AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Right, hey one and all.

I've been doing poi for about 2 weeks now, i'm still on the basics, Butterflys, weaves and windmill, just trying to get them going smoothly. But now that i'm concentrating on doing them properly i keep hitting myself especially on the windmill when i bring the left hand poi over my head. I also can't get the backward swing going vertical to my body.

Is there any advise out there?, frustration is setting in and its taking the fun out of things.

Cheers guys.

yeah - start practicing by letting the poi 'fall' behind you.

Just turn your hand over, and let the Poi fall behind your body and swing up the other side.

Be gentle.

------------------
[Josh]
[Sound beams producing arcs of light]

hey Oats, i am not sure if i understand what ur problems are but these might help:
1) Left Hand - most of us have trouble with that (the right handed poeple obviously); i am afraid since the left is not as coordinated as the right you will have to practise more with the left, as much as double the time spent on practising with the right...try to get very confortable in swinging with the left hand and changing planes from the front to the back
2) You must have noticed by now that the whole 'trick' in swinging is a sudden 'flick' of the wrist at the right time for most of the moves; the rest of the time you are effectively letting gravity do its part and the string is enanbling you to 'navigate' the poi and change its direction - that's how i perceive swinging in most of the cases: the wrist 'flick' to give the necessary force to the Poi and the string to 'navigate' it the rest of the time...so if you are trying to do too much by moving your whole arm from the shoulder or anything similar just bear in mind that you can achieve the same things with a much reduced movement; so it's more important to get a feel for when you have to flick your wrist; generally if you are using strings it's easy to feel it as the string will feel as having the same tension all the time...i am getting off track here, let me know where exactly u are hitting yourself and i might be able to help more practising each hand on its own most of the time helps a lot...
happy swinging,
Simos

Hey Simos.

Well the problem right now on the windmill is when I bring my left hand over my head for the behind the back revolution, after a while it starts hitting me in the lower back.

But thinking about what you said about write timing this may be the major problem. I'll work on that from now on.

However with the backward swing I find that the pois are going behind my legs on the downward swing, they don't hit me but it looks messy and it doesn't alow for a smooth cross over. Any ideas on how to get them going vertical? I had the same problem with the forward swing, but practicing up against a wall fixed that, thats not working this time.

Thanks for all the help.

Oats - i am guessing here since i cannot obviously see you doing the move and spot what's wrong but i think for your windmill problem, apart from getting the timing right, the problem might be that when your left poi swings behind your back, you are trying to move your left hand as much behind your head as you can...it sounds logical that if you are hitting your lower back you should move your hand further to the back but actually you'll find out that if you move your hand less it will not hit you as it will swing in a plane which is not exactly vertical - i hope you can visualize what i am saying - have a look on the hand movements (although mine are a bit different) :

please notice her wrist movement; the swinging is mostly coming from the wrist and not the elbow or shoulder - tell me if you are still having trouble - infortunately my ceiling is too low for windmills so i'll go out and try it out next time
2) by saying backwards swing do you mean just swinging the poi in reverse at your sides? so your problem is that they don't swing in parallel planes but the planes are at an angle (and meet somewhere behind you - are you with me?)...if that's the problem use your wrist more and not your whole arm/hand and try and work on the timing of the wrist flick - make sure you keep your palms facing up like it's shown in the lessons and try to imitate the movement, paying particular attention to using your wrists and keeping the poi moving in parallel planes...don't get despaired since with practise your wrists losen up a lot and you learn how to use them much better...everything will start becoming a lot easier then, it just takes a bit of patience and practise
hope this helps,
Simos

[This message has been edited by Simos (edited 09 February 2001).]

Simos you're a ledgand thanks a lot for that. Is all comming together much better.
As the saying goes "practice makes perfect."

Cheers.