What’s the longest you’ve ever worked on a single trick?

Not tricks that you toy with--working on them and then dropping them as attention spans and practice time waxes and wanes.

I’m asking what’s the longest amount of time you’ve ever spent focused on learning something new?

First a little bit of context:

I remember visiting the Vulcan when Jonathan Alvarez had only recently moved there and was just getting started on gunslingers. At the time I thought they were a quaint curiosity but wasn’t interested in picking them up myself.

Fast forward a couple years and I started seeing artists like James MacPherson and Aoi Kondo posting videos of gunslinger flowers and hybrids and suddenly I saw elements of it that I wanted to learn. But I also knew that learning them was going to be a long and very difficult process.

A couple years before I’d finally taken the plunge to learn 3 poi and manipulating 2 poi in one hand had been an enormous challenge. It had taken a long time and I was frequently so frustrated by my lack of progress that I’d challenge myself each time I reached the zenith of my frustration to throw my poi against the ground with enough force to bounce as high as my shoulders.

Gunslingers required many of the same skills but for them to be performed MUCH faster.

But I made the commitment. I practiced them every day religiously with my ultimate goal being performing antispin flowers in split-time opposites with both hands together.

It took me 3 months.

I finally achieved my goal on Christmas Eve 2006 and documented extensively the techniques I’d used to get there. It was a huge accomplishment and reminded me of the enormous feeling of pride that breaking down a barrier gives to you.

And about 3 months after that I set my sights on another goal: inspin gunslinger flowers. Want to guess how long these took me to learn?

A year and a half.

Granted, I was nowhere near as disciplined learning inspin flowers as I had been with antispins. I’d skip days on occasion but whenever I did pick up my poi I’d work on them for at least a few minutes.

Unlike the antispins, I’d never seen a video of anybody performing inspin gunslingers (one popped up about a month before I finally got them down and definitely motivated me to get across the finish line), so it was kind of uncharted territory. I knew the theory of how they were supposed to work but as many of us know the distance between theory and practice is often vast.

And it was hard. Really, truly hard. There were so many days that went by where I thought to myself: “Okay! This will finally be the day. I’m going to keep working until I’ve got it down. I’m so close!” Needless to say, all these practices ended in my going home without the trick down.

I tried coming at the trick from other angles, wondering if perhaps I thought a little outside the box then the pieces might line up for me. And still, this elusive trick held me away and I was left wondering how long it would be until I cracked the code.

And then miraculously I made the pieces connect about four weeks ago. There came the day when I finally met my goal: 10 inspin gunslingers in split-time opposites in a row. I’d done it!

And then the next day I couldn’t. And the day after that. And the day after that. I’d finally captured my quarry only to have it dart away from me again.

It took two more weeks of diligent practice, but I was finally able to get back to doing 10 in a row of this trick again. The day after I set about to record the feat and prove myself. After all, in the internet age if it isn’t on video then did it really happen? ;)

And thus I posted to Instagram 10 very sloppy gunslinger inspin flowers. It took nearly an hour of attempts to get these on video and of course the joke was on me. I’d miscounted and did only 9. But still! It was something to show off.

So you want to hear the funny part?

Since then I’ve done it every day and ever since I got that video down it’s been easy. Like my body has always known how to do this. It might still take me one or two attempts to get to 10, but after a year and a half of work it almost feels trivial how easy it is for my body to do this trick now.

What gives?

Well...in addition to the enormous amount of work that I put into learning this trick, it’s also a reminder to me of the incredible potential of the human body and mind. Once upon a time the mere act of walking or speaking was a herculean task for any of us. Now we do it without a second thought.

I want you to keep this story in mind whenever you’re working on something new. Both because that frustration is SO real...but also because once you get past that point, the magic of the human brain and body makes it all seem like a distant memory.

Good luck! And hopefully it doesn’t take a year and a half like it did for me!