Active poi tails?

I was thinking of making a set of tailed poi but wasnt sure what kind of tails to make. I usually dont like most of the tailed poi sets I see so I wanted to make something unique that gives daytime spinning some extra pizzaz.

There were two designs I was thinking of. The first was a spiral type design like the "Mini Twist" near the bottom of this page. The other is two ribbons attached side by side with some space in between. Each ribbon is angled in opposing directions in the front so that when spun, the tail spins and the ribbons will twirl around each other.

Before I go making them, are there any tails out on the market kinda like what Im talking about? Tails that actually do more than just sit there? Also, do you think the ribbons would get tangled/knotted in the second design? Lastly, does anyone have any tips on how to make the spiral design keep some of its shape when spun? Just fabric would probably be too loose and not look right. It needs a wire frame of sorts. I was thinking maybe a section of plastic slinky since they hold their shape well and stretch easily. You could even make the tails get longer and shorter by spinning at different speeds

hrm... i've only swung with tails once, it was an accident too. i was swinging my tennis balls indoors at a concert and caught some of that decorative ribbon. was super hard to spin, but made nice trails ;]


i dislike tails. for indoors they're fine, but where i live there's wind all the time, so it rules it out a bit, and they do slow down the poi considerably, to the extent that i was forcing them around in circles instead of just swinging them... and if you add twisting to it, that's more air resistance, and harder spinning, if even possible... my two cents

Just don't stab yourself with the slinky when you do wraps!

should look very nice, though I think any of these will require very heavy poi to pull them.

the twin ribbon idea would work if you got them far enough apart (http://www.geocities.com/patrickmann.geo/helix/helix_plan.htm)

found plans for a spinning tube which is fairly easy to build (http://www.kitemonger.com/kiteplan/spinsock/index.html)
this is likely to have _way_ too much drag.

how about one colour on either side of a single ribbon. If you put something on the front to induce a spin (small propeller sort of thing) you would get a nice multi coloured spiral for not too much drag.