Throwing poiz in the air

Pele, sorry in advance if that one has allready been discussed, just could not find it in the searchg section ...
here is my question :
do you guys throw your poiZ in the air ? is it common ? what can one do ? how far can this juggling thing go ?
Shine on
Cassandra

I don't think it is something anyone has asked me about, and it is something that you don't really see often, it is something I am still working on and, given the right space, it is progressing slowly but well.
What can be done are a few things...
Starting with one long poi from a reverse butterfly motion, at the base of the downswing when beginning the upswing you can release the handle. The poi will raise up, spin in the air and can be caught (took me gads of practice). With the long one I have progressed to instead of catching it in my hand I let it wrap around my forearm, then I move my arm in a circular motion to continue the swing momentum and the chain slides down my arm with the handle ending up in my hand. I managed to pull it off something like 8 times at the ECSP, people kept telling me to do it again. I am now working up to doing this with two chains. I want to try to release them simulaneously into the air, catch them in opposite hands which would also change the direction of the spin.
FOr smaller chains you begin by doing a wrap. ShawnF turned me onto to these. Say the poi comes under your leg from behind, release the handle about half way through the wrap, before the poi can get all the way around your leg. The poi will continue along the path of the wrap but be released into the air. You reach up and grab the handle and keep going. The possibilites are really endless. I am working on the one that goes under the armpit and over the shoulder in front of me now. Also in the works is releasing a wrap over a wrist that is already spinning. Like the first method I described I am trying to get it to slide down my arm and into a one handed butterfly.
I am not much of a juggler so it takes me a bit more practice than it might to someone who is used to air borne objects!
Also, I usually try these during the day, as it is hard to see the handle to catch at night but in NH I affixed a glowstick to the handle of my fire poi. I think SkiChristian got a photo of it. They said it looked cool when it was released and spinning in the air, quite the dichotomy. However, it still was hard to catch that black handle!!!
Does that help???
Happy swinging, wrapping releasing!

------------------
Pele
Higher, higher burning fire...making music like a choir...

[This message has been edited by Pele (edited 15 June 2001).]

Cheers pele
I tried throwing from a butterfly and also from the weave and I still find it damn hard to do it with both poi at the same time.
a friend of mine , professional juggler pulled out som thrilling things such as throwing in front and catching in your back... I gotta work on that so I started learning a bit of juggling as well.
I heasrd of people doing it in thailand and goa too so it has to work .
I am just wondering if I ll have the guts to do it with fire... I'll give it a try tonight and see how it goes...
shine on
Cassandra

ever thought of using metiorites (or comets, the ones that are joined in the middle)
to throw in the air?

------------------
moo? ... is that it?

I wish I could try the meteorite once. I still have never seen enyone use them...
Do u think it'd be easier than juggling with poi ?
Still trying with unlit poi and it still is a bit hard for me I must say, especially to catch the chain at the same spot every time...
shine on
Cassandra

no i mhavent but i have tried to tie the handles together to get the effect.. not bad

------------------
moo? ... is that it?

I think throwing and catching poi would be made a shitload easier if you used weighted handles

Josh

I don't know that weighted handles would be a good idea. I used to use heavy drawer knobs as my handles and they didn't work too well because A) they threw the center of mass off and B) their extra momentum made them difficult to catch. Right now I use racket balls as handles. They are just about the right size/weight (I use tennis balls on the other end) and the rubber that they are made out of has really good grip.

Josh, I remember reading that you are a juggler too, do u think one can actually do the smae moves as club juggling with 2/3 poi / clubs ?????
shine on
Cassandra

Cassandra,

I juggle a bit too and...

It must be really really difficult to juggle poiz like clubs but you know nothing is impossible

Seriously I think that if you want to juggle poiz club-like try clubs first it will be easier... (even if it's F%$.ing difficult compare to poi) then you can try to juggle poiz club-like...

And with just a bit of reflexion (Morning are hard for me )...

Throwing 3 poiz in the air must be more like juggling balls than juggling clubs because I don't see where a rotation during the flight can occur... (possible only with weighted handles)

In fact It will be something like:
- You spin a poi in front of you in your right hand.
- You let it go in the air when in the right angle
- When it falls You catch the handle with your left hand
- another rotation in the left hand ...etc

It must be possible in fact visually a bit like juggling balls but without touching the balls and with nice rotation around each hand (Have to give it a try tonight !!!)

I'm afraid that you can't juggle 3 poiz like that because the rotation around each hand after the catch and before throwing up the poiz will take you too much time to involve a third poi.

I Hope that you can understand something in this post.

Dask

[This message has been edited by dask (edited 26 June 2001).]

[This message has been edited by dask (edited 26 June 2001).]

For what I have tried so far, the difficulty for me is that eachtime you thrown and then catch, the poi changes direction...

Some nice ideas here dask, but I don't quite agree with you, cause it seems to that it is still closer to club than balls.

As for catching the handle AOUTCH..; I can't seem to do it so I am basically catching the chain and then trying to look OK while getting my fingers back in the handle ...
The throwing / wraps combination which pele mentioned are cool but not always easy !

STill got a whole lot to practice !!!! which indeed is quite exciting !
Anybody else has some tips ?

Shine on
Cassandra

Yeah the change of direction I thought about it... difficult but It's certainly what makes the trick beautiful...

For the difference between club and ball juggling:

- You use chains so the weight is all over your chains (pffff not stricly correct but...) so there is a rotation and it looks like club

- I use cable so the weight of my poiz is mainly in the wick which gives me a felling of juggling balls with trails...

Have to give it a try and take some pictures... so that we can compare

(It seems more difficult with chains )

Good Luck,

Dask

Aaaaaaaaah I see ! Now I understand why you talk about balls and not clubs. The weight of the chains is maybe also a good thing cause when you juggle the chains sort of remains straight during the revolution in the air and it looks quite good actually.
I still have to improve my juggling with clubs which basically SUCKS and then it will all be easier I guess. ;o)
just a thought, why not combine throwing in the air and Fire Breathing ???
well eeee... that might ruin my beautifull leather handles and de dangerous ? what do u guys think ?
Shine on
Cassandra
Shine on
Cassandra

I think you're MAD as Hell because It can be F%^*ing dangerous If you miss your throw and took the firechains in the face (full of kero...OUCH )

I am going to go with Dask on that whole fire throwing/breathing thing...at least until I can throw and get the things going the right way about oh....110% of the time.
Blowing through swinging poi is fun though...have you tried that?

------------------
Pele
Higher, higher burning fire...making music like a choir...

hey DASK, what is "pffff?" Anyway, you've got me completely confused with this difference between ball and club feel. Maybe I'm missunderstading your post, but it seems that uless you bunch the whole poi chain up in your hand before you throw it, it is going to have some sort of rotation that can't be treated like a ball.

You can't treat poi exactly like clubs though. Cassandra brought up a good point in that if you throw your poi like clubs, they have to change direction on every catch. Poi takes a lot longer to change direction than clubs, so you have to throw your poi really high, which makes them difficult to catch (not that they weren't difficult to catch in the first place). It would be cool to be able to juggle three poi though. I bet you could do cool stuff with 2 poi while the 3rd one is in the air. One of these days I'll be able to do that.

You can throw extra beats into your weave by letting go of your crossed poi before your arms get too tangled. Quickly untwist your arms, and then catch the poi again. You could do a 15 beat weave for example, if you wanted to.

It is possible to breathe fire off of something thrown in the air. I've done it with a juggling torch as well as with a juggling ring. Note that I haven't done it and continued juggling

The hard part is the catch. I'd say that until you can catch your thrown implement blind EVERY TIME you probably need to, as I have, set this particular stunt in the, 'for when I've gotten to be a lot better juggler,' pile.

Cory

--Bassman

'pfff' is a french traduction of someone loudly blowing air ou of his lungs in order to notify he's having hard time... which is shorter that writing (my english sucks) and more polite too

For the difference between juggling balls-like or club-like Cassandra as chain-poi and I have cable-poi (without chains and cable instead)...
The result is that all the weight of my poiz is in the wick, the cable can be assimilated to a tail on a juggling ball.

But on cassandra the weight is equal on all the length of the poi (because chains are a lot heavier compare to cable) so a rotation of the object is possible and it look like more like club swinging.

I hope I made me understand

And for the 15 beat weave you have to be damn fast and your weave as to be very slow.

Good luck...

Even if all of the weight of your poi is in the wick, it will still rotate when you throw it up in the air. It will actually have more angular momentum if more of the weight is on the ends.

As for the 15 beat weave, your right, you do have to spin your poi slowly and move your hands quickly. It's more a matter of accuracy of your release though. If you release the poi at just the right time as it's peeking, it will just kind of hover in the air waiting for you to catch it. If you release at the wrong time, the poi will go flying and you won't be able to catch it at all. It might help to have longer poi. It's not as bad as you think.

Actually juggling poi is a lot harder, although I made some progress yesterday. I must have gotten 4 or 5 catches in a row. I figured out that you can launch a poi into the air from rest (holding it perpendicular to the ground with handle side up) so that it spins very slowly, makes one rotation, and then catch in the same possition that you started in. There is hardly any rotational change when you catch it because it is spinning slowly and it's already in the position that you want it in. I found that shortening the chains made it easier to correct for misstakes, but harder to throw accurately (spins faster when you throw it).

Yeah, I tried juggling with my poi yesterday too, did not manage more than 3 in a row though
However, I find it actually a bit less diffucult than i thought . only problem is that I still dont manage to catch the chain always at the same spot near the handles so after a (short) while it gets rather messy ...
feels great though so i'll be working on it this week end for sure !!
Shine on
cassandra