How to Spin a Pen Around Your Fingers Like A BOSS

In this video, you're going to learn how to spin a pen around your fingers like a pro. This is one of the most visual and impressive skills I know. So go and grab a pen and let's learn these moves. Now I'm sure we've all seen that guy in the office or at school who's flicking a pen around his fingers like this and you've thought to yourself, damn, I wish I could do that. Well in this video, I'm going to be teaching you 3 amazing pen spinning moves that you can learn right now so you can become that guy. 1st I'm going to teach you how to spin a pen around your thumb. Then I'm going to teach you the same move but in reverse. And then finally, I'm going to show you to put both moves together to create this awesome effect. Now make sure you stand to the end of the video because I'm going to be giving you 2 tips on how to learn pen spinning as fast as possible. So you can learn these moves in minutes, not in weeks or months. So the first move I'm going to be teaching you is known as the thumb around. This is probably the move you see your friends doing at school or in the office. So let's go to the tutorial. So in this video, we're going to be learning one of the fundamental tricks in pen spinning known as the thumb around, and this is what it looks like. So as you can see, the pen spins in a counterclockwise direction over your thumb and then is caught with your index finger. So you can really do this with any pen. You've probably seen people at school or in the office doing this, and it's a very basic and move that a lot of people know. But it's definitely worth learning because once you can do it, you can progress onto more advanced moves like this. So let's break down the thumb around. So the first thing you need to do is find the centre of gravity in the pen. So the way in which you find it is you turn your first finger up and then you rest the pen on your finger and you just see where it naturally balances. If you've got something like a Sharpie, because there's a cap and it's not evenly weighted, you might have to move your fingers around a little bit more to find where it perfectly balances. So with this one, with this one, it's about here. So just above the S. Once you've found the centre of gravity in your pen, you then want to put your both fingers out like this in a peace sign. Make sure they're not completely straight, but they're slightly curled and relaxed. Then take your middle finger and place it where the centre of gravity was. Then place your first finger where it naturally rests on the barrel, and then take your thumb and place it in between those two fingers. So this is your starting position. So there are three parts to this spin. There's the release, then there's the push, and then there's the catch. So step one is the release. Just practice moving your index finger out and then back in. And this means that when you spin the pen, you need the pen, your index finger out the way to allow the pen to rotate around your thumb and then come back in for when you catch it. So just practice getting used to holding the pen in this position and then releasing your first finger. So Step 2 is the push, and this is going to require the most practice, but all that happens is as soon as you move your index finger away, your middle finger comes towards your thumb like this and it's going to flick the pen around your thumb. So you need to do this in a very smooth and fluid motion. And without the pen there, all that's happening is your middle finger comes in like that. So as you can see, it's a very small and subtle movement and you just need to practice this over and over again until the pen starts to flick around your thumb. To begin with, you might be doing it too softly and the pen will only get to there. If you do it too hard, the pen will spin out. So just keep doing it until the pen is making one rotation around your thumb. So before you continue onto the rest of this tutorial, just get used to this grip and then used to flicking the pen around your thumb so it makes 1 rotation. Finally, Step 3 is the catch. As you push the pen around your finger, you'll notice that the pen should fall naturally in between your index finger and thumb. From here all you need to do is just clamp down and catch the pen. So that should be relatively easy as long as Step 2, the push has the right amount of pressure on it. So there are two problems that I often see when people try and learn this move. The 1st is that the pen will fall off when it goes around your thumb. And the easiest way to prevent this is to really focus on your thumb and make sure that it stays in the same place. Very often you want to instinctively move your thumb to try and keep the pen off on it, but what happens is the pen will fall off if you try and move it. So watch, when I spin the pen, my thumb literally stays in the same place and just acts as a pivot for the pen to go around. So that's the first thing to focus on. The second problem I often see is with the catch. So the pen hits your index finger as it goes around and then the pen just falls off. Or you can't spin the pen because your index finger is in the way. A bit like that. So a little hack I've learnt to fix this problem is begin with your index finger on top of the pen and then from here do the spin and what this will mean is as the pen comes round, your index finger will be in the perfect place to come down and clamp the pen. Once you've masked this, you can then go to do it normally, but to begin with, you might want to try just holding the pen like this, flicking it round and then coming down for the catch. But now we're actually going to learn the thumb around reverse. So this is the same as the previous move, but just on the other way around. And when you put both moves together, you can learn how to do this. As you can see, the pen rotates in a clockwise motion over your thumb and then is caught between your middle finger and thumb. As the name implies, this is the opposites of the thumb around. But make sure before you attempt this tutorial you learn how to do a normal thumb around because it makes learning the thumb around reverse significantly easier. And once you learn and both, you can do really cool moves like this. Now you can do this move with any pen. So here it is with a sharpie. But again, it's a lot harder to learn this with a small pen. So make sure you find a really long pen and then learn it with that. If possible, get an actual pen, spinning pen. So the first thing we need to do as explained in the Thumb around tutorial is find the centre of gravity in the pen. The easiest way to do that is just balance the pen on your finger and wherever it balances is the centre of gravity. The next thing we need to do is get into this position here. So the easiest way to do this is hold your hands up like this, then pull back your middle finger slightly and then let's let the pen rest naturally in your hand like this. Now let me just break this this position down for you a little bit further. So your first finger, index finger needs to rest right against the central gravity of the pen, which for me was right in the middle. Your middle finger then comes out in front of your index finger and it's under the pen supporting its weight. Naturally, your thumb is free to move about, but I like to leave it here. So basically just above the middle finger and on the other side of the pen to your first finger. So this is your starting position. Just get used to this and from here you're ready to begin. So there are two stages to this pen spinning move. The 1st is the push and the second is the catch. So the first thing you need to do is once you're in your starting position is take your first finger and all you're doing is pushing it towards your thumb. That's it. And this will cause the pen to rotate around your thumb. So in slow motion, the your first finger pushes the pen and it's going to come around your thumb like this and that's the push stage. Without the pen, you're in this position and your middle, your first finger just does that. The amount of force required is about the same as a thumb around, which is why it's worth learning that move before you're doing this. So all you need to do is hold the pen like this and just keep practising pushing the pen until you get a very even spin as you can see here. So in doing the push, you should make sure that it's not too firm or the pen will just go flying like that. If you make it too soft, the pen just won't make a full rotation. Instead you need to use about the same amount of power as you would if you're doing a normal thumb around SO. Also, the other important thing to note is that your thumb remains very still whilst doing this, since it acts as a pivot for the pen to move around. So notice how my thumb literally doesn't move when I do the spin? So your first drill is to not even catch the pen when you spin it, just push it around your thumb and then let it land on the table. And what you're aiming to do is get one complete rotation around your thumb whilst your thumb remains completely still. So just drill this out and let the pen fall or whatever you want to do, and then you're ready to move on. Once you can do this consistently, one very common mistake I see is when the index finger blocks the pen from spinning round. So you're trying to spin the pen and the index finger gets in the way. What you need to do is consciously make the decision to push, to tuck your index finger below your thumb as the pen comes around. Your index finger doesn't finish there, but it finishes right under your thumb like this. And this will allow the pen to complete its full rotation. So if I remove the pen, so I do the rotation and I remove the pen, you can see when I finish everything is flush. The first finger, index finger isn't up here, it's flush or just under your thumb. That's all there really is to this move. The mechanics are actually very simple and the way in which you're going to learn it is by sitting down and practicing it, as I mentioned in the practice video. And then when you're out doing things, be it at school or be at the office, just practice getting a pen and doing this whilst you're working. So then for the third pen spinning move, let's learn how to put both moves together in what is known as the thumb around harmonic. So the harmonic thumb around or the continuous thumb around is perhaps one of my favorite moves because the pen continually moves back and forward across your thumb like this. Obviously, you need to know how to do a thumb around and a thumb around reverse. So a thumb around looks like that and a thumb around reverse looks like this. And this video is just going to show you how to put the two moves together into one smooth motion. So the first step is when doing the thumb around, instead of catching the pen with your index fingers straight out like this, you actually want to catch the pen with your index finger curled in, in the same way you would be as if you were doing thumb round reverse. So remember, when you do thumb round reverse your index fingers like this, that's how you want to catch the pen. So you do the thumb round and you put your finger straight into that position as if you're going to push it back round. So just practice spinning the pen and then stopping it with a curled up finger. That's step one. For Step 2, you want to do a thumb around, catch it with your curled up finger, and then instantly push the pen back around in a normal thumb around reverse. So again, you need to practice this over and over. So you do a thumb around straight to thumb around reverse, thumb around straight to thumb around reverse, and just keep practicing this until you can get it pretty much smooth. So thumb around, thumb around. Reverse Step 3 is to make sure you catch the reverse thumb around with your middle finger like this. So you reverse thumb it and you just slightly extend your middle finger and let the pen fall into your hand. So extending your middle finger is very important because this will set you up pushing the pen back around your thumb to make this move actually happen. So you do a rough thumb around, extend your middle finger as you can see here, and you'll be in a position to then shoot the pen back around your thumb. Finally, Step 4 is to put all of this together. So to begin with, it's going to look a bit awkward and there'll be a delay between each move. So you're probably going to do that. Then you're going to do that readjust and you just need to keep practising this until slowly you'll get the muscle memory to keep it instant like this. Your goal is to reduce the delay between each movement. And you'll notice the way in which I do this is I'm catching the pen as close as possible to my thumb as that reduces the delay. So when I put the pen around, I catch the pen right there between my middle finger and thumb, and my first finger is already curled up waiting to receive the pen again. And the more you practice this, the smaller the delay will be. And very soon you'll have it instantaneous just like this. So if you're like most people, you've probably tried watching some of those pen spinning moves and you found them pretty tough. You've probably dropped the pen 1000 times. You're finding the technique pretty hard. And if that's you, then that's completely normal. Don't worry about it, but what I'm going doing now is just giving you 2 tips on how to improve your pen spinning so you can learn these moves way, way faster. So tip #1 is you've got to use the right size pen. Now unfortunately, as with everything in life-size matters and there's absolutely no difference there in pen spinning. So you've got to use the longest pen you can possibly find when learning the pen spinning moves. So go and read your pencil case, your drawers, and just find a really long pen or pencil that you can use for pen spinning. A really common mistake I see people making is they use really short, tiny little pens and pencils and that's just going to make it a nightmare to learn these moves. Don't use anything shorter than a Sharpie. And if you're feeling really fancy, you can buy dedicated pen spinning pens on the Internet. They're really cheap and they're also perfectly weighted. But you don't need to do that. Just go and find the longest pen you can find and then use that to do the pen spinning with. So tip #2 is knowing how to practice. And the most common question I get asked is people see me pen spinning and they just ask like, how did you learn to do that? Like what's your actual practice regime or whatever you want to call it? And my answer is pretty simple. Instead of spending an hour or two hours just trying to learn one move and one big hit, break that practice up into small chunks. And the reason for this is you learn pen spinning through muscle memory. And muscle memory takes time to develop. So it's far more effective to spend 20 to 30 minutes practicing per day, four or five days a week than it is to spend 4 hours practicing pen spinning in one day. So that's actually how I learnt pen spinning. I would just spend 20 to 30 minutes a day, four or five days a week practicing one of these moves and by the end of the week, I would get the move down. And you will do the same guaranteed, if you just spend 20 to 30 minutes a day, four or five days a week practicing the thumb around or the thumb around. Reverse for me, I love these moves at school and I just hated chemistry, which was four or five days a week conveniently, and the lessons are about 30 minutes long. So during my chemistry lessons, I would just learn to spin the pen around my fingers. Now I don't recommend you do that because education is important, but I do recommend you just dedicate 20, two minutes a day, four or five days a week to learning one of these moves and you'll get it down 7 days from now. So that's my homework for you and that's the entire video. Now if you do want to become an actual wizard and you want to learn card tricks that are just way too good to reveal on YouTube, then please check out my course Card Magic Pro, where I'll just teach you all the greatest card tricks in the world all in one place. So go and check out the link in the description and I'll see you in the next video.