Excrutiating pain

So im fairly new at learning poi- and have a few questions-
1. I can do the butter fly in front and behind the head 9 outof 10 times, but the tenth time the two balls run into eachother and hit me in a quite unpleasant area- is there something i'm doing wrong or is this common for begginners?
2. I have been trying to figure out how to transition cork screw into three beat I assume most of you know how to do this, but some help wouldbe nice...

1. thats one of the most common complaints of new male spinners. You just have to keep practicing. It will stop happening in the end. Maybe wear a bit of protection down there for a while
2. I'm rubbish at explaining moves in Text so I'll let someone else tackle that answer.

to HoP!

There's plenty you can do to prevent excrutiating pain when doing the butterfly.

As with learning all moves, do it slowly- the slower the poi are moving the less pain they will cause when they go wrong, it will also lead to a much greater skill increase than doing them uncontrolably fast.

Secondly, practise (without poi) a tucking motion where you drop your face, hunch up and pull back your hips.

Then do this movement whenever you feel the butterfly is going wrong (again, it's easier to feel this when you're spinning slowly) and it protects your face/groin from injury.

Ahh.. don't worry. A couple more knocks then once it's numb you won't feel a thing.

When you're doing the butterfly, if they hit each other constantly, it could be a problem with what your wrists are doing. Keeping the top hand slightly in front of the bottom hand does help. Experiment pointing both thumbs down when swinging down, and keep the position of your hands constant in relation to each other when you swing them up or down.

Try getting familiar with the various variables (wrist positions, grip positions, poi positions) on the down swing, and try to remember what you do to make the poi pass each other, and just practise.

Good luck.

If all else fails, try singing some songs where you've never been able to reach the high notes before. Bon Jovi goes pretty high in Bed of Roses, but for something more contemporary, James Blunt, Jeff Buckley etc. Success in some other areas does soften the failure in others.

Thanx guys- as I said i have been able to do it 9 out of ten times and yes my groin has gone numb, but Im still slightly worried about the whole fertility thing- but whatever.

no pain no gain. "hang" in there

I'd only managed to beat myself about the face and head until last night...

I was practicing going from butterfly to overhead butterfly and things were starting to go quite well; I'd managed to get into a nice up-down rhythm with no beats in between. It felt good, effortless and just plain right - for the very first time I felt like I was actually Poi-ing.

Then I made the fatal mistake of thinking, "Gosh, I can do this", at which point the chains suddenly tangled, became one and the whole lot swung straight down into the old Family Jewels

There was no warning. I didn't actually fall over, but I did have to go and have a nice sit-down

So yes, maybe some kind of groin protection would be a good idea, at least in the short term and for when practicing alone - but what? I already have a groin box for Tae Kwon Do and having used it in anger, can safely say that while it may prevent / limit damage, it doesn't actually stop it from hurting. It's also less effective when dealing with side-on impacts, which in some cases it can make worse.

Maybe some extra layers of clothing and a pair of socks down there, or something...

Figured out what the main problem was... trying to keep the two on the same plain... well that solved that problem, thanks for your response