Justin Quitoriano
Hercules High Senior,
Spins, twirls, and creates tricks with pens

By Crystal Chung
STAFF WRITER

In the midst of boredom, it sometimes takes a mere pen and a bit of motivation to find an addictive hobby.

Hercules High senior Justin Quitoriano has taken to the relatively obscure art of pen- spinning. This unusual hobby has become something of an underground hit.

Within a year, Quitoriano has mastered a wide variety of complicated techniques. After learning the fundamentals, the senior soon ventured into the realm of creating his own combinations.

Pen-spinning is the complex manipulation of a writing tool by one’s hands. Becoming adept in the intricate art of pen-spinning involves patience and determination – hours of pen dropping must be endured for any hope of success.

“All it takes is just a little motivation to do it. Most people who want me to teach them quit after the first attempt. It took me seven hours straight to learn my first move, and that was just the fundamentals,” said Quitoriano.

The 17 year old’s inspiration is almost as odd as the hobby itself. One day, he happened upon a pen that reminded him of Boris, the infamous character who demonstrated pen spinning in the James Bond film, Goldeneye. After a little research, Quitoriano was soon hooked on this new hobby.

“I went to Wikipedia and I saw this link on it that said ‘spins pens,’ so I decided to click it. I was brought to this huge section about pen-spinning. From there, I just got obsessed with it,” said Quitoriano.

From tutorials to posted videos, Quitoriano learned everything from the internet.

One of the most difficult maneuvers Quitoriano taught himself was the “Back-around fall”. This difficult combination of finger moves took Quitoriano an entire month to master.

The seemingly worthless and effortless activity is quite a challenging hobby to pursue. It is considered a form of self-entertainment but competitions are held as well.

Pen-spinning tournaments occur often in the world of cyber space, where one video tapes himself for 10-30 seconds and posts it online. The tournaments’ results are usually decided by popular vote, although it is sometimes done by a small panel of judges.

When asked if pen spinners modify their pens, Justin replied, “Yes, mostly to make it easier. They add grips to the edges, and add weight to affect the center of gravity on the pen to make it easier to do moves on either side of the pen, because gravity is an integral part to doing a few of the moves.”

According to Quitoriano, his skills are not even close to being compared to Bonkura and Eriror, two pen-spinning legends.

“I look up to Bonkura for his extreme amount of style and Eriror for his sheer awesomeness and ability to practically do any combo with speed and grace.”

Though Quitoriano has a knack for pen-spinning, he also has other interests. He is quite talented with computers, programming his own web comic page. Above all, he still finds free time to practice badminton and play games.

Quitoriano wants to enjoy his hobby and continue learning new tricks and variations.

“There are too many variations to moves, so I’ll always be learning them,” said Quitoriano. “To me, pen-spinning will always just be a hobby, but the fact that I’m doing something that’s awesome and kind of unknown to people makes it worthwhile.”