I give up... Just do the weave fast.

Fountain to a 180 double arm wrap to a follow the sun:

No response

Weave to a corkscrew, double leg corkscrew wrap, bring it up into a windmill:

No response

Three beat weave really, really fast:

Men gasp and cheer, women rip off their clothing

I give up.

Unless you're spinning with other poi people, just do the dang weave as fast as you can. That's what everyone wants to see...

Am I wrong?

[This message has been edited by NYC (edited 22 October 2001).]

It's funny cause its true!!!
but i think that purely because it "looks hard.. and really cooooool" *was told this buy a spectator....*

its ok do all your stuff i like it!!

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A Faeries Heart Beats Fierce and Free!!!!!

I was recently at a latenight where I was spinning and had the thrill of being center stage to the club. Everyone was watching..half of them prolly only saw the lights.. :P ...Try doing the alt. butterfly combo really really fast..that had them cheering..heheh

CRD

I was beggining to think the same thing, i'm not that good at poi, i've only been doing it for about 7 months, i know a fair bit of stuff, but not many wraps. I find that there are probably 3 or 4 things that everyone will cheer for, and the rest is just to fill up space (or so i've been told). Fast weave does really impress people, especialy when they get in very close to the body, and a trick i learnt of shadowfire's video, where he spins them around his head. if ya get hit really hard in the nutz but keep going in the other direction, it gets a cheer, with the ahhh shit sound. but then there is kinda a favourite of mine and a friends, do weave really fast, and turn non stop, and do a 1080 on the spot, everyone's like WOW

To the average dude who has probably hardly seen fire twirling at all, most tricks are lost on them.
In the signature moves thread, I wrote about how I do a thing I call the wheel, and it seems to impress purely because fire comes very close to my face. Big deal, smokers do that every time they light up.
I've found the 5 point weave looks just like the 3 point weave to the average bystander, and I've had beginner poi people say they couldn't be bothered learning the weave because they could already do the figure 8.
I've also found that different moves impress dif ppl. Any wrap that comes close to the groin area makes all the men wince, especially teenage boys. Girls generally comment on smooth flowing graceful moves as simple as chasing the sun & hi/lo turns. Kids love the fast weaving with turns because you look like a fire ninja dude!

BUT OF COURSE... We only do this for ourselves,
right?!

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Your parents were wrong
Fire is good
Play with fire

Too true, too true..

I was watching some people twirl on the beach a couple of months ago. There were a lot of people doing the basic poi moves and some pretty good staffers. I was watching for about an hour and the applause was pretty much non-existant, until one girl got up and did the 3 beat really fast... and only the 3 beat. Nonetheless, the crowd exploded with applause and blokes were calling out that they wanted to marry her and have her babies...

Most people just don't realise the effort that goes into learning the trickier moves. To the crowd there's not even an amazing amount of difference between the 3-beat weave and the btb weave... I would say different!

Personally, I don't like moving really fast. It doesn't take any more skill and just tires you out quickly, so you can only twirl in short bursts.

Each to their own, though.

Princess xxx

At the club last night, applause was basically non existant... people seemed to pretty much ignore us, or just try and walk straight through us. They were just sort of like, cool, fire, or like, cool, glowy stuff, rather than looking at the actual moves... breathing got the best reaction, as usual.

the five beat is better for bystanders because you can do it faster than the weave, and it looks a bit cooler because of the wrist movement.

...women were ripping off their clothing?

nah but i think the thing is, when spinning for a crowd dont be afraid to do the same thing over and over again, because they dont appreciate the transitions, but like the patterns; it's like with jazz improvisations, you need repetition otherwise you lose any sort of structure or coherence.

If you're playing to an easy crowd, don't try and kill yourself doing hard moves, it's just not worth it... ESPECIALLY if you happen to screw up, because that really recks the image.

Ha,

I was discussing this the other day with some fire peeps and u are absolutely right....

all butterfly and variations get no reaction, I just keep it down to wrapping into the buterfly from the weave and doing a few overhead/alternate/low waves and then straight back into the weaves.

Basically just turn around a lot and do forward/backward weaves. Fountain still a good crowd pleaser and five beats look good when turning around etc. Also corkscrews and chasing sun when u go into them from the fountain...

Funny that the only really musical moves are the weaves as well!

seems a bit pointless learning all the other moves really?

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check my pics etc at www.poishop.f2s.com
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errrm "I intend to live forever, or at least die trying."
Voltaire

yeah ... I know what you mean ...
I felt it sometimes. for example the 5 beat weave does not make anyone's heart beat but the twirlers themselves I am affraid.
I am a bit souple so I bend backward when doing a simple weave. People love it allthough it is just so simple.

Maybe if you act as if what you were doing was very very dangerous people would buy it more ?

shine on
Cassandra

While I partly agree with the gist of this thread--that civilians can't appreciate the moves we take most pride in--I partly disagree. They do appreciate it when we mix it up, move around, stay on the beat of the music, that sort of thing. If you just stood there doing the weave for 5 minutes, no matter how fast, everyone would get bored.

Sometimes I get an enthusiastic response from spinning really slow. But clearly I need to work on my speed, as I have yet to provoke any women into ripping their clothing (or cloting) off.

And that, is the number 1 reason I dislike professional performance. You have to 'dumb' down your moves to get a reaction!

Josh

PS - ripping off their clotting? eeeeeewwwwwwwwww!!!

Adam thats Gross!

[This message has been edited by [Josh] (edited 22 October 2001).]

its all in the rythm... anyone seen gladiator? something like "kill and they will applaude you, entertain and they will love you"

NYC i know what you mean, for some reason the crowds love when you do a butterfly and drop to your knees and then lean all the way onto your back. not that tricky (if your back doesnt give out) but still gets an amazing reaction...

I don't want to hear this stuff.
as a relatively beginner twirler i want to hear stuff like "People go ohhhhhhhh and ahhhhhhh at the basic stuff but really love you when you can do extraordinarilly hard moves" That way i have some drive to learn the harder moves.
Not that its gonna stop me....

Cheers
APB

This is a thread I can offer something too!

I'm a non-spinner. I help Pele with knowing if things look interesting. To me, most of it is "Fire in circles." 3 beat, 5 beat it's still fire in circles. It's when it's changed up that it looks intersting to me.
Weave, btb anything, windmill, buzzsaw, those each look different. That I notice.
Pele's commented that she likes to learn the difficult moves to keep her interest in the poi arts. It also makes the easy ones a little easier and when performing for civies that's good as mistakes are lessened.

A note on audience responses. We've found that they forget to cheer or applaud because they're in awe of what's going on. You're twirling FIRE around your body! Do you have any idea how nuts that seems to normal people!? You may want to have a hidden assistant in the audience start to clap every so often. The reason the fast move works is because it breaks their concentration and it looks like you're doing something to get a reaction instead of presentation.

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"Except for that Mrs. Lincoln, How did you like the play?"
Pyromorph - Let the fire change you

A month or so back a couple of us went csmping and were spinning fire all night on the beach of a quory the only time we got a response is when we would light up. After that.......silence. No one was sitting around us, everyone was around the lake, watching the fire reflect off the water. They would get into the twirling and wouldn't respond. I don't think you can tell the difference between a crowd that isn't amused and a crowd that is dumb founded. So once again, spin for you, because you enjoy it, if they cheer bonous!

No Doubt. I certainly spin for myself. In fact most of my spinning takes place when I'm alone. I like the solitude of it and the fact that I can do moves that feel good rather than look good. Sometimes I just grove with a move or two (which would look pretty boring.)

I also agree that making it look harder than it is helps as well. Grimacing while trailing always helps. Dropping to knees while eating a cupcake would probably get a round of applause.

In a sense I DO like the fact that you need to be "in the know" to really appreciate good spinning. It's just silly that I can hook up 4 glowsticks to each string, drop to my knees and do a weave and people will go nuts whereas most of the technical skills go unnoticed.

in my experience, the best way to get cheers is to change it up often. almost any combo looks impressive if very little time is given to each individual move, just enough to differentiate it from the last one. The tough part is memorizing a complex order, or fast improvising if you are that much of a boss (which i am not! (yet)).

also, if you spin to music that fluctuates between calm and crazy, you can spin slow or fast accordingly, and time moves to the song. One music choice which is my favorite and has received much approval is anything by TOOL, due to its intensity.

however, i must admit that the most important factor to most people is how fast, not how hard. it sucks, but i feel better about myself for being in the know.

Tool!

I'm going to see tool in a few days!

and as for this thread, I'm not a poiier, I'm a staffer. all my tough wrist wracking moves get no applause. same with behind the back, through the fingers.

I do the figure 8 really fast, and they cheer! tosses get some applause too, but they still scare me so I don't do them too often, specially if it's really dark.

but you know what? I don't care if they applaud, I do it for ME. When I whale on the figure eight and hurt my arms, they cheer, and I get embarrased. when I pull of my behind-the-back-through-each-finger-on each-hand-frontwards-and-backwards-in- perfect-time-to-the-beat move, that makes me smile.

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~whoosh whoosh whoosh~

Yep, performing with a staff on Saturday night for about 75 people, the move that gave the best reaction from the people watching was doing a single (I think the HoP name is a forwards or figure 8) very quickly while skipping around the circle of people watching - a very basic move.

It was only other twirlers who seemed to be impressed with harder moves or combos - but that was cool feedback in itself.

that is kinda true but
have you tried the BTB weave Turn 360 degress after that wrap to my arm and get a BTB butterfly then a weave a 360 degress turn ... i get reaction from ppl when i do it.. they like it a lot...
also ppl like ummm when im doing weave and then turn like a 270 degrees and BTB weave

its not just the weeave move try the BTB moves crowd like it... at least here....