Absolute Beginner Single Staff Spinning Tutorials

So you wanna learn to spin staff?

1) get a staff to practise with. Possibly you aready have one. Any bit of metal or wooden tube will do, it should be approximately your chin height, bigger or smaller doesn't have much of a difference. Weighting doesn't really matter at this point.

For learning contact however, the staff you use IS important. But we're not doing that right now so it's okay.



Learn this FIRST:

The Rotor
threeworlds gif animation
french gif tutorial - Rotation simple devant soi
japanese video clip
mot's gif tutorial
homeofpoi gif tutorial
mcp firestaff tutorial
feuershow.de - Quicklink-ID: 3244

This is 'the rotor', one of the very basic moves of staff spinning.

Try it both ways... it doesn't need to be incredibly smooth and fast for you to move on, it'll come in time.


Then Learn this:

The Figure of Eight
threeworlds gif animation
french gif tutorial - Mouvement de bras
japanese video clip
mot's gif tutorial
homeofpoi gif tutorial
mcp firestaff tutorial
mcp firestaff tutorial
feuershow.de - Quicklink-ID: 1253


This is the "Figure of eight" (fo8 for short) it goes from one side of your body to the other, it's very important that you learn this both ways in both hands. Keep your grip quite light, and feel the momentum of the staff, rather than forcing it around.

These are the two BASIC's of spinning staff. After you have done these a bit, you can hop about in the rest of this tutorial if you like. Everything else is some form of passing figure of eights, or turning or doing one of the two behind the back, or in combination.

Or the Other way around!



At this point, you can skip around in the following sections, learning what you like, in whatever order. This is not an ordering of difficulty, or a heirarchy, it's just a list. Learn what you like.



Once you've got say, forwards f08 in your right, reverse in your left, you can move on to something like this:

passing around the body:
mcp firestaff tutorial


Everything else: (online that is...)

that's the way I teach anyway, if you're having trouble with the figure of eight, try learning this instead:

rotor btb pass:
mot's gif tutorial
threeworlds gif animation
homeofpoi gif tutorial
mcp firestaff tutorial
feuershow.de - Quicklink-ID: 1260


Passing behind the back is useful as it leads into moves like this: (passing behind the back, then behind the head.)

pinwheel
threeworlds gif animation
mot's gif tutorial
mcp firestaff tutorial
feuershow.de - Quicklink-ID: 1265


Passing continuously behind the back. (rotor behind the back)

continuous btb
homeofpoi gif tutorial
mcp firestaff tutorial


Passing a figure eight between the hands:

figure 8 passing patterns
threeworlds gif animation
threeworlds gif animation
french gif tutorial - La Weave
mcp firestaff tutorial


Even simpler than a figure of eight:

one beats
mcp firestaff tutorial


Once you've got figure of eights, you can move them to the other side of your body, or turn around with them, or just go crazy!

turning figure eights
homeofpoi gif tutorial
mot's gif tutorial
mcp firestaff tutorial
mcp firestaff tutorial
feuershow.de - Quicklink-ID: 1262


Simple throws:

throws
homeofpoi video tutorial
fireninja video clips
french gif tutorial - Rotation, double tour


Moving the rotor up to the horizontal (above your head) plane.

horizontal rotor
threeworlds gif animation
homeofpoi gif tutorial


Adding in extra beats to the figure of eight, this is called shotguns / snakes / double spins.

shotguns
mot's gif tutorial
french gif tutorial - Double rotation devant derrière
mcp firestaff tutorial
mcp firestaff tutorial
feuershow.de - Quicklink-ID: 1276


passing a figure of eight behind your back.

BTB figure of eight passing.
mot's gif tutorial
mcp firestaff tutorial
feuershow.de - Quicklink-ID: 1268


what it says on the tin, getting extra beats out of the staff using fingerspinning.

fingerspinning
mcp firestaff tutorial
imakokode's video tutorial


What it says on the tin, patterns you can make just by passing the staff from hand to hand.

passing combinations:
mcp firestaff tutorial


References: (and further study)


mcp.tepookatoys.com
www.motsplace.com
www.tete-en-lair.com - FRENCH
www.homeofpoi.com
www.threeworlds.com.au
www.geocities.jp/performerjin
www.fireninja.com
feuershow.de


Next week: simple contact progressions.

somebody PLEASE sticky this to the top of the page?

*Bows down to meg. Again*

Agreed. Thankyou Meg

I might even have a go... (I should probably get a staff first )

for someone that scares off newbies........

you certanly do alot for them

nice one meg

I am both bad cop and good cop.

Oooh! I LOVE a woman in uniform!

you are so straight!

no thread is safe..............

not one

I'll drag it back on track it then...

This'd be really good for me to unlearn everything I know to get a new perspective on the whole process of learning...

Especially being someone who can do a Jesus but not an Angel Roll...

Cheers Meggy Moggy Owly...

now i have to wait for the weather to warm up, cause i am a wimp and have a hard time with staff wearing gloves

Thanks Meg

damn fine work from meg again can you do an intermediate one for me

Thanks very much.

I wanted to learn the staff, but lacked tutorials of any kind. I had some poi and began spinning those... but staff twirling is what interests me. I'll pick up my bamboo stick and get to work on all this!!!

Thanks Meg

Edit:
Heh, mastered these pretty quickly! Time to buy myself a staff DvD methinks.

ditto...

a staff what??? is there such an item worthy of the name?

not yet but from what i understand there will soon be more than one available.

So I shouldn't buy the Staff DvD from HoP? Alright, you're the experts, I'll wait around a little while and keep surfing the internet and practicing.

I'm gonna miss finger twirling when I get a bigger staff... it adds so many more beats. :-(
I'm sure there is a less newbish way to do that though...

Whoo hoo, Fabulous, Just got my first staff (my poi are takin a back seat) and all enthused to learn new things. Thanks for all the details, time to get to practising