Maybe this is an easier way to think of rotation...if you were to place clock hands on the motor shaft which way would the clock run? (Also note you do not tell time by standing behind a clock) Although, I understand when one tattoo's they are sort of behind the rotation, so I see where the logic and confusion comes from.

In the early 90's I remember the rotary vs. hand motion vs. polarity discussion, So I wasn't surprised to see it again. The discussion grew out of, if your hand is moving counter clockwise and and your machine is moving clockwise, then your hit is weak on one side of the machine...thus producing problems with color saturation sort of like needle holidays...Instead of your brain going on vacation creating holidays, your needle was.

It's a very logical argument and a well thought out one, with some scientific truth to it, but not the total story. I honestly think it's both rotation of the machine and technique. If you think about the basic circular motion in the tattoo process where's the weakness? Why does it take time to learn something as simple as circles? I sincerely hope no scratchers have access to what I am about to say. Grab a piece of paper and write a zero or an O or grab a piece of paper you've written one on, and then consider the following.

The process of learning the circle isn't learning it's unlearning. All of our lives up to the point of tattooing, we've written circles in the form of Zero's and O's in names and numbers. This is something we've learned to do fast and without thinking. What happens from this? Look at your zero or O...the first side of one of these zero's or O's is dark and heavy on one side, then it gets lighter in a flourish towards the other side to go onto the next letter or number. That's exactly what we as tattoo artists have to unlearn, to properly pack that ink under the skin with a circular motion first pass, and why it's not so easy to do at first...the circle has to be solid on both sides.

The rotary makes this weakness more apparent if the strike runs with our circle and not against it. If it runs with our circular motion, it helps the unintentional light side flourish, that combined with a lot of little circles to do for a large solid fill, combined with the mind checking out for a little while because it's a boring part of the tattoo...one can see where all the issues and debate come from. That's why both can be at fault, rotation and technique.

I honestly had a hard time at first with rotaries that ran in sync with my hand movement. I think that's exactly what happens when people try them, dislike them and then go back to coils. The Swiss was the first rotary I liked a lot for everything, I know it was just because it took the rotary motion and made it linear. It didn't magnify the weakness my circular motion had in it like some others did. I think that's why the newer rotaries have so much success, because they change the motion to linear.

I found later by sheer accident, that a simple tilt just one or two degrees at the top of my machine away from me, combated the weakness that non-linear machines had that ran with my motion, that really opened the proverbial rotary oyster, and some old machines came out of the drawer.

I'm glad I didn't have to go back to old apprentice training and strap a pencil in a 1lb machine and color some sheets of paper solid black using nothing but little circles...anyone that has done that knows it sucks so much ass, but great for unlearning that circular weakness. If any of you have apprentices that's some nice busy work...wink wink.