Revisiting

by Crazy Ivan


Sometimes it's a real struggle to come up with the right analogies for this blog.  I know that our loyal readers range in age from as young as 9 to as old as 50+, so occasionally it can be tough to think of an analogy that will be meaningful to people of such vastly different ages.  But on this occasion, I think I've got one that people can look at from either side of and relate to.

For my older readers, think of a niece, nephew or the child of an old friend that you only see once in a while.  You might only see them once every few years so when you do, it's always amazing how much they've grown.  Their parents don't see it the way you do because they see them growing gradually every day, but for you it seems to happen all at once.

And for my younger readers, think about it from the other side.  Consider an aunt, uncle or old friend of your mom's who you only see once every few years.  What's the first thing they say when they see you?  They're shocked at how big you are, as though growing were unexpected behavior from a child.  You know that they know kids get bigger over the years, but they still seem surprised because it seems to them to have happened all at once.

So with that in mind, let's turn back to Myachi.

As many of you know, Pinky and I spent a week in the Outer Banks of North Carolina (my second favorite place on earth) a couple of weeks back.  We were touring around to all the Kitty Hawk Kites locations, promoting Myachi and teaching their employees how to play the game.  It was an awesome week and I wish we could've stayed for a month, but that's beside the point.

While we were there, I got a chance to see an old friend I hadn't seen in several years.  He's a Myachi fan from way back and knew the game even before I did.  He's been working with KHK for years now and first came to the game when Kid Myach was demoing in the store back in 2001.  Over the years Kid and I have dropped in on the area about once a year, but there was a period for about 3 years when neither of us made it our there and there was no real Myachi mania in the area.

Now fast forward to this year and an evening last week when Doug, Pinky and I all got a chance to hang out and have a cookout.  We reminisced over old times, drowned a few overcooked burgers in ketchup, drooled over his incredible collection of paper tags and caught up on all the intervening years.  At a certain point, of course, we started jamming.

And here's where we reach that analogy.  Doug was like the uncle who was seeing his suddenly much larger nephew.  The game had grown so much in the few years since I'd seen him that he hardly recognized any of the moves in my jam.  So much had changed that what used to be a master level move was now simply the opening salvo in an endless array of combos.

He had never seen a split trick, a merge, a splurge or a portal.  He'd never seen a variation on the Daredevil or a multi Myachi duck trick.  He'd never seen any juggling trick beyond a three Myachi cascade.  He'd never seen a variation on the Matrix.  He'd never seen the Jedi, the Pteradon, the Flying Fish, the Psycho, the Maverick, the Houdini, the Tripod, the Do-What, the Armageddon or the Stopwatch.  He'd never seen a three Myachi routine that incorporated simultaneous foot and hand tricks.  He'd never even seen the Matrix Reloaded.

And this is a guy who used to really know the game.  He just stared in amazement, flabergasted by how big the game had gotten in his absence.  And I felt like the kid seeing his uncle again.  Didn't he expect the game to grow?  Didn't he know that new tricks, variations and games would appear?  Well of course he did.  I see the slow growth that happens every day and even I am shocked when I look back at how much has changed.  But to be presented with it all at once would shock anyone, I suppose.

And of course, when you look at the past, you can't help but eventually glance over your shoulder at the future and wonder what new level of tricks we'll be showing Doug in 2015.