Before you begin to learn the Charge, it's helpful to understand the processes involved in this trick. Although this trick is relatively simple, understanding its principles may make it easier to learn.

There are basically three necessary steps involved in this trick: The initial force, the push, and the pull (I'll add an extra step to facilitate the teaching, but that's not necessary after you learned the trick). Here's basically what happens when you do the Charge. First, you give the pen an initial force, which is used to first move the pen in an arched motion or half rotation. Then, when the pen reaches the end of this arc, you pull the pen (I'll have more details below). This will keep the pen moving (if you don't do this, the pen will just stop and the trick is over). After the pull the pen will do another half rotation, and will start to stop. When that is about to happen, you push the pen, which causes the pen to do another half rotation and restarts the trick. After that half rotation is over, you just repeat the process of pulling and pushing to keep the pen spinning.

Here, I'll only teach one way to apply the initial force. There are many different ways (see Notes below), but I find this one most useful. Before we begin, it's important that you hold the pen in the appropriate manner, so I added an extra step in the beginning...

First, hold your pen with your middle and ring finger (the pen touching the top joint of both fingers, see Figure 1). This position should make the pen perpendicular to your hand (1)

To get the pen in the starting position, fold your ring finger a little (see no.1 on Figure 2). Try to fold the finger by its lower joint(2). That is, not the whole finger, just two thirds of it. This should make your pen to be in a position that is almost parallel to your hand. This is the starting position .

Before starting this step, make sure you have the pen in the appropriate Starting Position.

Straighten your ring finger now. This should not be only a forward movement of your finger; it should be also a little upwards (1). Your finger should push the pen and cause it to spin about 120 degrees, passing the perpendicular position (Figure 1). The pen should spin in an arched motion (Figure 3). The upward pressure is what makes the pen spin in a circular way, instead of straight. Be careful about putting too much force here, or the pen might "fly". The key here is to hold the pen loose enough for it to rotate, and yet tight enough so the pen doesn't fall. Try this step several times, varying the amount of force applied.

Proceed to step 3 after you can apply this Initial Force and make the pen spin 120 degrees in an arc (not straight horizontally or vertically).

RIGHT After step 2, fold your ring finger. Do it in a similar manner described in Step 1 (the Starting Position), only this time add an upward pressure (1). This will pull the pen and should cause it to spin further (again, in a arched motion. See Figure 4). However, don't fold the finger too much. If you do, you'll lose the grip and it might cause the pen to fall. The TIMING here is very important. You should fold your ring finger right after step 2, or the pen will naturally fall back to the perpendicular position (Figure 1) . On the other hand, if you fold your finger too early, the pen will move straight up, and not in a circular motion. Try this step several times varying the timing until you can get a "feel" for it. How far should the pen spin this time? At least 90 degrees. After passing the twelve o'clock position (vertical), the rest of the spin is completed by the gravity and you don't have to worry (Figure 5). Just let the fingers loose for the pen to spin naturally.

Note: Although for Step 1 you can fold the ring finger slowly, this step requires you to fold the finger in a smaller and quicker motion.

After Step 3 ends, you have completed one spin. Also, you probably noticed that you are back to the Starting Position (as shown in Figure 5), which is the starting position for another spin. Here, you'll do the same as step 2.

Straighten your ring finger RIGHT after step 3 (if you need, use Figure 3 as reference). This should move the pen forward in a circular motion (just like in step 2 - the Initial Force). Although not as important in this step, an upward pressure will help the pen move in an arc. The TIMING, again, is very important. There should NOT be a pause, or the trick won't come out smooth. Also, the same things as Step 3 could happen if you push too late or too early.

After finishing this step, I hope you have noticed that you are ready for Step 3 (the Pull) again. Just keep repeating steps 3 and 4 and you learned the Charge.

- You probably noticed that the only two fingers involved in this trick are the middle and ring fingers. Although the middle finger participates, it only helps support the pen (and it should be fixed, not moving). The ring finger is the one that does all the work.

- In the beginning, you probably won't be able to do more than two spins. That is very natural. The pen will probably tend to dislocate a little after each spin, until you no longer can hold it or spin it. It may take several months until you can perform the Charge smoothly and contiuously. Two things are worth mentioning here. First, make sure that your ring finger is doing all the work and that your middle finger is not moving. Why is this important? Well, everytime you do the push the pen dislocates a little in one direction. When you do the pull step, the pen dislocates a little in the opposite direction, which puts the pen back in place. If you are not using the same finger to both push and pull, the pen will dislocate more towards one direction and will end up falling. Also, if the pressures applied for the push and the pull are not the same, the pen will also dislocate. The second factor that might affect the quality and the time of your spin is the angle of your hand. This is a very simple, yet easily overlooked factor to consider. If you are not holding your hand in a perfectly vertical position, the gravity will act upon one side of the pen and will dislocate it slowly, making it impossible to continue spinning.

- There are several ways to apply the initial force. Depending on which one you use, the next step will be to either push or to pull. If you push first, then you'll have to pull next and if you pull first, then you'll have to push next. As I said before, the push step leads to the pull step, and the pull step leads to the push step. For example, you can use a Sonic to give the Initial Force. After the Sonic finishes, you'll need to push the pen, then pull, push, pull, and so on. I hope that by now you can see that it doesn't matter which one of these two steps you do first, since you'll be repeating them over and over.

- In the beginning, try this trick with a light pen. Your fingers might not yet have the strength to handle a heavy pen.

- A good trick to learn after you learned the Charge is the Sonic. If you already knew the Sonic, the Charge should have been easier to learn, and if you know the Charge, it will be easier to learn the Sonic. This interesting phenomenon is because both tricks share similar circular motions. If you learn the Sonic after the Charge, you'll notice that the quality of your Charge will improve and vice-versa.

- Variations are a good option if you mastered the Charge. You can do the Charge in many different ways; each of which is one variation of the basic Charge taught here. I won't teach all variations here because they are very similar and there are just way too many too teach. All the variations (that I have been able to do) are as follow:

Charge-12-Normal (between index and middle fingers)
Charge-23-Normal (between middle and ring fingers) - This trick.
Charge-34-Normal (between ring and little fingers)
Charge-12-Reverse (between index and middle fingers)
Charge-23-Reverse (between middle and ring fingers)
Charge-34-Reverse (between ring and little fingers)

I have not yet been able to do any of the variations between the Thumb and Index fingers, but you can try. Also, you double the number of variations if you do them with your other hand.