "to do" list this week was update our playlists on You-Tube.  I usually drop the Trick of the Day directly into one of the four, but while I was in Tennessee I let this responsibility slip and thus had a few dozen tricks to categorize.

They're all up to date now, so in case you're curious, you can click here to check out the:

• Playlist of Tricks for Beginners
• Playlist of Tricks for Intermediate Players
• Playlist of Tricks for Advanced Players
• Playlist of Tricks for Masters

Breaking these suckers into playlists serves a few purposes.  The most obvious is that it gives a good resource for newer players or people who are ready to move on to tougher stuff.  Rather than having them wander aimlessly through all of the past "Trick of the Day" videos, they can skip straight to the stuff that is in their particular skill level.

But there's another, internal purpose as well.  It helps me keep the tricks balanced.

I've received a number of emails, pms, etc. that have asked for "more easy tricks" or "more difficult tricks".  Because I know that the mix is pretty half and half between beginners and veterans watching the videos, I try to include something for everyone, but sometimes it gets hard to keep track of.

Enter the playlists.  I can glance at any time at my various playlists and see which category is "winning".  Am I uploading a lot more basic tricks than advanced ones?  Am I being too challenging and ignoring the newer players?  Since I do these things 5 days a week it quickly becomes impractical to try to keep track of that stuff in my head.

So as I'm updating these playlists today, I took a few notes on how much meat was in each category.  At the present moment, we have:

• Beginner = 44 Tricks
• Intermediate = 71 Tricks
• Advanced = 52 Tricks
• Master = 21 Tricks

At a glance, that probably doesn't seem like a very good mix.  Obviously the Master category is feeble compared to the others and the Intermediate is racing way out ahead of the others.  But as I look at it, I'm pretty well satisfied with the mix we have.

The goal is for the Beginner/Intermediate to outnumber the Advanced/Master by about 2 to 1.  Why?  Well, advanced players can still have fun learning beginner and intermediate tricks but beginners can't have fun learning advanced or master moves.  As it stands, there are 73 in the latter category and 115 in the former.  That's not 2 to 1, obviously (more like 3 to 2), but it's in the right ballpark.  There are (and should be) a lot more moves in the easier categories.

Some people will look at the numbers and think that the "Master" category is woefully lacking.  It's less than half the size of the next smallest category.  Again, even though this seems like an error it is essentially what I was looking for.  The smallest group of people watching these videos, of course, will be people who are true "masters" of the game, so it is only rarely that I feel the need to add more to that category.  In fact, when I do, I often get accused of "showing off" (a charge I don't deny).

Still others will see the numbers and wonder if there shouldn't be more moves at the extremes.  The beginner and master categories are the smallest and to such a wide degree that both of them together have fewer tricks than the intermediate category.

Again, that's what we're shooting for.  Beginner tricks are necessary (and can be fun for even advanced players) but I think it's safe to assume that most of the people who are logging in to check out the Trick of the Day video are looking for a challenge.  For this reason, the majority of the moves should stretch the limitations of the players watching them.

So to make a long story short, by categorizing the moves in these playlists, I've managed to make it easier to keep them balanced.  But only the difficulty end has been balanced.

I'll be adding some new playlists over the next day or two to address other imbalances in the videos.  For example, I have no idea off hand how many 2 Myachi tricks I have compared to 1 Myachi tricks.  Obviously I want there to be a lot more 1 Myachi moves, but I have no early warning sign that if I'm getting imbalanced there.  Similarly, I want there to be a lot more hand moves than foot moves, but I can't say off hand what the ratio of hand tricks and foot tricks is.

My thoughts at present are to create new playlists for all the "Clades" of tricks (trap; swap; body-cross; strike; etc.) and to create new playlists for 1, 2 and 3 Myachi moves.  I'll also add (or update) the hand tricks/foot tricks playlists.

But ultimately the system is only as good as the input.  I'm calling on you, the loyal reader, to help me decide what else to do.  Obviously, anyone who wants to put together a playlist can (assuming they have a You-Tube account) so what I'm looking for here isn't just ideas for cool playlists (although those are welcome).  What I'm really looking for is different ways to keep the thing balanced.  Having a hand trick/foot trick playlist will make it much easier for me to realize when I've been neglecting foot tricks or focusing on them too much, just as having playlists divided by difficulty level help me to see when I'm doing too many advanced moves.

Any suggestions?  Feel free to leave them in the comments section below or email me at crazyivan@myachi

It Was Bound to Happen Eventually

by Crazy Ivan

In my time with the company, I've earned something of a reputation as the "go-to-Myachi-geek" in many matters.  Don't get me wrong, we're all pretty fanatical about our love for the game (it's a requirement of the job), but when it comes to the details, I've always been the resource of choice.  It still cracks me up when Myachi Man will ask me which series a particular sack was in or what a particular trick is called.

Not sure why, but my brain really seems fond of keeping these details.  Myachi Man has the best collection in the company, but when it comes to knowing the names and series, that's my department.  Maverick is the trick-master of the team, no doubt, but when it comes to knowing the names of the tricks, that's my department.

No surprise that with all of this information running around in my head, some stuff is going to spill out.  Somewhere amongst the hundreds of sacks and thousands of tricks, I'm bound to get a neuron crossed from time to time.  On Tuesday, this happened in quite a public and undeniable fashion.

On Tuesday, our trick of the day was the "Grasshopper", a variation of the Flying Fish that is done from a Mantis.  The problem is that I misidentified the move as the "Flying Guppy".

The Flying Guppy is a move, of course.  It's a Flying Fish done from a stall on the forearm.  It's one of the first variations of the Flying Fish that we came up with and it's been a favorite of ours for years.  The Grasshopper came soon after and the cleverness of the name cemented it as a staple trick.  After all, it's a Mantis, but it hops.  Grasshopper is a pretty logical name for it.

But somehow, when I was doing the trick for the trick of the day, I misidentified it in the video and then again when I uploaded it to You-Tube.  I might never have noticed had it not been for the intervention of a couple of hard core maniacs from Jersey who pointed my error out to Kid Myach.

Upon hearing it, I kicked myself (which I'm pretty good at) and jumped on You-Tube to correct my mistake.  I edited the name of the move in the title, description and tags, but I couldn't exactly edit the audio of the video where I clearly refer to the move as the "Flying Guppy".

Because so many Myachi players know the game primarily from online sources, I suspect I've just created a misconception that will last forever.  Some people will call the Grasshopper the Flying Guppy now and despite the editing, I'm sure that there will be confusion here and there for years to come.

In a different set of circumstances I might have simply shrugged off the mistake.  I might have said, "Oh, well, I suppose I just accidentally changed the name of the Grasshopper" and let it go at that.  And I probably would have done that if it hadn't been for two factors:

1. The name "Grasshopper" is so incredibly perfect for that trick and
2. Kid Myach uploaded a popular video almost 2 years ago that showed a number of Flying Fish variations and in the video the Grasshopper is clearly marked, as is the Flying Guppy (though it is misspelled).

So all I can do now is apologize for the mistake and correct (most of) it.  I hope this doesn't turn into something like the "Electron M" fiasco, where a well meaning but misinformed Maniac identified the imaginary Electron M Myachi as the rarest in the world on Yahoo answers.  Despite the fact that this error was (eventually) corrected, it hung out unchallenged for so long that even now, more than a year after the correction, I still get people asking me if I have an "Electron M".

Anyway, sorry for the confusion and thanks to Zach and Rex for keeping track of me.  Stay vigilant... my brain is likely to misfire again in the future.

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.

Filming the Trick of the Day

by Crazy Ivan

So on yesterday's trick of the day video I kind of broke the illusion.  If you never went by anything but what you saw on You-Tube, you'd think I never dropped.  Of course, I figure most people know that this is the byproduct of me refilming the video if and when I drop.  But even if you know that, the illusion is still (more or less) there.

But on last night's video I messed up in the editing.  You don't actually see a drop, but at the very beginning of the video you hear me telling Pinky to "just keep rolling", which is clearly because I screwed up the last one.

We were doing a mad tough video and it actually took me four tries to get it.  Even when I did it was a pretty hum-drum catch I made, but we were too busy for me to try it again.  Then I got home after 13 hours of work and set to editing it.  To be perfectly honest, I was just trying to get it done as quickly as possible so that I could go to bed.  When I saw that the editing was less than perfect, I just shrugged and said "whatever".

I'm reminded of a recent TOTD video I did where Shadow guest starred (the Stiff Arm).  He watched me filming the intro and the first time around I dropped in my little intro shred.  He was blown away.  He'd never seen a Myachi Master drop before.  What was sad about the whole ordeal is that I dropped on something super easy at the time.  Can't recall what it was, but anyone who watches the Trick of the Day knows that my little intro shreds never contain really tough tricks... or at least, almost never.

So I figure it's time to fess up.  Yes.  I drop.  What's more, all the Myachi Masters drop.  And I'd hate for it to be any other way.  The reason it feels good to hit a hard trick is because of the long string of drops behind it.  It would be no fun to play the game if you hit every trick every time.  Sure, you'd never lose at MYACH, but you'd also never feel like you'd really accomplished anything.

As we're fond of saying in Myachi, dropping is a sign of learning.

10 Days Left!

by Crazy Ivan

Just a quick reminder about the YouTube Trick of the Day Video Contest (man, this thing needs a shorter name).  There are still 10 days left to enter your video to win.

Keep in mind that I've added several new Clipper variations since Mantis put up his video of 68 tricks (which still holds the lead).  The list on the original post about this contest has been updated with all the tricks from this week so there are a total of 93 tricks that you could now do in your video.

I should note that Mantis has all but guaranteed himself the win for one of the prizes.  One prize, of course, goes to the person who has the most tricks on a single, unedited video by the time the contest ends on June 7th (at midnight plus a minute).  The other will go to the person who leads for the longest period during the contest.

For a while it looked like Max might walk away with that one after he held the lead for 7 straight days (a lead he took from Mantis, by the way).  Mantis took the lead back a week later and has held it ever since.  This means that he has held the lead for a total of 9 days now compared to Max's 7.  Max could take the lead back now and really give him a rund for his money, but there's also time for a newcomer to sneak in and dominate the whole competition.  Holding the lead from now until the contests end would be just enough to knock Mantis out of the running.

Of course, that will take some considerable skill.  This week's Trick of the Day theme was a tough one, but next week we'll be doing some pretty basic elbow stalls and variations so it should be easy to pump up your total by a bit once these tricks start coming about.

So if you think you've got what it takes to earn two of the best jammers in my personal collection, by all means, click the link above, film your video and get in!  Remember, for your video to ocunt you MUST send me a link.  You can send it to me via email (crazyivan@myachi.com) or you can send it to me via pm on the Myachi Forum.

Good luck!

Yet Again, the Lead Changes

by Crazy Ivan
The You-Tube contest just keeps getting tougher.  After a solid week of Max dominating the competition I was starting to wonder if we'd already crowned our champion.

But the Mantis had something to say about it.  He uploaded a video late yesterday where he narrowly edged out Max's record of 60 consecutive "Tricks of the Day".  He upped the bar to 66 tricks with this video (he actually does 67 but the "Upper Cut" is not done to our exacting Myachi-specifications) which means that the contest has been blown wide open.



Now we don't want this contest to just be a one on one match between Max and Mantis.  Gold and Kickstand had some early submissions at the beginning of the contest, but I know there are still plenty of Maniacs out there that can best this video by Mantis.

Let's not go making it easy on him or anything!

Choosing the Trick of the Day

by Crazy Ivan


I've written before about choosing the Trick of the Day and some of the difficulties I have with it, but since we started our You Tube Trick of the Day Contest, a new set of complications have arisen.

See, when I pick the trick of the day, the biggest concerns usually revolve around how tough the trick should be.  I don't want the tricks of the day to be so tough that they're always useless to new players, but I also don't want them to be so easy that there's no reason for veteran players to check them out.

I skirt around that by and large by making the tricks a little tougher each day of the week, but that still doesn't solve the problem altogether.  I'm still left wondering how easy Monday's trick should be and how tough Friday's trick should be.  Wednesday's trick becomes something of a barometer of the week's theme so I'm often left scratching my head because my Wednesday trick is too easy or too hard.

Now, I add the new wrinkle of knowing that every trick I do is a possible addition to the stream of competing Trick of the Day Contest entries.  If I add a bunch of really easy tricks I'm allowing everyone to pad the numbers.  That's good because it allows people to stay competitive, but it's not exactly fair to the people who made their videos early and have to keep making more and more.

On the other hand, if I keep adding really tough tricks I'm not adding much to the contest at all.  That's not fair to anyone, especially if somebody mad skilled is already dominating the competition (not that that's a bad thing, Max...).

Today I did as easy a trick as I have on my list; the Pinocchio.  It's a simple nose stall that is basically an easier version of the Faceplant.



This is something that everyone competing in our contest can easily add to their next video to pump up their numbers.  But if I keep adding tricks of this remedial difficulty level I'm going to make it easy to best the existing record of 60 tricks.

I'm trying not to let the contest influence me too much.  I'm trying to just do the tricks I would probably do anyway, but I have to admit that I'm not doing that exactly.  I'd scheduled myself to do a week on Clipper Variations next week but for the sake of the contest I'll probably put that off for a bit.  Of course,  I also have to keep in mind that the vast majority of the people watching these videos aren't competing in the Trick of the Day contest, so I also have to remember to give those people what they want as well.

Not sure what the point of writing this was if not to simply bemoan my unforeseen dilemma.  The truth is that any new angle on the Trick of the Day makes it more fun so I welcome the challenge.  I guess if I didn't enjoy a challenge, I probably wouldn't do this job.

My Trick of the Day Dilemma

by Crazy Ivan


As many, most or all of you know, every weekday I upload a new instructional Myachi video to You-Tube.  We started doing the "Trick of the Day" back in November of last year but at first we just used the trick videos we already had on YouTube.  That ran out pretty quickly so in January I began adding new videos and have been doing so ever since.

Early on, we started doing themes for each week so that all the tricks would compliment one another throughout the week.  This also allowed me to make each move progressively harder than the last, though that has led to the inevitable arguments about the comparative difficulty of some tricks.

But there's another problem that the theme has created that I didn't foresee, which leads me to my present dilemma.  Namely, there are too darned many tricks.

Not the type of Trix I was talking about...

A few weeks ago I had a Maniac request a particular move for the Trick of the Day video.  The Butterfly Stall to be exact.  I knew that was a super popular move that should really be enshrined in the Trick of the Day but at the time I'd already planned out the next couple of weeks worth of themes and there was nowhere to stick it in.

Eventually I decided to do a week on "Step Over" variations and sneak the Butterfly Stall in somewhere at the end.  Technically the Butterfly isn't a Step-Over variation, but I reasoned that since I couldn't think of 5 Step Over variations off hand that I would need to augment the week with something else.

But then the week came and by then I'd had a lot more time to think about various Step Over variations.  Turned out that I was far from having the "not-enough-to-fill-the-week" problem.  Instead, I found myself in the far more common position of "not-enough-week-for-all-the-tricks" conundrum.

So now I'm seeing that there's no way I can squeeze the Butterfly Stall into the tricks this week.  Instead, I'll be doing a theme on "Clipper Variations" in an upcoming week and I'll probably use both the Butterfly Stall and the Butterfly Kick along with some of the other much beloved ways of making the already challenging Clipper Delay even more challenging.

Again, not the Buttefly Stall we were talking about...

Of course, I don't want to follow up a week of foot tricks with another week of foot tricks so I'll have to wait at least another week and a half before I get started on these moves.  On top of that I've got at least half a dozen themes I put off so that I could get this "Step Over" variation week in.

It's funny that when I first suggested that we start doing a trick of the day, the majority concern would be that we might run out of tricks to describe.  I heard that concern voiced by Maniacs, business partners and even Myachi Masters (who should know better).  Nobody ever voiced a concern that there wouldn't be enough days in the week.

I'm writing this article because I feel like I should explain to those people who have sent requests (sometimes repeated requests) for particular tricks on the "Trick of the Day".  It's not that I'm ignoring you or sticking your ideas on the back burner, it's just that I already have a huge back log of themes and tricks that I've still got to do for people that made requests before you.

Perhaps one week soon I'll just play catch up and have a week where the theme is "Tricks I Should Have Uploaded Long Ago" so that I can just knock out 5 of them without worrying about the theme.  Until then, I apologize and appreciate your patience.

All the Tricks

by Crazy Ivan

One of the cool things about Myachi (if not the coolest thing) is that you never run out of tricks.  Sure, you may someday reach a point where you stop challenging yourself to learn ever tougher moves, but it won't be because there are no tougher moves to learn.

Got an e-mail the other day from a fan of the game who lives in Atlanta, Georgia and has been avidly following our "Trick of the Day" videos.  He started off with some effusive praise for the Myachi movement (always welcome) but then he expressed concern about the trick of the day.

Rather than summarize, I'll just quote the pertinent part of the e-mail:

My concern is that [if] you promise a new trick every day, eventually [you're] going to run out and have to disappoint people.  Eventually you'll have to start reusing the same tricks so maybe you should just do a new trick every week or maybe you should only do it for a year.

Well, I appreciate the concern for my job security and all, but I can assure this Myachi Maniac and all others that we're never going to start running dry on Myachi tricks.  The trick of the day can keep going until long after I'm too old to do it anymore.

But it's not just one or two random fans of the game that have expressed this concern.  Even Myachi Man regarded the idea with a bit of skepticism when I first brought it to him.  He felt like a new trick every day might be a bit too ambitious.  I said how about Monday through Friday (everybody needs time off after all) but even then he was left scratching his head.

Maverick expressed a similar concern the other day.  "I know you're not close to running out now, but how long can you really go with this?  A year?  Maybe two?"

Given the wide range of knowledgeable people who have expressed their doubts, I figured it would be fair to address this concern publicly.  As I assured Myachi Man and Maverick, the Trick of the Day can stay fresh for years to come.  There is solid proof and it exists in the form of a small notebook I have where I track every possible trick I can think of.  It contains well over 100,000 tricks and it doesn't include any moves that use 2 or more Myachis, moves that use 2 or more people or moves that use the Myachi along with another object (like a cup or basketball, for instance).

There are well over 100 thousand moves in my book, but even if it was "only" 100,000, that gives me enough tricks to do a trick of the day 5 days a week for almost four more centuries and even with all the advancements in medical science I don't think I'll make it that far.

If by some miracle I do make it to the ripe old age of 419 and am still in good enough physical condition to do the trick of the day video, fear not.  I will have used some multi-sack tricks along the way to bide my time.

Gauging Difficulty

by Crazy Ivan

As I'm sure many of you know, I put a new trick on You-Tube every weekday.  Each week we'll select a them and then I'll put up videos for 5 different tricks in that theme, each one a bit more difficult than the last one.

That works out well because it means that beginners will usually get at least one trick they can do each week, but veterans will probably get at least one new move that will challenge them each week.  Of course, with some themes there aren't any beginner moves and for some there aren't any really advanced moves, but usually it works out really well.

But sometimes I'm left with making pretty arbitrary calls between similar moves.  Once I select the theme for the week I'll usually figure out which 5 moves I want to use and then order them by difficulty.  Usually that's pretty easy, but sometimes you really have to scratch your head.

A perfect example of that came up twice last week.  The theme was Foot Variations and the five moves were the Shoe-Snap, the Step Over, the Gui, the Osis and the Pendulum.  Ultimately, that was the order that they showed up in, but that order was the subject of a couple of debates: (a) which is easier, the Shoe-Snap or the Step Over and (b) which is harder, the Osis or the Pendulum.

Of course, "hardness" is a relative measurement and it changes from person to person.  I got a lot of feedback from people this week telling me I'd gotten it wrong and that the Osis was much more difficult than the Pendulum.  I even had people telling me that the Gui was harder than the Osis so there were plenty of disagreements to go around.

And, in their defense, all of these people were correct.  For them, the Osis is harder than the Pendulum (or the Gui is harder than the Osis).  The relative difficulty of a move is different from person to person.  For somebody who is naturally flexible and really thin, a move like the Yoga is probably easier than a move like the Mantis.  For somebody who isn't very flexible and a bit thicker, the Mantis is probably going to be way easier than the Yoga.

In Myachi, we're often left to divide Myachi tricks up into "echelons" like Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced.  A spectacular failure to do this correctly can be seen right now on the new myachi.com where tricks were seemingly randomly fitted into various difficulty ranks.  Even on the DVD where Myachi was in direct control there are some pretty questionable inclusions in the beginner and advanced levels.

Clearly, there are moves that we can all agree are beginner tricks (Cradle, Cold Fusion, Trampoline, Hulk, etc.) and moves that we can all agree are advanced (Crypto, Jedi, Space Cowboy, Double Swordfish, etc.), but if you had to rank those specific moves in order of difficulty, it would be much tougher.  Is a Cradle harder or easier than a Hulk?  Is a Crypto harder or easier than a Jedi?  Clearly there is no precise answer to this one.

This is the position that I often find myself in while ordering the Tricks of the Day.  I usually know which trick should go first and which should go last, but a lot of times those middle ones are real head-scratchers.  I will admit freely that I don't always get it right and that much of the time there probably is no "right".  I honestly don't stress over it all that much.

There is an important element to this whole thing.  See, I talked to some kids the other day on Facebook and they told me that sometimes if the Wednesday trick is too hard they don't bother trying the Thursday or Friday trick.  I suppose that makes sense.  If you can't get the trick I present on Wednesday then it stands to reason that you'll have even more trouble with the Thursday and Friday moves.

But this isn't always true.  When I judge the difficulty level I try to think of the "average" person who isn't particularly flexible, who doesn't have particularly broad wrists or forearms, that doesn't have unusually fast hands, that doesn't have unusually developed foot skills and that doesn't have any other natural advantage to any particular move.  The thing is, though, that nobody's average.  Everyone will have some advantage in some type of trick.

So to those people who don't try the late in the week tricks, I say have at it.  First of all you have nothing to lose, but secondly, you may find that you're one of those lucky, freakish individuals that nails a Clipper Delay the first time they try it.  You may be far more flexible than you realized or you may just have a much better than average catch.

And to those that wrote in to tell me that the Pendulum was easier than the Osis, I offer a shrug and a nod.  I'll never get the order right enough that it suits everybody, but I'll continue to do my best.  And part of doing your best is being humble enough to accept it when people tell you got something wrong.  So keep the feedback coming, both positive and negative.

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.