Another "where to go next" thread

Hi, thanks for looking. So i decided to get back in to poi after finding my strings the other night. so far in about 8 hours ive gotten the butterfly, 3 beat weave, low turn and my panes are coming along alright. right now im trying to get isolations going, but im having verry little luck, so Im wonder what should i learn next, what moves would help my flow/ be good transitional moves between those above? thanks again in advance.

reverse 3 beat weave, underhand butterfly (if you learned over). high turn, link them, stalls into butterfly, link them, thread neadle under and overhand, crosses, flowers, behind the back, then harder stuff -waist wraps, hybrids, contact, throws, high beat stuff...

isolations will help stalls and other stuff
wraps i dont really do much of but i like spirals

This is the way i more or less went i think. mix it up if you cant do something and it will (or did with me) work after a few days of doing something else.

move around more, something i have never really done and trying to do now

Isolations are something you just have to constantly be practicing; the earlier you start practicing the better, but I've been doing poi for four months or so and I still can't keep a buzzsaw isolation going. But like Geeza said, learn everything you know now in reverse and practice transitioning between them. Just being able to do a 3-beat and go from forward to reverse will help you flow immensely.

What helps me is scouring the Interweb for "inspirational" type spinning videos, or just videos of people who are really really good, and just watching them move. You get a sense of what makes them so good and then you can try to emulate it.

Just because I'm lazy, I'm going to copy and paste my lesson-plan for my youtube tutorials. I haven't made all of these yet, but I'm getting through them, I've hit a bit of a wall with exams, but there's still plenty to keep you occupied. In my opinion, here's what I think benefits twirlers most in order. Of course this isn't concrete, you can play around with the order, but in my opinion, this will enable you best understanding and freedom of movement early.

Personally, I don't recommend learning isolations yet, it'll be much harder without having a solid "feel" for the poi, and time spent trying to learn them will be far better spent trying to learn other things that you will be able to pick up far faster and will build your mental library of movements.

Level 1 - Beginners:

1. Basic spinning
2. Crosses
3. 2 beat weave
4. 3 beat weave
5. 3 beat weave turning
6. Low, same direction reels (watermill)
7. High, same direction reels (windmill)
8. Same direction reel transitions and combos
9. Basic Butterfly spinning
10. Butterfly low reels
11. Butterfly high reels
12. Direction changing (basic stalls)
13. Direction changing (basic wraps)

Level 2 – Beginners – Intermediate:

14. The Butterfly
15. Basic Butterfly variations
16. Basic Weave and Long arm variations
17. 2 Beat corkskrew and variations
18. Shortening your poi
19. Waistwraps introduction
20. Basic 2 Handed Spiral

Level 3 – Intermediate

21. Thread the Needle
22. Crossers
23. Same-direction Buzzsaw fountain and variations.
24. Longarm spinning and reels
25. Thread the Needle transitions and variations
26. Under the Legs (basics)
27. Regular Flowers
28. 4 beat corkskrew
29. 4 beat windmill
30. Wrist Through-wraps
31. Intermediate wrap combos
32. Intermediate stalls
33. Airwraps
34. Behind the Back 2 beat weave
35. 4 and 5 beat weaves.
36. Pendulums (not 1.5s)

Level 4 – Intermediate – Advanced

37. 360 Reels turns
38. 360 Longarm turns
39. 360 Crosser turns
40. Butterfly Flowers
41. One-handed spiral
42. Waistwraps (meltdowns)
43. Isolations Introduction
44. Elbow through-wraps
45. Vertical stalls
46. Inversions
47. Hyper-loops
48. Behind the back 3 beat weave

Level 5 – Advanced

49. Anti-spin flowers
50. Anti-spin weave
51. Behind the back 3 beat variations
52. Behind the back 5 beat weave
53. Advanced Spiral variations
54. Advanced wrap combos
55. Neck through-wraps
56. Horizontal Stalls
57. Isolated Buzzsaw

Level 6 – Really Advanced?

58. Isolated 3 beat weave
59. Hybrids
60. Behind the back crosser
61. Over the arm crosser
62. Behind the head moves

Oh yeah, and if anybody wants to let me know what they think of this list, if anything should be changed or is missing, please just tell me, like I said, it's not in concrete.

For what it is worth, I have been spinning for two years now (give or take a month) and can still not isolate my left hand properly.

Best advice is learn everything backwards. And just play with getting from one to another.

Nathaniel: Nice list. I notice that you do not have throws/releases on it. Only notice it because I have been doing a lot of them recently. Can not say to much about order and so on though.

Thank you! Now that you've said that I've remembered other related things too. I can't believe I forgot throws and releases, along with contact, wibbling, snags and such. Cheers, more things to add to the list.

42. i thought waistwraps are different to meltdowns

think you may have missed off a few things

hyperloops / orbitals
under the legs
jumps
straight jackets
polytiming
shots

Geeza a good list to start with, ive been working on linking what i know together. im going to start working on movement while spinning and the reverse 3 beat.

as for the isolations, im getting mixed reviews here so ill keep working on them, but as a background move. I figure they will help with allot of different things later, and judging from how hard they are (could be from the ammount of skill) to learn might as well work on them a bit everyday.

NathanielEverist I checked out the first couple lessons, I like the styule your using and look forward to learning from the videos. as for the order ill have to take your word for it :P


also ive just ordered myself a set of LED poi with nylon cords, some colecord and the art of poi/COL dvd so ive got allot stuff to work from, if i come across any problems allot the way ill add them here. again thanks for all the help

also by going reverse do you mean in the opposite direction (right to left instead of left to right) or opposite hand movements (starting going under instead of going over)

Didnt think of hand movements. I used to start my 3bt weave off going right hand over left, but now do right hand under too. (i dont think about it now as i can do either or (and just had to do a 3bt weave as i wrote this!))

Reverse i mean poi spinning backwards instead of going forwards (forwards away from you, backwards in to you)

If that makes sense

i start off right over left, im working on starting left over right for the moment, then il start the under with both hands. i think i get what you mean about the forwards/backwards i think (just had to weave to figure it out :P)

Yeah, waistwraps are different from meltdowns, but I intend on teaching them both at the same time, because it's fairly simple once you get good waistwraps. It's just a matter of crossing the non-waistwrapped hand in front of the body.

I included under the leg stuff, and hyperloops, but straight jackets, polytiming and shots are definitely worth adding in there. Thanks.

I've nothing to add to the list - it's just on 3 weeks since I started spinning. I just wanted to say here that I discovered your YT vids a couple of days ago and have found them very helpful.

I'm still playing down the beginner end mind you.

I'm glad to hear they helped. And don't worry, we were all beginners once, so long as you're enjoying yourself, that's all that matters.

nathan, im tyring out the reverse from your videos and i cant seem to get the arms crossed over part working, anytips?

What reverse? The reverse cross or the reverse 2 bt weave?

reverse 3 beat, (3 beat part 2)

Ah ok, what part are you having troubles with specifically? The arm's crossed over part? It's hard to tell where you're going wrong from words alone, but my advice would be to practice your reverse crosses until they're clean and your reverse 2 beat weaves with each hand on top, until they're really clean. If you're hitting yourself when you're doing it, it's most likely a problem with your planes.

specifically im finding it hard (starting with right arm on top) with riasing my right up and bringing it back under, eveytime i try to bring it under my left poi keps hitting my arm