Staff spinning thing

umm...something i do that sounds similar to this whole one-handed (almost) indefinate spinning thingit is similar to baton-twirling. ya have to start out slow (at least i do) but you end up spinning with thumb and first 2-3 fingers. i'd been doing it a while, then observed flag twirlers (think high school and college half-time shows, of all things. ) i'm not ambidexterious on this one yet, though. hope this comes across intelligable and not as the usual incoherent rambling....

------------------
"life begins between the night and the light."

Yea, I find that move real easy too.

I played badminton in school and I was always doing it whenever I had my badminton racket. Course, its alot easier with something that thin. WIth my long staff the wieght always ends up making the spin to fast and I lose it... more practice I suppose so I can do it with some good speed.

------------------
May the fire of God burn its impression on your heart.

I've been thinking of getting more into wraps. i was talking today with this guy that does devil sticks today and we came up with some theoreticals that i'm going to test tomorrow.

If all goes well I'll post the results.

I agree with Teine on this one. The Finger-wrap thing is a continuous one-handed spin. I have heard rumour that finger spinney stuff isn't good for staffers to do but if it looks good then why not?

The "finger spinny" stuff is very bad to do in a fighting context. When I started learning staff waaaay at the beginning of my journey through the martial arts, I used to play with the finger spinny stuff, 'cuz it looked cool. my teacher yelled at me a lot for this, so I had to work very hard to break myself of that habit. Now I have to work twice as hard to get it back.

The reason it's bad to do, in case you're wondering, is that if the staff get's hit in the wrong point of the spin you can break your fingers and do all sorts of weird muscle damage. Fingers break quite easily, and staffs have a lot of leverage and a lot of torque for such small muscles.

In a strictly fire context, I don't see how there is much harm in it. In fact it looks pretty cool. But maybe the fighting thing is where the rumor you heard came from.

------------------
If you love something, set it on fire.

um sick puppy - from a Martial Arts perspective finger twirling is more risky becuase if your opponent hits your staff while you are finger spinning most likely you will drop it and be disarmed.

The only plausible way you could get broken fingers while spinning a staff is if your opponent whacks your fingers (which applies to normal grip just as much). Sure fingers are easily broken, but they can sure bend a lot of different ways before they break.

Josh

In respect to martial arts, doing the finger spinny thing from afar to imtimidate your opponent would be quite good but actually doing it at close range would be foolish. That is what I think anyhow, so there.I was only talking from a staffers point of view on spinning a staff continually in one hand.

Actually, Josh, that's not true. I have seen with my own two eyes some one doing the finger spins and his staff hit a wall when he wasn't paying attention to what was around him. We all heard a sick crunching sound and he, we found out later, tore the bones in his middle and ring finger completely out of socket and he had some resulting muscle tears as well. Poor guy couldn't use his hand for months. This was actually the reason that my old sensei lectured everyone on this point so much.
Granted It isn't a very common injury, but it is possible, it does happen and people should know about it so that they can avoid it, as it is an easy thing to avoid.

------------------
If you love something, set it on fire.

Eeewww! coudl you explain that again Sick Puppy...

------------------
Charles (AKA INFERNO)

newdolbel@hotmail.com
http://juggle.co.nz/fire/fire.html

Please don't. Email him with the details if you must but don't explain on here.

Some of us have weak stomachs - others have weak minds. I go for a delicate balance between the 2.....

------------------
C@ntus

There's only one way of life and that's your own.

anyway, getting back to topic (queasy readers are warned that pole spinning has pg 13 recommended)

when the pole is spinning quite quickly its natural feeling to just let go at one extremity of the grip (thumb/little finger ends) and then turn your hand (with open fingers) in the opposite direction to spin, the staff falls right into the palm, with grip slightly off center. throwing is a natural feeling way of correcting this, but another way is to pass the staff across the body (as in normal rotor fig8) and then let the long side roll into the other hand. repeat the roll/handwrap on that same side side and switch back, now
go
faster.

this is a good way of really working some speed into the staff before a throw, if you throw it high you can get 4 mebbe 5 circles - look out below!

cheers
o-o