Basic planes

for future reference:

if you spin one poi, it goes round in a circle. this circle is 'flat'.
by that i mean that you could imagine a pane of glass going through the circle from top to bottom (and through your hand).
this imaginary pane of glass represents the planes we all talk aboot.

with your poi spinning vertically, if your planes are neat they (or if you prefer, this pane of glass) will meet the floor at 90deg.

spinning vertically there are two standard sets of planes:

the wallplane - which is spinning in front and behind you (like the mexican wave on the hop poi lessons).
face a wall - that's the wallplane.
or as someone told me once "the wallplane. its the one you juggle in, innit."

the wheel plane (not a standard name as far as i know but a damn good one i reckon eva ) - which is the standard orientation for weaves.
poi spin at your sides - think sitting in a car with the wheels at you side.


you are the -0- in the pictures below.
looking from above, the o is your head and the dashes are your shoulders.
this is purely to show which direction you are facing in relative to the planes of the toys (up or down, left or right).

the lines show the planes that you are spinning your toys in.

Code:

---

 WALLPLANE: 

 

      _________



 





         -0-



      _________





 

---

Code:

---

 WHEEL PLANE:

 

 



      |       |

      |       |

      |  -0-  |

      |       |

      |       |



 

---

the third standard set of planes is the horizontal.
i tend to use ceiling plane or floor plane depending if i am feeling high or low that day.
others call it the lid plane.

the floor plane look at the corkscrew in the hop lessons.
when your poi are spinning like this (in a plane parrallel with the floor), you are spiining horizontally and hence, in the floor plane.

rriiiiiggggghhhhhtttttt...hehe. I still don't understand that cole!!!

Mozy

yeah that was a bit crap wasn't it?!

sorry

gone back and edited - any better?

yeah, I get it...good idea

probably worth mentioning at this point that its generally not the planes that change by 90deg, its your body's orientation to them - ie. you turn to face the planes or turn perpendicular to them - you don't ever just pull the planes round (or 'breaking planes' as it is usually called).

so maybe those pictures would make more sense if they looked like this:

Code:

---

WALLPLANE:

 

      _________



 





         -O-



      _________

 

 

 

 







WHEEL PLANE:

 

 

      _________



 

          |

          O

          |



      _________

 





 

---

good, nice, better, thanks!

T

coleman - is the 'plane' similar to what I would call the 'cube', in that there are 6 possible sides, or 3 possible planes to be working in?

side plane and front plane = vertical walls of the cube
??? plane = horizintal walls of the cube (corckscrew moves etc)

am I on the right track with your thinking?

Ade inhabits the third dimension

yep, that'd explain it

Actually, they are all wall planes.
Ade u are right, but there are above the head wallplane and horozontal in front/ btb, hyperloop planes etc, etc.

I have a link about planes, but its another poi site.

They are quite pointless really, only a way to better help describe, in text, and idea or concept of a move.

Planes dont really exist and can actually stop your own personal expression, if u chose to follow them. What happens if u change your plane by 1.23 of a degree??? Is it now WRONG or somthing. Were not robots.

"think outside the circle "

ade - that's exactly it

a plane is just like of the faces of the cube.
i'll go back and add a note about horizontal planes now.

dragon - the 'they are all wall planes' comment is a bit counter productive considering the context of this thread, don't you think?

but seriously, i'd entirely diagree with the fact that planes are only there to help describe moves.

tight planes generally equals neater circles for an audience.
eg. spin a weave with parallel planes (lets say wheel plane for the sake of choosing one for now) and get someone to watch.
they should see lovely, circular rings of fire.
then start bringing your planes together (into a 'v') and the person watching will begin to see the circles 'squash' into a conic section (in this case, a regular ellipse with the major axis running from top to bottom i think).

yes, spinning only in these 3 sets of planes does stifle creativity to an extent (no atoms, corners, even butterflies to an extent if we're talking about zero error - are butterflies your 1.23 degree plane angle move by any chance? ) but i think this will help rather than hinder most people who don't already have some kind of methodology for thinking good poi control.

the plane playing came way after i'd managed to develop half decent plane control. even now i only really like parallel and 90deg planes.
you want the crazy shit go ask arashi about trinity...


[edit for spelling]

Yea, sry bout the "all wall plane" thing. Thats what that site calls them all, and even has little diagrams etc. Waste of time if u ask me, although u r right about the symmetry and tight planes. I guess it depends on your skill lvl and what u really want to be doing with "chains".

[ 24. June 2003, 12:13: Message edited by: Raging Dragon ]

I think Raging Dragon has a point. After all, IMHO the ideal place to twirl (or “perform” if you like) is somewhere like a festival with lots of space and audience all around.

So your messy or "squashed" circles are going to look like "lovely circular rings of fire" from another angle.

cole, I think you're right too, to a certain degree, in terms of the theory but there really are loads of different planes aren't there?

yes, there are infinite planes.
however when we talk about most of this stuff, we're generally considering ones that are perpendicular to the ground and, if we 'mix planes', its normally those ones at angles to each other.

you can also tilt them towards the lid plane of course.

this thread was only really intended as a reference point for new spinners not as a discussion on planes but now we're here...

i have two points, both on control:

1. i agree, its fine to say 'there's shitloads of planes' but unless you can hold those planes throughout a move its going to look sloppy and maybe even unintentional.
if you can't reproduce them with a fair degree of confidence, or if you feel like the move 'comes when it decides to', is it really you spinning the move or is it just a lack of control?

2. the changes and mixes of planes should always be intentional.
sunbeam, you are bang on right when you say that if you are surrounded by people and you are spinning your planes at angles to each other, they will at least look like lovely circles to some people (unless of course you tilt towards the lid plane in which case they'll look squashed to everyone).
what i'm saying is, you need good plane control in order to get those lovely neat circles in the first place, then you can choose who (or more to the point, where) to show squashed circles to and when.
if you only spin in the planes in this post and get good control, the two shapes made by the poi spinning will neat regular circles to people dierectly in front of you and will be squashed by equal amounts for people watching at an angle to you.

good plane control is one of the most important things to me and my spinning.
without it i don't think i would really have much style at all - for those who don't know me, i think my style is kinda to just stand there, fairly solid and spin as neat as i can at set points around me. if i didn't have good plane control i would just be a boring static spinner with messy moves (you might have heard this about me anyway, depending who you ask ).
i definitely wouldn't be able to catch or mix planes very well.

so, when learning plane control it makes sense to use the standard three sets since 99% of the moves people know right now are based in these (yes there are probably just as many mixed plane moves but no-one really knows them yet).
when you have them tight, you immediately have two sets of perpendicular planes to play with (by mixing the original sets).

chicken and egg innit.

and so coleman I was thinking about the planes, and agreeing that they are a good reference point for beginners

but

what happens when we extend the planes a bit from the cube description?

Can you imagine beng surrounded not by a cube, but say a dodecahedron (or another funky 3D shape with more than 6 planes) and spinning on those additional planes - which would accommodate butterfly and atom moves say....

it led me to the, what I thought, logical conclusion, that if you extend this shape on and on, and put even more planes into the shape, you end up with......

a circle.....

am I going mad?

Actually you end up with a sphere

Which is exactly what Cole said:

quote:

---

yes, there are infinite planes

---

and if you take the flat plane that describes the circular orbit of whatever you're swinging round that sphere, then thats the plane you're currently spinning in.

i see yours and Raging Dragon's point that you don't have to remain locked into spinning in a single plane, and can take your poi on more complex twisting orbits, but most of the time when you're playing you're gonna be spinning parallel circles aren't you?

My take on planes is basically this - if you keep planes really tight and parallel to each other it looks much much better than your planes being loose, wobbly and almost parallel. Thats not to say that crazy plane twisting moves can't look good, quite the reverse... but you got to know the rules before you can break them

Planes being wonky and spinning in V shapes rather than parallel lines is the main reason i generally see beginners struggling and whacking themselves (particularly with behind the back stuff)

[ 27. June 2003, 21:09: Message edited by: simian ]

Col i think were both right. U do have to learn the basic concepts of planes untill u progress to a stage when the movement becomes "natural" and fluid. But when you'v been doing those planes for along time , u start to wonder "what happens if..." and then you start to variate and inovate different angles and styles.

Obviously Ade, we spin in circles, but the major basic planes are centered in the "cube" (Dont worry that the math dos'nt work for now).

Your "dodecahedron" and "3D shape with more than 6 planes" seems to fit well though, but if we are talking about basics and beginners then the cube is where they need to start.

It all get's too tricky when people are naming transitions (the move/connection between moves) What should happen is that by the time you get to that stage, u no longer worry about those because its all become natural.

Transitions are the exception to the rule of planes as u can variate them to a degree where they run through differnt angles untill they meet the next move. (I know there are poeple here who would disagree.)

I play around with my planes like crazy but my 'proper' planes totally suck. It's just to boreing for me to constantly work on the same basic planes. Although if I spin with people watching I tend to try to keep my planes as neat as I can.

heh heh the wheel plane looks like a tie fighter!!
weeeeeeeeee!
yes, i think planes are limiting - but in a good way!! they severly limit our range of movements, but when you're spinning fire that's only attached by twisty chains/cables, strict adherence to a clean set of planes is a good thing!! it's only pioneers that think outta the box to explore that which we were never 'bought up' to believe, like Terrance McKenna.
It's only ayahausca-swilling people like Terrance that get to speak to the mechanical elves.
I refer y'all to read Arashi's trinity concept - planes that are angles other than perpendicular to each other! He illustrates this pioneer concept too - though the elves have already taken him, so it's no real surprise!!

huh?