Dancing with poi

Ok, here it is, the long awaited "dancing thread". This is an open forum for the discution of dancing with your poi. This includes all forms of bodily movement, feet, hips, head, whatever you can think of. Well.....let's here some ideas.

What can you do?

What do you want to do?

What do you like to see?

etc?

Lets get some ideas floating around!

Well I can't really do anything but I like to see the crazy caporia style dancing in poi. I also would like to see break dancing make incorporated with poi, Although I realize it is very difficult to combine break dancing with poi, let alone make it look good. I was thinking swinging clubs with cheater loops would be good because you can just grab the clubs and do your break dancing and then go back to swinging.

Fairly obvious I guess, but keeping the poi moves in time with the music looks great.

Turning moves back and forth in time with the music at 1X speed, 1/2X speed, 2X speed, or whatever.

The rest of my booty shaking dance moves are classified, I'm afraid. I could tell you but then I'ld have to kill you, like in Top Gun.

Either that or I can't be bothered trying to describe them...

Jo.

what do i want to do:
develop several distinct styles. ie; traditional/technical, liquid,drunken,breaky,chaotic.

i haven't touched the drunken yet, i have an idea of the flow for it, must watch drunken master again! that sudden dropping side to side swing of the body, lots of outstretching sweeps and direction reversals.

traditional/technical, imo, is charactized by standing in one place for most of the burn. focusing intently on twisty technical stuff. symmetrical, clean execution.

liquid: flow. freestyle. short orbit stuff. slow is better imo. folding from one class (bfly/weave) into the next, finding some rhythm in the music to beat match with. you can spin splittime and kind of move your hands inside the circle, you'll feel the wicks lighten up as the center of the rotation changes. ? . it's conducive to this kind of dance.

breaky: wraps, buzzsaw/bfly stuff. kick dancing integrates nicely, although tiring. ; )

hmmm, i need to think about what i'm trying to say here. more later! peace

matt

I've been working on several different styles.

I guess I can describe it as something similar to liquid dancing. It involves moving in smooth, fluid motions. The hips lead the feet sometimes, during sidewards movement. Whole spin can also move in sidewards "wave" flowing from teh head to the feet. I haven't yet tryed the reverse of this (feet to head wave)

When I turn I sometimes start it with a hip rotation (horizontal plane)

I also like to incorperate my arms into the poi movement. Let the circles grow and shrink.

The basic weave motions also can be shifted all over the place. For intsance, do a weave and then start moving the right hand closer to the left shoulder, the do the opposite hand, slid ethem up and down the opposite arm. Weave with one hand under the arm then above the shoulder.
(I'm not sure if this is considered a part of the dance, but it could be)

capoiera steping is also something I have been attempting to incorperate. I don't remember the exact names, but there are like three basic steping patterns that are used. I do two of them. I haven't realy found a nice 360/180 turn that flows with them (unfortunatly) so when I go to turn it sort of puts a break in the pattern. The other capoiera stuff doesn't realy go to well with poi, staff..yes, poi....no (like the cartwheel stuff and ground work)

There is also a section of moves that my friends like to call "moves for the ladies" It is almost embarasinhg to describe. Basicaly it involves crude hip thrusting in variouse manners But there are a lot of variations (not jus teh old in/out in/out)
I have seen some of it used in dance routines, so it is not entirely nauty.

There are variouse other hip motions that I use such as swaying back and forth and rotations at variouse fulcrums. also diagonal (up and side) movements coupled with smaller circles.

Also rotate the hips forward and drop down, resume original position and repeat.

Bouncing up and down is also an effective move for those jsut starting, it is simple yet it stil adds energy and gets oyu used to doing other things besides standing there.

I also like to raise a knee real high when I take steps and turn, this adds variety to the routine., along with raising and lowering oyur body. Crouch low, tip toe, etc.

Karate style steping and stances also can be utilized (back stance, fronstance, and walking using circular motions (also the ground)) if you have ever taken tai kwon do they use some interesting footwork to gget from point a to point b. basicaly you sometimes step in a semicircle in some steps and move your fet linear in other steps. also there are certian methods of placing your feet to turn.

Anyways, this is some of what I have been working on.

keep the idea coming

you can Dance Jo?

dancing with poi is something i didn't really start doing till last weekend, when i met this amazing girl.
the person who originally taught me poi doesn't know very much so considers dancing with them to be very advanced and difficult. that made me assume it was something i couldn't do.
so i met this girl, who's resume of poi moves (if you will) was far smaller than mine, but she has obviously had a fair amount of belly dancing experience which she sort of incorporates into poi.
the thing that struck me the most was her corkscrew. i previously found the move boring, but she moved her hips and such with the poi and made it look like the most amazing thing ever. so i've started to pick up this style, because i realize that (in my opinion) no matter what i do technically i will always consider it more beautiful to see someone like that just doing simple moves.
it just felt like she was poiing with her whole body and it was very ... primal or something.
i don't mean to say that dancing or this kind of dancing is better than anything else, but just that i've come to a realization about my own style, and well, that i want to have one in the first place.

so i guess i had two very basic observations about dancing with poi: that it looks great when girls use their hips (perhaps the same is true for guys but i have yet to see a guy do that and be really into it), and also that it just looks great when you move your body in ways or into positions that aren't normal for everyday life.

(this is just my opinion and i don't mean to push it on anyone else, just sharing.)

yeeeeees !

I love the windmill hip roll too!

I try and incorporate "freak" moves into my poi.You can see a small snippet of few "freak" moves I do in the Booty one vid.It's still kinda difficult to put freak style and poi together.Most freak stuff I can do by myself w/o poi or w/o a partner.It's just trying to get it to work and look good for poi is my problem.With a lil time and practice I should get some more incorporated into poi and make it my

I _THOUGHT_ you were enjoying doing the ol' "back that thang up" a little too much

A camel, or body roll forward looks really great with a rev. butterfly, timed where the butterfly seperates when the body comes forward (shoulders first, then chest, stomach, hips...in that order pushed slightly forward from neutral, in a wave). Then the butterfly closes in front when the body waves back. To add greater dimension, show a bit of stomach and add a belly roll (isolate each abdominal section, "rolling" them by contracting and releasing one then the next sequentially) to your body wave. Add length by doing this on tip-toe, and style by angling your body with each wave (ie: wave left, front, right, front, left). BUT keep the poi facing forward, so your body moves but they don't. This move also looks great with buzzsaw.

Hip lift. Stand sideways to your "audience" (say angled so the right is front). Plant your back foot releasing the front foot for balance. Contract your oblique muscles on the right so that your right hip lifts. Release to neutral.
Now, do an atom about chest lever or above.
Also add in a hip drop which is releasing that hip into a sitting position by releasing the muscles down and kind of sitting into it. Now try up, nuetral, down, nuetral, up.....
As you do this shift the atom spin in rhythm with the hips.

These are the belly moves. Let me know if you would like Salsa, Flamenco, Hip-Hop, Ballroom, Go-Go or line dancing.... as I incorporate all these more "traditional" dance styles into my routines.
Or, you can work on these and get back to me Santana

Another thing I'm working on is incorporating country line dancing into poi. Oh my gosh did she actually say country line dancing...The kind you do to country songs!!! Yes I did...I can do the Grapevine and sorta do the Electric Slide.

Santana yes I am still working on the "back that ass up thing" aka "freak".

I movement is pretty limited when I poi, this comes from poi-ing in a small room, focussing on the technical side of poi moves, & rarely gettin' on down on the dance floor. My movement style is more like a martial arts Tai Kwon Do v's Tai Chi stylie.

Ya got me thinkin about this now Cheers

just wait till headcharge Tempest....

you are coming, right?

Jo.

from my point of view, Santana, Jo and Leleil have got it spot on! When I do poi in my back yard (where I can concentrate and meditate) I listen to the music that I'm hearing, most of the time its really slow stuff, Zero 7, Afro Celt Sound system, Nightmares on Wax and so on.. if the beats slow then I try to slow my movements down, if they dip at all I will make my body shape smaller, if the music is building to a creshendo (sp?) then I'll try to make my movements progressively larger.

I s'pose its almost like a ballet, I try to be a little theatrical about it all, remember how sweet and pixie like a little ballerina can be, agile and flowing, compared to a male kinda 'torriador' dancer - strong and proud.. thats what I try to do with the expression of my poi... sorry you'll have to use your imagination there as I'm not to good at putting this down in writing..

I like Leleils point of the girl using all of her body, turns starting with the hips (santana), makes me sort of think of the moves that ice skaters have.. awww! What an awsome idea...
Poi on ice! I really like the idea of the two contrasting mediums, fire and ice.. now THAT would be cool! Think of the movement you could get in there..

<goes to find out where her ice skates are....>
but just to finish, I try to remember my energy field around me, my frame, the music that I'm listening too and just try to keep everything in harmony..

[ 23. March 2003, 05:49: Message edited by: MisStix ]

There are several ice shows that have incorporated fire into them. Prevelently Busch Gardens permanent ice show. The performer from there used to be on the boards. He played some demon bad-guy character.

And the country line dancing is really not so hard. Try the Achey Breaky, GoodBye Earl and there are actually several more. This is one of the easiest dances to work poi into because it is so feet intensive leaving your hands free primarily. I have been doing it for years and think it is the easiest way to learn to dance with poi, but while fun it isn't show worthy because it is so much repetition, which is where other forms of dance become incorporated.

A big thing with dance, for me is that you have to be relatively fluid with your wraps to make the dance transitions with poi. Just my thoughts. Anyone else find something different?

My personal style of dancing was the reason one of my pals handed me a set of poi two years ago, saying " i think you'd like this".
I tend to rotate my hands alot in close proximity,(weave or windmill combos) letting the spin of my wrists take my body into different twisting and bending motions.
I also like to let my legs cross over so that i can turn with a smooth spin of the body, but i have to avoid getting two stop starty, like micheal jackson .
When dancing to dance music it i enjoy devloping repeating patterns of combinations, that build up toward a fast wide crecendo @ the appropriate moment.

i love dancing with poi, i find myself alot less inspired without the beat to work to.

Oh one last thing, spinning to reggae helped me alot to get the motions i was looking for, purely beacause you have a solid baseline, with simple slower bouncy melodies. get those knees going!

Whats wrong with michael jacksons dancing? He is one of the best dancers out there (atleast in the spotlight)

Also I really like the idea of line dancing with poi. It's so simple and foot intensive like pele said it would allow you to concentrate more on heavy jedi-set technical moves. I think if you could do easier poi moves with more focus on dancing and then transition into something inspired by line dancing to do a few amazing technical moves without stopping in place and standing like a stiff board while you do them then you can transition back to another dance style. Not repetitive at all.

Err nothing, i said: " but i have to avoid getting two stop starty, like micheal jackson" i.e. avoid body popping unneccasairly, as an old MJ fan myself its easy to slip into it, i find it can disrupt the flow, thas all.

one other thing i've noticed with other fire dancers is the head, by moving, turning nodding and flicking back, a simple motion can look alot more dynamic, eg turning to face the oppposite direction to the movement of your hands.