What makes your poi style different?

I have noticed recently in my area that new poi spinners are about as common as...erm...a really common thing, i also noticed that many of the new up and commers are learning from what they watch and as expected they are starting to evolve into miniture versions of the people who have been spinning for a while.

BUT they are also adopting very similar styles. This is slightly concerning me and my friends. we took time and evolved our styles through time.We are all different. I learned through perseverence and H.O.P. I along with a few others can proudly say our styles are our own. but i was just wondering if anyone else had slight concerns about this issue.

Secondly what to you think makes your style of poi staff etc different to others (if you think it does) Is there any element of your art you are particularly proud of,i.e technique, speed, funky, trancy?

I think i'd call my style 'swoopy'

This is not a grudge thing btw.

Tennis

i'm learning to spin at the mo, but i'm trying to do it by myself for the very reasons you just said, i think that if someone else taught me-i would only be learning their style. i hope that after a while i shud develop my own style and i'll personally be able to be more proud of that,lol.

My staff style is based fairly heavily on my friend Keith. He's a great spinner, but on top of this just oozes style with a staff and poi. He doesn't do much (any?) contact stuff though so we're not at all identical.

My poi style I haven't knowingly based on anyone/anything - Lots of standing infront of mirrors and windows to make the circles nice... I'm normally quite still foot-wise but with the right music I go all skippy and jumpy - it's my attempt at grace

CJ'ing is erm, flowy - but I guess that's the best way to Contact Juggle!

ermm - Keith and Durbs - I love you guys.. you guys have taught me one hellva lot.. but I hope our styles are different.. coz you guys spin like boys... and boys smell of wee..

but seriously - your 'Randeen walking' is getting alot better!

oi!

*pulls niki's hair for the 'smell of wee' jibe*

i don't think you have to worry about the style thing dude. its just like you said - you evolve your own style over time.

when you were all just starting i reckon your styles would have been quite similar.
well its just the same with the new guys - they will adopt the style of the person teaching them cos that's how they are being shown the moves.

i used to have a style almost identical to moohaahaa cos it was him that taught me everything for my first 6 months.
as i gradually got better and met more spinners with different styles i started to develop my own.

over time our styles have moved apart and i have my very own now (i hope)

surely it would be better to comment on someone else's style..

it might not be the same for you but when i spin (sorry for the following sentence frostypoi) i just trip out and let myself flow...

i dont know what i look like when i spin...

perhaps some of the people that watch me spin can tell me.

Actually, this is very common. If you look at people who learn and spin together alot, stylistically they look almost exactly the same. You can see it on the COL3 video actually.

I learned and am learning completely seperate from anyone else. I derrive much of my style from the dance styles I do. Also from the music that I choose to spin to, which is completely different than what most people think to spin to. I am influenced by several kinds of physical performance arts, such as comedia and mime, and very much by circus arts.

I view my style as a spinning experiment gone very wrong!

I think my teacher could have had some part in my style development. Slow to download, constantly crashing..yep I learnt all I know from HOP! I did not see more than 3 spinners together until I went to Thailand. Last week in London there was poi EVERYwhere!!!

UCF - you look like a doozer on acid when you spin

Jodan - Jon spins beautifully.

You can learn 'moves' from someone, and someone elses technique. Sure you can be influenced by somebody's style, but we folks all move in different ways.

Personally, I have styled myself after a duracel bunny who smokes too much and like to bounce around

it's probably true that you learn a lot from the people that teach you style wise. simply because they're teaching you the moves and tricks-it takes time to master them and make them your own.

i hope my style is pretty unique as i've had minimal teaching and just kinda pissed about myself. never spun with the same people for more than say 5 days cuz i was constantly travelling when i learned.

my style-someone can name it for me if they ever see me spin.

I learn technical tricks from whomever will teach me. If I see a move I like, I either try and figure it out on my own or, if I can't, I ask them to teach it to me. Most people are happy to share a trick or seven with an eager student. Learning my tricks from so many different sources, including HoP, gives me a unique blend of not only tricks, but a bit of style as well.
When I watch someone spin, I am constantly on the lookout for things that I like the look of. Whether it be how they move to the music, or how they vary the speed or how they move so far and so much.
I am trying to pull the best of everyone that I see and combine it into a style that I would like to watch, if I wasn't having fun doing it.
Whatever I am attracted to, I try to put into my own spinning. I especially love people with a very fluid style. Smooth as silk, I love that feel and that look. Somone who can make a 3-beat look as beautiful and graceful behind as in front. It shows complete mastery of the trick. I also love it when people combine dance and acrobatics with their tricks. If you can do a butterfly with your foot behind your head... you can freaking DO a butterfly.
I love watching people who make me think, "I'm going to be that good someday."
Although I want to be as good as that person, it doesn't mean I want to be that person. i want to continue to add new and unique tricks to my arsenal then mastering them so completely that I can make them my own.

Long live the individual.

*cringes at my own post from waaaaaaaaaaaay back when*
Kids eh?

Indeed. I wanna see you walk like Randeen.

what makes my poi style different?

er.. me.

what makes my poi style different is that occasionally they'll fly out of my hands, feet up into the air and then land on the floor. Gorgeous!

Different? Gee, I dont know. Maybe I dont have enough ego, but I dont see what I do as being significantly different from the general populace. I spent aeons perusing youtube, and the like, for videos of people like Nick and Yuta, Rastaxel, Vicered and the entire Burn Crew Concepts; Mawelle, Durbs, Pineapple Pete, Bluecat, Pistache, Thomas Johannson, Prisna, Malaba, Rovo, Napalm Fairy...

....I mean, when I use people like that for inspiration, HOW could I not help but emulate them in some form or another?

I mean, that's some of what happens when so much is available online for the world to find. Sure, some amalgamation and blending may happen. But I dont do this for a means of living, so my outlook is that the sacrifice of individuality is totally worth the gain of seeing this beautiful artform gaining recognition in the larger spectrum of things.

I will say of myself, that I am different from my local peers in that I tend to focus in streams upon avenues of technical spinning that the others in my area have not shown an interest in. Namely in throws and under the leg manuevers, but also in performing to music that is not so electronic or tribal in nature. (my latest fad is spinning to Django Reinhart )

Yes it sucks when you get a bunch of clones but keep in mind that they will fully devlope thier own style in due time.

My style is Poi Chi

Just go as slow as possible, bend your knees and exagerate your movments.

Not so good for uber techy stuff but that might just mean that I need more practice.

mmmm Poi Chi. I like that. I used to compare my spinning to all the yoga I used to do, but Poiga just sounded like I had something caught in my throat.

To be honest, I have never understood the obsession towards uniqueness from the beginning. I thought it was simply in the States, but I do see it from people all around the world.

Do authors all start life as Dostoevsky? If two tykes start off reading Lyle, Lyle the Crocodile, is one less distinct because they are influenced to grow up and write more children's books?

Do I need to stop drinking coffee, tea, and mate all at the same time?

I think because I love dancing.. and I usually dance a lot with my poi friend Ren... we put on our favourite songs and without looking at each other, end up doing the same moves anyway... Because we're so in tune with what we think the music represents.

I love joint routines as well, though practicing them and getting them right is hard when you're afraid you're going to wack them on the head...

Something that makes just me different... not when I'm performing.. but while I'm just jamming I move more than I poi... and tend to do my right hand double time...

This makes things interesting...

Mmm. Maybe you could start doing hybrids with one hand double time? I wonder if that would work?

I've been playing with double timed hybrids. Like the two isolations and one long arm. the effect, when done properly is like a clean/nice 5bt hybrid.

On topic:
I'm trying to learn how to attach the poi heads to each other from almost any move and anywhere around my body. So naturally this is a huge area of 'moves' i am exploring & "dancing" with.

I'm also trying to be able to reach my isolations any where so I can dance around with them as well.

This in a combination with some simple flow moves, long arms , turnings and transitions makes up my way of spinning. The essence of it's uniqueness lies in having control anywhere i can reach. Like isolations above my head.

Another thing that is very much my style is polyrythms and especially turning with them =)

This is a really interesting topic. And Squid, you can drink coffee, tea, and mate at the same time, as long as you share them with me.

But to business...

I agree that people I know who practice together spin with a similar style, and though that isn't particularly a bad thing it seems to me that people who practice a lot/alone start to get some personal definition. Many spinners I've seen (particularly with newer spinners) basically run through each of the moves they know. And then there are people that really *dance.*

From the feedback I've gotten, I guess I move my whole body more than the average spinner-- closer to the dancing-with-fire rather than spinning-in-patterns. So my transitions are short and sneaky. I think I also respond and interact with music more than the spinners I run with.

eeerm. i think -to be maybe a little over simple...its just what feels right. if you do what feels right and progress with your spinning naturally then you learn your own style - and fit it to how you move naturally and what you feel happiest doing which strangely is usually what looks best too. i try not to get too stuck in the set patterns. i will learn them but then try pull them apart and work out where i can go next. i think spinning with others helps. you end up interacting and it creates a challenge but then again i have only been doing this for a year so i could still change my mind

My poi style is based on playing around on my own for years without seeing any videos, HoP or many other spinners apart from some tourists. Classic Aussie feral spin it around and have a good time stuff. Then suddenly my home was influxed by collective Uberness of people like FlameOz, Dom, Nick Woosley, Garthy etc. Oh. I see, right. I was so intimidated I damn near stopped spinning altogether.
Since starting up again I've been inspired by those folk, plus Fenfire, and the other lovely Europrecision types, with lots of stalls and angles. And antispins and flowers cos I like them and find them quite accessible as compared to behind the back stuff cos I am short and fat.

So now my style is an odd combination of go for it survival tactics and sharp stalls, with quite a lot of assymetry in different directions. And, apparently, an impressive range of facial expressions!

Hmmmmm... I like to think I've taken a little piece of everything and everyone that's inspired me (largely Jet Li, tai chi & other spinners) and influence it with what feels comfortable. Like with everyone, I'm sure it took time to evolve into a more expressive style, but I don't really remember, so it must have been a fairly fluid transition.

Given time everyone evolves regardless of tutelage. It's likely that very new spinners are only limited by the ammount of skills they have learnt and will soon flourish. Perhaps even bringing new schools of thought?

i am beginner/intermediate poi spinner i learned through glowstringing which give me a diferent style to a degree off the bat but basically yall are right you have to learn all the motions and what not and adopting anothers style helps at first but with more practice you learn to link the moves in diferent ways i dont use tucks to chang my poi directions usally a wrap around my leg or shouders for instance plus the music u chose to spin to changes your style. the same person will spin different from one song to another

i just thought of something else ! making mistakes, and really unusual ones helps make a style different. because when i make a mistake i change track and do something different, or end up moving in completely different ways to how id normally move maybe that goes without saying? but i thought id mention it anyway

iv been looking in to this alot. iv learnt alot over the passed year from friends, internet, books, anywhere i can. but atm i dont dance or move much. so iv been looking around for a style or mix of styles that suits me.

atm tho... i use long slow sock poi so my style is very technical but smooth. making behind the back, over the head, under the legs stuff look as smooth and natuaral as possible but while staying pretty still.

I also started with glow. I think it gives me a very distinct style along with numous other things. I think as your learning its unavoidable to almost copy someone for a while. For example while learning flowers and ways to manipulate them you have to practice them the way you see someone else do it. Then you become free to make it your own when you master it.

I think your past will also shape your style. For example I'll use the more obvious people. In my eyes Bender derives his style from martial arts, so he will allmost allways be more aerial, quick, and smooth (depending on what form he studies, or new things he learns). Nick had expressed his former dancing and tai chi past. Being in ballet makes Nick's style for obvious to me now. At the moment im working on being smooth and using my dance class, my style will look similar at times (especialy since im learning some of the things he's teaching). Yuta's style to me seems to be derived from modern dance. As I get into that it will look more like his.

In conclusion after you learn everything you can. I think your style becomes your own. Until then and even after, your style will allmost allways be simial to someone else's depending on your backgrounds. I wouldnt be upset...Its flattering to have someone thing what you do is that beautiful. If nobody copied eachother we would all still look like the people spinning in COL2.

I dont think revolutionaries like Sage get that upset about it. You get your 15 minutes and like i said its flattering to inspire...

lol my poi style is different cus i love staff.
if it weren't against nature i'd marry my fire staves.

I was just using your staff style as an example. Ive never even seen you use poi lol. Its kind of hard to get the complete thought across sometimes cuz im at work while im here. :-)

I just want to add that I have multiple distinct styles that I use. You learn them like martial arts disiplines. I think its a beautiful process it just kinda sucks that alot of use have to hide alot of our talent due to being performers.