Problem with holding my poi

I just started poi about a month ago, the ones i have been practising on so far have been tennis balls on rope, becaseu of the rope i have been holding the ring in the top with my middle and index finger with the rope going beck between these two fingers to cut down the friction. I have just purchased some proper fire poi and the top where i hold them is thicker material, which doesnt hurt my hands but becasue it doesn't loop back i am finding it much harder to hold onto andi cant do some of the tricks i had learnt on the old ones. I was just wondering if there is a proper way to hold them in your hands, as in which fingers, and whether the fire poi are like that becasue it is safer if they are not so strongly attached to your fingers?
Any answers would be great becasue i prefer the old way of holding but was unsure about it.

howdy sara,

sounds like you already knew the best way to hold a single loop handle. All I can suggest, is that you remove the handles on your fire poi, and put handles similar to the ones you are used to on there.

Be careful tho, fre poi are heavier than tennis balls and as such, may need better handles.

I personally prefer the double loop handles...but I learned using the same single loop grip you have described, and that is by far the best way I came up with.

Josh