The Big Air Catch

by Crazy Ivan

It was about 2005 when we in the Myachi world became obssessed with setting records.  Of course, at that time virtually anything that you did would be a record (since nobody else had done it before), but it was around that point when we set out to create "base lines" for all the most obvious records.

The notion was that we didn't want somebody doing a trick 4 times in a row and setting a record.  We wanted to up all the records to the point that you would at least have to put in some effort before you could claim a record as your own.

The idea was that I would focus on the trick records, Kid Myach would focus on the accuracy records and Myachi Man would focus on the catching records.  So I set out to see how many Cold Fusions I could do in 60 seconds and how many consecutive In-Spins I could do before I barfed and passed out.  Kid Myach inched further and further away from a golf target to push the boundaries of the longest accurate toss.  Myachi Man, on the other hand, couldn't do much on his own.

It's certainly not that Myachi Man lacked skill.  When it comes to catching Myachis, I would submit that his skills are still unrivaled in the Myachi world.  But catch records generally require two people.  You're not going to set any remarkable long distance toss and catch records if you have to throw to yourself.

So Kid and I helped out when Myachi Man set his base lines.  There were plenty of records to set but the three that seemed most important were Catching from a Long Toss, Catching from a Long Kick and Catching from a High Drop.

The first two were as much about the pitcher as the catcher.  Myachi Man and all his catching skills wouldn't mean much if nobody could get an accurate throw to him.  Clearly, Kid Myach was the man for this job, though I stepped in as the designated punter when it came time to set the kick-to-a-catch record.  I can't recall exactly how far we got back then, though I can say with certainty that all of our early records have since been smashed.

Except for the Big Air Catch.

The first time we set this record was at Kitty Hawk Kites in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  At their flagship store they have a six story tall observation tower and perpetual high winds so we figured it would be a fun point of departure for this particular record.  Myachi Man got it first, but it was so fun that the rest of us had to get in on the action and before long the six-story drop to a catch was a record shared between half a dozen people.  At a certain point it became something of a rite of passage for new Myachi Masters to catch a sack off the KHK Tower.

That record probably stood for over a year, but when you're in New York City there's always a quick and easy way to push the envelope on that record so eventually we utilized balconies from 8 stories up then 10 and eventually we went all the way up to fourteen floors.  Each time, it would begin with Myachi Man breaking his old record and the rest of us scrambling to catch up.

At the moment, the record remains at 14 stories.  It was set at the home of a Myachi Manaic (with the alphabetically dominate name of Aaron).  I took the first half dozen tries, but from that height there is so much wind to factor in that you've really got to be on your toes to make the catch.  After several tries, Myachi Man and I swapped places and I went upstairs to toss Myachis down to him.

He caught the very first try.  And the second.  And the third.  He missed the fourth, but then caught the fifth just to prove it was a fluke.

To my knowledge, nobody has yet bested this record and shy of several affiliated witnesses on site, we'd really have to see video of such an event before we could count it as the true record.  See, all of the other records have been passed around.  While I still hold many of the trick records, in almost every case it's only because I defended my record after someone else beat it.  In fact, some of these trick records I've had to reset as many as half a dozen times.

But as far as I'm aware, Myachi Man has held the Big Air Catch record steadily for over 6 years.  It leads one to ask why?

There are three reasons of course, and they're all pretty obvious.  The first is that Myachi Man is awesome and he's been catching things on the back of his hand for more than 20 years.  The second is the fact that unless you're in a pretty substantial city there probably aren't many ways to toss a Myachi from more than 14 floors up.  But the third is the real stickler: Catching a Myachi from 14 floors up is really, really hard.

You might not think it would be such a challenge.  After all, catching a Myachi is catching a Myachi whether it's coming from 5 feet up or 100.  But, of course, the further the Myachi falls, the faster it will be going when it hits the ground.  The other big problem is that Myachis don't fall straight down.  They spin, they twist and from that height they almost invariably get caught in the wind.

The trick to catching a big air toss is simple to explain even if it isn't simple to do.  The higher the drop, the shorter and faster the "give".

As we all know, catching a Myachi is like catching an egg.  The trick is in absorbing the impact by bringing your hand down with the Myachi.  This keeps it from bouncing or sliding and forces the sack to land firmly on your hand.  When you're throwing four or five feet in the air, the speed of your "give" can be whatever you want.  But when the Myachi is coming from 6 or more flights up, it's going extremely fast.  To catch it properly and consistently, your hand will have to be moving down just as fast as that Myachi when it hits.

Matching the speed of the Myachi can be really tough.  Your hand has to go from stationary to terminal velocity in a fraction of a second.  This is where your second problem arises.  If your hand is moving that fast, it will move a long way really fast.

To counterbalance this, you need to shorten your "give" considerably.  In a normal throw my hand can come down 2 inches or 2 feet and it won't really matter.  In a Big Air catch you have to have a pretty precise drop.  You'll want to keep the drop as short and fast as humanly possible.

The only way to really master this is to do it over and over again and practicing can be pretty tough.  First off, you need a big building or tower you can drop Myachis off of.  That's easier said than done.  But the other thing you need is somebody at the top of that building to drop Myachis for you.  But there's another element you'll need to really get to practicing: a whole bunch of Myachis.

Think about it.  Imagine that the person at the top has, say, six Myachis.  That means you can try the catch six times, but after that you have to get the Myachis all the way back up to the top.  That can really slow things down and make it a huge pain to keep practicing.  If you have to take a fifteen minute elevator ride every seventh catch, odds are you or your pitcher are going to get sick of practicing pretty quick.

Myachi Man didn't really have to deal with this problem.  When he wanted to practice I could just go to the top of a parking garage with a box of 50 Myachis and toss them down until he got bored.  Having a lot of Myachis at your disposal continues to be the biggest perk of my job... well, other than getting paid to write stuff like this.

I think all of us accept (and hope) that our records will all be smashed someday.  If 50 years from now I still held the fastest Cold Fusion record that would represent a horrible failure of STWAKOJ (or several generations of really slow kids) and likewise I'm sure Myachi Man is looking forward to someone truly challenging him for the Big Air title.  If nothing else, it's a lot of fun to try to get your record back.

But some people don't feel that way.  Some people set a record and hope that it will stand forever.  If that sounds like you, I suppose there's a way to manage that as well.  You just have to practice really hard, get a bunch of Myachis and make friends with the dude in this video:

(Warning: Do not watch if you're afraid of heights)



...kind of makes you wonder why he bothers with the helmet, huh?