Interviews are very interesting to read. It's real pen spinners' views on pen spinning. I try my best to get them for you so here you go...

Kam Interview

Kam (Fernando Kuo) is a highly acknowledged member of the pen spinning clan! He dedicates a lot of his time to pen spinning and I have a lot of respect for him. His website Pentix is a well-known site among pen spinners and should be a definite place for you to visit. Here’s our exclusive interview:

First off, before we start I would like to thank you Kam, for taking your time to take this interview.

AC: What inspired you to start pen spinning?
Kam: This may sound obvious, but like many pen spinners, I started spinning pens after watching others do it. I have always been intrigued by things that others could do and I couldn’t. I was fortunate to have people willing to teach me the basic tricks back when I lived in Taiwan.

AC: Where do you see yourself in the world of pen spinning?
Kam: If you’re asking about skill level, I don’t consider myself as the best pen spinner. I know there are many people who are just as good as I am (if not better). I do believe, however, that I had a great impact in the world of pen spinning. Pen spinning has always been popular among Asian cultures, but with the creation of Pentix, I think I made this art better known to countries in America and Europe too.

AC: Do you think that pen spinning is under-rated?
Kam: Most definitely. Most people are only aware of a few tricks in Pen Spinning, and they think of Pen Spinning as something that only bored students do. In reality, pen spinning is a form of art that requires a lot of creativity and patience. Since the beginning, I already knew that most people wouldn’t take Pen Spinning seriously, so I was determined to make a website so professional and well designed that people simply couldn’t ignore it. I think I finally achieved that (Pentix is a proud winner of the Golden Web Award) and made Pen Spinning more popular than ever.

AC: What are your most and least favourite tricks?
Kam: My favourite trick of all time would be David Weis’s “Reverse to BackAround.” This trick (combo, actually) is one of the most original tricks I’ve seen. Not only is stylish, but it also introduced some revolutionary concepts to pen spinning.

I do not have a least favourite trick, but I do have a group of tricks that I try to avoid. These would be any Sonic variations. I do not mind the original Sonic at all, nor do I have anything personal against these tricks. The reason I do not like to use them is because there are too many variations of the Sonic, most of which look the same. They are really not that hard to come up with, and do not add to the style of combos. There are many beginners that fall in the trap of learning some variations of the Sonic, and then putting them all together in the same combo. There is really no point in using all these variations together because they all look the same to laymen (and to most pen spinners as well).

AC: How would you overcome difficult tricks?
Kam: Well, I try to make them easier :) Persistent practice and a systematical approach can make even the hardest tricks possible. Here are a couple examples:
1) If I want to learn a trick that requires a very precise timing, I start by practicing the trick using a very long pencil, which makes it spin slower, giving you more time to accomplish the trick. Once I get the timing down with a long pencil, I shorten the length of the pencil and practice again until I get used to the faster timing. If I keep doing this (decreasing the length of the pencil every time), I know that I will eventually learn the trick. It may be very time consuming, but it is better than trying to grasp the fast timing from the start, which often leads to excessive frustration.
2) Lets suppose that I want to learn a complex combo (linkage of several simple tricks). Instead of trying to link everything from beginning to end, what I will usually do is break down the larger combo into smaller ones, and practice them individually. Once I learn how to link each small combo, I can work on putting it all together into the complex combo. Again, breaking it down makes it simpler and save a lot of frustration.

AC: How did your “big break” come in pen spinning?
Kam: I was once like many pen spinners, who learned a few tricks and thought that that was it. I didn’t think there were more to pen spinning than what I had learned. But one day I realized that I could switch the fingers used in one trick and create another one that had a complete different look. That was when I came up with the Index Spin. Soon after, I thought, “if I can come up with something new just by switching some fingers, why can’t somebody else? There must be others who have done it.” Of course there were. After some search on the World Wide Web, I came across Hideaki’s site, and it was then that I realized that pen spinning had this unlimited potential.

AC: What influence has David Weis had on the world of pen spinning?
Kam: A very big influence, to say the least. Besides being one of the few good pen spinners who uses only a simple #2 pencil, he has shown us many original concepts. He showed us how it is possible to link tricks continuously and infinitely (and not just for simple tricks like the Charge). He also showed how the conservation of momentum could be used to create amazing tricks (as first shown in his Reverse to BackAround). I believe he is also the first person to effectively link tricks after catching a pen after an aerial trick. He has contributed a lot to the development of our art, and is one the most original pen spinners I’ve known. I believe I speak for most serious pen spinners when I say that we look at him as a role model.

AC: What tips would you give to beginners out there that wish to be as good as you?
Kam: Besides the many tips that you can find on my message board (and the ones that I mentioned above), I think the most important thing in pen spinning is to be flexible, or open-minded. By that, I mean that pen spinning is not a skill that you learn once and stick with it. Like life itself, you must be constantly learning, relearning, and changing old habits, always improving yourself during the process. One of the first things a beginner should learn is that failure is not necessarily bad. Most of us are used to think of failure as something that should be avoided. In Pen Spinning, failure (dropping the pen) is INEVITABLE. You can ot avoid dropping the pen, so you must learn that this is part of the learning process. Instead of thinking that you did something wrong, you should ask yourself how you could learn from your mistakes.

AC: Why do you think that people have become fascinated about pen spinning?
Kam: I believe we are fascinated about pen spinning because it easily shows how something beautiful can be accomplished merely by skill. The easiest way to understand this is through a comparison. When people see a magician do miracles with a deck of cards, they know that there is a secret to it, even though there may be skill involved. Most people are familiar with a deck of cards, but they know there might be more to it than they know. With a pen, there is no secret, and I do not think there is anyone who would say “I don’t know exactly how a pen works.” Because a pen (or pencil) is such a simple object, it is really amazing when one can do unimaginable things with it.

Thank you very much Kam for this interview. If you wish to just say anything please do here:
There are always ongoing discussions on what pens should one use, or what a trick should be called, and so on. A community of pen spinners can help you clarify these and other questions, but I believe that ultimately, when it comes to learning the tricks, we must learn them ourselves. There is no better way to learn than experimenting the tricks yourself. Most good pen spinners started on their own before they found a community of people who do what they do. You ca not expect others to do all the work for you. Patience and persistence are essential traits that you must acquire in this field, through constant practice. Although the right resources can help you a lot, ultimately you are the one who wants to learn, and that is what makes it possible to perform incredible feats with a simple pen. All I am saying is this, the internet can provide you with all the tools you need, but it is up to you to build something with them.