Pentix is a web site dedicated to the art of "pen spinning". If you ever saw someone in your classroom twirling his pen casually, or someone making his/her pen go around the Thumb, you have already seen pen spinning in action. The objective of this page is to teach you how to spin a pen the easiest way possible. To achieve this goal, there are several descriptions, videos and even discussion boards available in this site. All the resources found here are free and the author's only goal is to share his knowledge about pen spinning with others.

Pen spinning is a form of contact juggling that uses a small object, like a pen or a pencil, to perform different tricks that not only sharpen your skills, but also amaze people.

There are several reasons why one should learning pen spinning. These are described below. At first, it may seem that pen spinning has no real uses, but if you take a deeper look at it, you'll find many benefits.

First, Pen Spinning will improve the coordination of your hand(s). If you stick to pen spinning and practice it regularly, you will acquire a very useful skill, the total control over your hands and fingers. This is useful in many areas. For example, if you are an artist, your fingers will have more control over a pen, thus improving the quality of your drawings. If you are a craftsman, you'll be able to use your fingers more effectively for the detail oriented work. Also, if you are in any field where the use of your hands is the essential, such as sleight-of-hand magic, juggling, or crooked gambling, pen spinning can definitely be very beneficial. And even in areas where your hands are not the very important, but are still required, pen spinning can help you improve your efficiency. Examples are the medical surgeon who uses his hand to perform delicate cuts in his patients, or the the office clerk who uses her typing skills everyday. These people can all benefit from practicing pen spinning.

Second, Pen Spinning can improve your patience and teach you how to learn from your own mistakes. Just like martial arts, pen spinning requires practice (and I mean a lot of practice). No one person can learn pen spinning on the first try. If you stick to pen spinning, you will realize that anytime you learn something new, whether it be a pen trick or something in school or real life, you are likely to fail at it first. Failure, however, is not useless. On the contrary, failure on the first few tries will show you what you are doing wrong and teach you how to correct your mistakes. Because of the frequent failure that you may experience in pen spinning, you will be more capable of learning from your mistakes. You will also have a different perspective on mistakes and failure. This will teach you to have more patience and not give up on the first mistakes you commit in life.

Finally, one should learn pen spinning because it is part of the human nature. If you think about it, the two things that make humans superior than any other animal species on earth are the brain and the hand. The difference between humans and other animals' brains is that the human brain can think logically. Animals have the ability to learn from their experience. They know how to distinguish between something that they previously learned to be dangerous from something that they know it's harmless. However, they might not understand the whys of these relationships. The more developed human brain allowed humans to survive against bigger and stronger animals during our evolution. The human hand, just like the brain, is a factor that helped humans survive. The simple fact that the Thumb can fold in an opposite direction than the other fingers is enough to make the human hand superior than many animals. Imagine a dog trying to carry an object with his paw. He just can't. Like dogs, many other animals have to use their mouth to carry and otherwise manipulate objects. Humans can do all that and much more with their hands. I remember one time when I was in the Zoo and I was really bored. I was close to the monkeys area and I saw someone tossing a wrapped candy to one of the monkeys. I was young at the time, but I thought to myself, "How stupid, the monkey can't eat a wrapped candy..." To my surprise, not only the monkey managed to catch the candy in the air (a pretty amazing feat I thought), but he also unwrapped the candy and put it in his mouth. Obviously, any other animal in that situation would not be able to eat that candy, but the monkey with his evolved hands, managed to eat it so easily that I was astound. If you never noticed, a monkey's hand is almost identical to human hands, and that's what makes them so useful. I believe that it's crucial that we develop our skills and control over our hands. Not just because it's helpful, but because it's important to our survival.

There's not a simple answer to this question. Different people have different tastes, so each person might like a different pen. Until now, there's no unanimous agreement on which pen is the best for spinning. I personally prefer the Pentel RSVP, but there are others who said the Pentel Sharplet-2 is also pretty good, and even people who like just a simple No.2 pencil. There are several aspects to consider when choosing a pen: the length, the thickness, the center of balance (COP), and the texture.

Most people will agree that a longer pen is better for most tricks. The thickness, however, is pretty much a question of taste. Some people like thicker pen while others like thin pens. I'm still doing some research on this, but I'm almost certain that some tricks are better done with a thick pen, while others require a thinner pen. Now, the COP should be preferably towards the center. This allows you to easily perform both normal and reverse variations of a trick. The texture is another factor that is very controversial. Some people prefer a pen that has a better grip while others prefer a more smooth pen (meaning more slippery). I believe this is also relative to the trick you are doing.

If you are trying to choose a pen, a good rule of thumb is to go with one that is more balanced. That means that the pen should not be too long or too short. It should not be too thick or too thin. It should have a COP towards the center, and it should not be too grippy or too slippery.

This web site gives you lots of options. If you want to learn a new trick, you can go to the Tricks section and choose a trick. There, you will have detailed descriptions that you can read along with a pen and try it out for yourself. You can also see the animated version of the tricks in the Videos section. This section gives you a better idea of how a trick should look like. But sometimes just reading and watching the videos isn't enough for one to learn a trick. That's why I created the Forum section. There, you can discuss of your difficulties with other pen spinners and get responses from pen spinners all around the world. One of the best ways to learn pen spinning, however, is by having someone teach you personally. To facilitate that, I created the Pen Spinners section, which lists several pen spinners along with their location. You might be lucky and find someone who lives near you and can teach you the trick you are trying to learn.

The easy ones. No..really, this depends on what trick you are looking forward to learn. For example, you may want to learn something impressive like the Triple ThumbSpin. In that case, it makes no sense to start by learning the Sonic. However, if you don't have any trick in particular that you want to learn, any basic trick should do. Most people get frustrated with the large amount of tricks there are, and they often end up trying to learn the most difficult tricks (which are the most impressive ones) first.

I have compiled a chart listing what I believe to be a good learning order for the pen tricks listed in this site. Click here to see the chart.

Up to this date, there's no standard or convention for naming pen spinning tricks. Around the web, different sites/people use different names to call the same trick. I've tried my best to stick to whatever name is the most popular. However, it's also my goal to have a standard naming convention that follows tradition and is also easy to understand. If you are confused about the names I use here, or is having a hard time findind a particular trick that you saw on another web site, please take a look at the 'Name Tricks Table'. I've included in there the names for all the tricks in this site and their respective names on other sites.

Because there are so many tricks in pen spinning, it is useful to separate similar tricks in groups. I like to call these groups "families". Each family consists of several members and a common trait. The members are the different tricks that belong to each family. The common trait is a specific characteristic that all members in a family have in common. For example, all members of the 360 Degree family are tricks that involve the pen spinning at one circle around one specific finger (which finger is irrelevant). There will be more details regarding the common traits of each family.

There are a few possibilities here.
1) The trick is under a different name.
2) The author is aware of the trick, but due to his lack of skill/knowledge on the trick, he is unable to post the trick on this site.
3) The trick is something completely new and the author is unaware of it.

If you can't find a trick, try first looking at the 'Trick Names Table'. If you saw the trick on another web site, it's most likely that you'll be able to find its name on this page (doesn't necessarily means that the trick is available on this site). If after looking through the page you still can't find the trick, feel free to contact me. However, you'll have a better chance of getting a response if you post your question to the Forum (someone might know the trick and the responses are usually faster than contacting me directly).

I'm more than willing to help people learn pen tricks. If you feel there's a need to talk to me personally about a particular trick, feel free to contact me. However, for two reasons, I would prefer that you post any questions regarding specific tricks to the Forums.

The first reason is the fact that I receive a large number of e-mails regarding specific tricks. If I were to answer all of them personally, I would not have time to maintain this web site and keep updating it with new content.

The second reason is the fact that more people can benefit from your question when it is posted on the Forum. Many pen spinners may have the same question about a specific trick. By posting the question on the Forum, you are not only benefiting more people, but you may get more responses as well.

The answer to this question is yes. Some people (actually most people) are not born with very flexible and independent fingers. By that, I mean that they can't move each finger independently at will (especially the little finger and ring finger). Most of the time, this isn't a problem, but for some tricks, like the FingerPass, some Charges, and others, this can make it difficult to learn the trick.

After years learning different hobbies, most of them which involved manipulation, I came across some good methods for exercising the independence of your fingers. My favorite is described below, and comes from Secrets of the Card Sharps, a book on card cheating, by Gerard Majax.

All you do is fold each finger individually by its lower knuckle, without moving the other fingers, as shown in the picture. Although this sounds simple, it's not an easy task to accomplish and regular practice is needed.

With time, this exercise becomes easier, and moving your fingers independently becomes second nature. But best of all, the tricks you were trying to learn now become a lot easier to perform.

Note: Do not overdo this exercise. Also, make sure to stretch and relax your fingers after every 30 seconds.