Home of Poi: Definitive Listing of Wraps (56+ wraps listed)

RaVeRxSuRgE...reincarnated??? [Confused]

NYC, nice referrence to our departed friend: the short string, high strung, glow-ninja.

Just wondering, I looked back for his original post that pissed off so many people, and saw he had mentioned a lot of wraps that have otherwise not even been considered here. I was also amused to find that I do pretty much most of what he was getting all "holier-than-thou" over. Even though I cherish the fact that I am one of the few people I have ever seen to pull off most of these wraps, (and the only one to do all of them smoothly...hey, I lead a sheltered life! [Razz]

) I believe the world is a better place when you share knowledge. And they look hella cool! These are all symmetrical wraps, so they can all be pulled off without interupting the "flow," so to speak. Even the most hardcore jaded anti-wrap spinners out there can appreciate these if they are done smoothly. So...here goes.

"Lollipop" or "Typhoon" double-hand wraps. The way I learned this was standing in front of a mirror. You almost need straps to pull this off. The strings have to be originating from as close to the web of your fingers as possible to make it run smoothly, or else the string/chain (Yes, I do all of these with fire) will skip over fingers and screw itself up. Hold both arms out at a comfortable height with palms up and flat (fingers out) Slowly sway them in same time back and forth, but not so far that they go over the top, or loose momentum and fall. When you get comfortable with keeping them in the same plane together, give them a little bit more of a swing and snap your wrists. If they are going counter-clockwise, your left hand will remain palm up, and your right hand will face palm down directly over the top of your left. The effect is having the poi enter into circles of decending size in the same plane until they can't go any further and stop. Kind of like a whirlpool or one of those big giant lollipops you see at the candy store and want really bad, but you know you can't eat it all, (hence the name.) When they reach the end, pull your hands apart, and it will start the circles going the other way. Now, you reverse the positions of your hands...left facing down, right facing up. I found it helps to keep your palms slightly apart by about an inch or two to aid in pulling them back apart. You will feel it when you get it right, and then it will just click and you can repeat, ad nauseum. [Wink]

Once you get it down, this wrap can be pulled from any windmill or weave, at any position you like: behind the head, BTB, BTL, overhead, pointed down at the ground, or on the side. You can even weave it from side to side and cork"screw" it from top to bottom. If you do it over head, hold your arms up like you were making the "A" from the "YMCA" song, and slow down slightly before they wrap, they will snake down on opposite arms. Very much a crowd pleaser!

Butterfly double-hand wrap: Pretty much have to have the same type string position for this one, too. If you make a fist, and point it straight out, it helps to have the string coming from between the fingers as close to the back of your hand as possible. OK, do a (rev.)butterfly. Once you have it going as close to flat as possible, just poke all of your fingers out on the downswing or upswing (depending on the length of your strings/chains) and let them wrap. You have to keep a distance between your hands on this one, too, and make sure your palms are facing inwards. Time it out so when that right before the poi stop, you are starting to pull back out. You can do this one in any position that I described before. A little variation of this is to start from a forward B-fly, do the double-hand wrap, and when it comes out reverse, move your hands out a little ways, wrap the strings/chains around their respective hands until they stop and unwrap them back into a B-fly.

"Yin-Yang" Windmill Wrap: Start from a windmill. Normally when your arms come to the front, your strings are aimed outward to spin them in front of you. Well, once they make the rotation, instead of pulling them back behind your head, just pull your wrists back so they cross slightly and point towards your chest. Wrap the right poi over the left bicep from above, and the left poi under your right bicep from below. Recoil it and you go into a rev. windmill, or you can keep it going and it looks like a Yin-Yang. (Note, if you were to look at this from above, the strings/chains make a squashed "X") You can also do the same thing behind your head, or from a corkscrew, over your head or facing down to the ground. Interesting trick that I have never even heard mentioned: if you shorten up your strings enough and don't wrap at all, you can do and entire windmill in front of your body by pulling the backswing between your arms instead of behind your head. You can do it behind your head as well, but you have to be very flexible, or else you will clock yourself. [Embarrassed]

One more thing that is woth noting that I haven't seen or heard of. Do a windmill rather fast, and when you bring it to the front, give it one extra hard snap to get a lot of momentum, but instead of keeping through with the traditional windmill motion, stop your hands and let the windmill spin in place. (A so called "Infinite Beat" or "Tangle Method" movement). When they start to slow down, do the wrap, recoil hard, and spin it back out until it is untangled. Word! [Big Grin]

Alternating Bicep Wraps: Start with one poi spinning forwards and one spinning backwards, same-time, at your sides. (From a split B-fly or by wrapping one poi from a weave or whatever) At the same time, wrap the poi spinning forward under that arm's bicep, and the one spinnig rev. over that arm's bicep. When they recoil, keep them on the same sides, but wrap the opposite way. You can repat this of you want, or you can start variating it. Here's some ideas: Instead of keeping them on the same side, cross both arms over and wrap on opposite biceps at the same time. Or you can just cross one over and wrap both on the same bicep from opposite directions, then cross both to the other side and do the same thing on the other bicep. You can throw an inside B-fly between the arms on the way over to the other side. You can also do all of this in split-timing as well. Pull out of this at any time into a butterfly. If you are doing it in split-time, and the poi are wrapping around the same arm, you can easily pull out into a 3-, 4-, or 5-point split-time B-fly. Maybe do that for a second and then start the wraps again to change up the direction. I am working on a variation right now of the same-bicep, split-time version of this wrap. If you are doing, let's say, just a 2-point, split-time B-fly, and keep your wrists tucked under your armpit when you go behind your back (Like a tight tuck-turn form) you can poke out your leg and wrap it around your calf. Plenty of ways to fool with this type of wrap.

I know it was mentioned, but it bears repeating. The "Rolley-Tango" alternating butterfly forecep wraps kick mad tail! There has already been a good explanation of this, so I won't go into un-necessary detail. But fool around with this one. If you can learn it behind the back, it demonstrates an amazing amount of control and mastery of skills that even non-spinners can appreciate. You can also get this wrap system going in front of you, and then throw it behind your head and continue wrapping. It works kind of like a moving TTN, but with wraps, so it helps to know forward and reverse TTN.

Now, here's a couple that work nicely as transitions.

From a rev. weave, swing both arms out a little bit and wrap your thighs from underneath and behind. That puts you into a B-fly. Reverse directions, weave positions, and body positions and apply however you like.

CRD mentioned the B-fly double bicep wrap. (#4) "Rising Sun," or if you repeat it, "Bouncing Sun." You can also do this wrap under your biceps by continuing to the downswing before you pull your wrists in. And you can alternate between the two. Looks sweet BTB, too, but kinda difficult. Oh, as mentioned before with the inside windmill, if you have short enough strings/chains, or if you pull your hands apart (in the same position as this wrap) far enough, you can turn a B-fly inside your arm (instead of behind your head), behind your forearms, and just barely miss the inside crook of your elbow. You can incorporate this into a string of these wraps to keep momentum going. Much easier to start this from a forward B-fly.

Overhead B-fly Body Wrap: From an overhead B-fly, just bring your arms down as if you were doing a corkscrew, but keep them close to your body and wrap around your chest. You can come out into a rev. overhead B-fly, or you can wrap again and go back to a regular one. Here's a variation I like to do, especially with fire. Rev. overhead B-fly...down to body wrap...back out and down to wrap right on right thigh from behind and left on left thigh from behind...then lean forward and finish with a regular B-fly horizontal to the ground, and only a few inches above the floor. You can reverse everything and come back up, or you can play around with all of the perception bending tricks that come from good horizontal B-flies.

This next one is more of a stall than a wrap, but you can't really hold it well, so I guess it's just a really slow wrap. From a corkscrew...on the downswing, bring your wrists down to your waist on the opposite side of the body and slow down. You can wrap them around your waist (a la Cassandra on COL2), or, my preference is to spread your feet out and wrap the right poi behind the left thigh and have it come out and rest for a second on the top of the leg and the left poi wrap around the front of the right thigh and rest behind your leg or extend your left hand around a little bit further than the right one and get the poi to peek out from behind the right leg.(remember, that arm is behind the back with the wrist almost touching the right hip) You can reverse it and do it again in the opposite direction, come out into a rev. corkscrew/windmill or any weave, or bring it back up high like you were going into a rev. corkscrew and do a Yin-Yang double bicep wrap or an overhead Lollipop double-hand wrap or keep it down low and do the same things. Oh, you don't necessarily have to move your wrists to the opposite hips for this wrap either. Then you get a similar effect to the Yin-Yang wrap, but it is on your legs.

I really hope this stirred up some imaginations. I would appreciate any feedback you guys have. Happy spinning! [Big Grin]

[ 25 June 2002, 08:08: Message edited by: glowshow ]

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