The amazing effect of spinning on my personal conciousness.

I had some reasonably strong feelings on this topic...

Essentially it starts with fluidity of movement... Feeling the way I get to move while doing poi or most recently staff is an uplifting feeling... Letting go and just letting the weight of the toy travel in the direction it wants to travel is a great feeling of freedom to myself.


After picking up a staff for the first time I was even able to adapt a lot of the things I'd learnt with poi in order to create a similar sort of freedom with the new toy...

I hope its not only me that feels this way... is there anyone else out there who feels this way, also?

Trust me, you're not the only one

Aye

It's even better when your fire toy(s) is/are lit and you have some awesome djembe drumming or psy backing to go with it

Finding your circle. It's like zen...

Fire tends to upset my spinning a fair bit not because of the fear of the fire, but the constant awareness that I only have a limited amount of time in which to spin with that particular effect. Part of my immense feeling of freedom is that I don't ever have to stop til I need food or collapse from exhaustion.

Heh, awesome. I started taking up Djembe with my friend before I hit the poi stage, I'm trying to get him to get into Djembe so we can jam. :P

Hahaha, I remember this post... and it only gets more and more true as time goes by...

after a short affair, i've quit djembe drumming. In a few years time i'd perhaps learn to hit the skin just enough to play for longer, however as it stands it's simply not sustainable for me.

I just hurts my hands too much, and the swelling did not agree with activities involving dexterity like technical twirling or the preparation and consumption of delicious cheese.

I recently completed a meditation (in the buddhist tradition) and believe that some twirling scenarios have limited parallels with awareness-cultivation, however I cannot at this stage even perform a walking meditation without constant distraction. Since i cannot meditate when i walk, I do not believe that the sensory overload of fire dancing is in fact meditation. peaceful, calming, fulfilling, joyful, yes not meditation.

I've also been tampering with meditation... I've found that with the use of some substances you can achieve a lot of the meditative states in the lower reaches of meditation while twirling, but I only attempt this with socks...

Its not OBEs and that kind of thing, but dissociation is possible.

^^ oops my post was meant to say '...recently completed a meditation course...'
it really changed what i said ey?

i see where u are coming from but i will respectfully disagree. Also, discussing it further prolly is at odds with a family friendly forum.

Aye, I agree. But I'll simply note that its not quite the higher vibrating realms of meditation. And when I say substances, I refer to entheogens, nothing else. ^_^

hmm i'm prefer to focus on the practical application of meditation. I don't prescribe to the idea of vibration realms, can't honestly say that i've visited them in any state (one just looks very very drunk to others) - just happy enough to develop pragmatic applications like focus/awareness/calmness.

I'm skeptical on the vibration realms actually having anything to do with anything external, but I do believe that there are very different stages in meditation that these "vibration realms" are very easy ways to relate internal, abstract experiences to those of other people.

really recommend you attend the next entheogenesis australis conference (www.entheo.net) event. there's some really nice workshops on that stuff, and the guys that run it are top people. plus there's fire shows, so you can chat/collaborate about the two topics with knowledgeable people to your heart's content

I think it really depends on the circumstance. From my knowledge, some meditation utilises things like a candle flame to focus the mind so doing a burn is just having bigger flames. I have always noticed that I always go into a trance-like state when I am really into a burn. The adrenaline rush coupled with pure concentration, pitch black surrounding and the flames rushing around in a rhythmic beat is extremely relaxing. Its amazing how clean your mind becomes during a burn. Its kind of like Tai Chi for dare-devils. The whole world dissolves, the only thing that matters is the present and 2 seconds ahead. Kick ass!

From my practice of the "candle flame meditation" I'm clearly not experiencing the same state as fire dancing.
For one, my understanding is that candle practice is aimed at swatting away all the discursive thoughts of over stimulation.
In fire dancing, there is a massive amount of stimulation - the sounds of the loud whoosh, the heat, the sense of danger, bright light, the pressure on my wieght, of clothes against my skin, the need to keep timing, the planning ahead of what i will do in 3 to 5 moves, the mental weight of the eyes of people watching me (including myself), the self assessment of how this routine is going.... my heart is pounding, each and every time I fire dance. Surely your own self-awareness highlights the difference in the amount of discursive thoughts when you are eyes closed on a meditation cushion versus when you are dancing with fire.

I can see where u are coming from -as both practices involve some kind of flame- however for at least my experiences of each are distinctly different: After 8 years I am now peaceful when i fire dance, but when I do I utterly fail in terms of the undistracted meditative state that is the intention of the candle meditation practice.

Each experience is beautiful in it's own way, but for in the way that I understand myself they're clearly not the same.

I think juggling is more meditative than twirling - I've been learning 4 clubs recently and very recently have been getting some longer runs (40 catches). I can say that the focus this requires of me is much purer than that I get with fire twirling. With fire I'm always considering where I'm going to go next, which tricks I've done but want to practise more, which tricks I havent done, which way I've been facing, what this dude who is wandering towards me is going to do next, what the music is doing etc etc. As Bender said, I'm calm and clear when fire twirling - but not empty of thought.

Loewan, I understand the sensation you're feeling but I also don't agree that its meditation... its a relaxation that can eradicate a large amount of sensation including self assessment and self conciousness, but self-awareness is still present.

Pyrolific, your juggling experience as described here seems intense. Your mind reduced to one pattern, perhaps a second, 4 clubs really does sound an interesting situation. ^_^

I think its just about repeating what is for me a very difficult but essentially minimal pattern. It requires a simple algo eg;

catch, correct, throw. over and over. just doing that simple algo takes all my concentration for the length of the run with 4 clubs. My fire twirling (or 3 ball juggling) algo is far more varied and complex because the physical side is now so easy because I've practised it so much.

Yeah... for me, I only claim to have reached a meditative state when I am no longer aware of my own actions. Its all muscle memory. Although, to properly achieve this, dissociative entheogens are required.

I think spinning VS juggling is that there is a higher propertion of spinning that can be 'off' but not affect the overall pattern.

A weave can very wobbly and even neck rolls and hyperloops don't have to be exactly the same each time.

Most juggling tends in the other direction, if the throw isn't consistent then the hand isn't there to catch it and you get a drop.

Of course, I'm not saying that there aren't aspects of both to both disciplines, just that spinning has a higher % of 'forgiving' moves, and juggling a lesser %.

Does that make sense?

Thats a good point. The idea of styles with poi essentially hinges off this basic principle... Just keeping it in time and giving the movement a curve or to move your arms up and down.

While juggling styles still have to have a time based accuracy on the throw and the catch and as such has to relate the two actions to one another rather than just the relative positions of the arms and poi.

Not to say that either one is better or more beneficial, its just a different balance of focus and feeling.

In essence, havin a good spin is being more present, but in important ways is not the same as a deliberate meditation practice.

Interesting.

I agree with the juggling vs. poi bit about forgiveness. I have noticed it when doing releases with poi recently.

I find that if I am upset or my mind is over-revving I can go poi and it will calm me down. Not that it lasts long, but for the hours/minutes I am poiing, I do not really have to think about anything but that. Which involves a fair amount: thinking a couple moves ahead, fixing stuff that I can feel going wrong, some awareness of which way I am facing etc.

And that is on my own, not in front of an audience....

Yeah... even throws are fairly forgiving, you can catch directly into a stall if it comes at you at an odd angle, even. ^_^

Assuming that you can catch stuff at all....

My releases are dropping into my hand on most attempts now. Feels pretty cool. I would need to reweight my fire poi to do it with them though.

I can not juggle, but I will say that I can lose myself doing releases with poi quite easily.

Can't juggle.. my right hand can do all sorts of throws and catches, behind the back and all that jazz... left hand can do some stuff, sometimes... but it truly is an unwieldy beast.