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