Performance Moves vs. Techy-moves

Originally I was going to call this thread "Pointless Moves" but this isn't accurate as I guess learning any move improves your dexterity and opens up new possibilities.

But...
This is just a list of moves that I think (and I don't think I'm alone) have no appeal to non-spinning on-lookers.
This came about after I'd spent a while learning various moves, showed them to my mum or some other non-spinner only for them to go "It doens't look any different" or even worse "What? What are you doing different?"

Ultimately, as Poi and Staff are a "performance art" (or so the rumours go) are these worth learning? Half the time they don't feel nice or flow...

Some of the ones I've found this to be the case with are:

# 7 beat (upwards) Weaves - Especially with fire/lights i.e. in the dark when you can't see your arms

# Fish-tails - Don't look anything special to non-spinners

# Hyperloops & Airwraps - I (personally) think they are often go un-noticed by the casual observer and are a bit of a catch 22. If they're done perfectly they don't really show up, if done messily they look like a recovered tangle

Anyone got any others or want to shoot me down for damning their favourite move?

Excellent topic.

I agree with most of what you said... I do think that hyperloops have a place as they create the smallest circles. (So if you do a BIG circle, then a regular circle, then a hyperloop, then an isolation the circles shrink... which looks cool) But I agree that the cost/benfit of learning very techy moves could be better spent on dancing when it comes to perforance.

Of course I fully expect you to get your butt kicked by EVERYONE for suggesting this.

I think we all know the very easy moves that get a crowd to cheer though... that's the other side of the equation.

yea, i know what you mean about non spinners not really being impressed by hyperloops especially with fire.
so i agree with what you say. i cant do a 7 beat weave and dont intend to learn it.

one question though, whats a fish tail?

(sorry if this is a complicated question)

Err, I tend to agree. I spose it depends on the dancer and the audience. I tend to think of poi and staff as more of a dance than something technical, so flow is important to me.

There is a less flowy technically kinda style emerging though that that's more gilligan, pendula and hyperloops that are way less dancy but are still cool...

I think the same goes for contact staff. I'd not consider that very dancy either....I've not seen too many good cantact staffers though

It seems to me that highly technical stuff is a stylein itself that has less to do with dancing than playing. That's not to say that techy stuff can't be thrown into a dance but like you say "If they're done perfectly they don't really show up, if done messily they look like a recovered tangle "

That's all my opinion in my experience of course.

Depending on the type of poi and light. Isolations can be lost on people too...

Darn, I've put this in the wrong section

Wow, no-ones flamed me yet...

i'd agree about 7 beat weaves although i could do with seeing one of these not-using-the-elbow-cross versions before i completely out them.

fishtails are indeed hard to see at any kind of distance so it would very much depend on the type of performance (stage and audience size) on whether they would be worth using.
like you said though, done really well there would be no noticable difference in the path the stick takes from a normal figure 8 spin.

however (in my personal experience) hyperloops and airwraps done properly look beautiful and along with isolations are the thing i'm most commonly asked about by non-spinners and spinners alike.
the fact that a tangle done well will often not look like a tangle at all is the whole point for me.
they remain the only way i've found to get decent spirals into my spinning.
having said that, i rarely spin fire nowdays and haven't done it in front of non-spinners for ages so i can't really comment on the effect with fire...

one point to remember is that if you can't see the spinner there will be no noticable difference between a huge number of moves.
i personally see no benefit at all in spinning in light so low that the performer can't be seen.

i think a major factor here is that for me, poi is not all about performance art.
when i was starting out with poi it was not the movements of my body within the poi that drew me to them but rather the challenge of making balls on string go where i wanted them to without making it look like an effort.
apparently in 2004 its 'all about the dance' but for me the joy of playing with poi comes from creataing a huge variety of clean patterns without having to leap all over the place to make them fit.

and as i'll likely never perform again, all that matters is that i'm enjoying myself right?
that's what hobbies are for innit?


anyway, my nominations are:

reverse fountains (tricky little buggers that just let you go both ways in a fountain - learnt one way and quickly gave up on the rest)

boston's mess the other way (juggling i'm afraid - mills 3b columns can be done two ways. once you have one, the other takes ages to sort out and looks identical to a non-juggler).

Hyperloops
I find non spinners tend to think its a cleverly recovered balls up until you do 3 or 4 in a row... then people start to say things like 'hang on, are you doing that deliberatly?'
Fish-tails
My favorite move in the world... i don't think many people have seen me do these though, and i'm not a non spinner, so my opinion dosn't count. fishtail based contact 'weaves' seem to get a good reaction from my housemates though.
7 beat (upwards) Weaves
i find offset 7's and other offset weaves are hard to get into and kind of dancey type thing... you have to think ahead too far to get everything in position and it dosn't flow very well... the non-elbow 7's however are really good to know... you might never do a full 7 beat, but to get into the right position to do it i learned a load of new ways of turning with the poi and keeping them behind my head or under my shoulders that i do loads more often than actual 7's, which non spinners do like. In daylight at least, when you can see the whole body, not just the arms. You need enough light to see the performer anyway... to dark and it dosn't matter how dancy or technical you are, it's just blobs of light going round.

--Ben

Good thread!

I agree with most of what's been said so far, although I think hyperloops and airwraps can be very noticeable if you're using globalls for instance because of the smaller circles they create.

Some of the things like the notcoleman5 and buzzsaw weaves seem to me to be more purely technical and for display... it's hard to notice what's going on when you're looking for it let alone for a non-spinning audience

ok.. I don't have anything that doesnt flow after practice... muwahaha..
now assuming I understood the point of this thread...

but what I calssify as performance pieces (i.e. those that get the crowds going.)
airwraps, reguilar wraps, and offest weaves...oh yeah and some of these other funky weave thingsd I've been doing lately that get you all crossed up.. through the roof baby... everytime...

what I classfify as technical (i.e stuff only poi people get that others dont)
butterfly weaves, 7 bt weaves (after 7 your wrapping get over it), and some hyperloop stuff.. (like I ahve a wrap that enters normal weave style and extis tanlged.. and people can't seem to understand why that's cool..)

Odd... offset weaves to me seem to be pointless - why would a crowd get excited about an offset 2-beat weave rather than just a standard 2-beat weave for instance? What's the difference to them?

Butterfly weaves on the other hand can be used to do pretty much everything a normal weave can... and so you can amazing looking things like butterfly fountains and turns and so on. Definitely a crowd-pleaser in my book

I think what you are trying to say Durbs is:
Just do the weave fast

I love it when you type a really long post and then when you post it the server goes down and when it comes back up your post is gone.

It's fun.

I wrote a long post about how many people find it difficult to understand how someone could want to learn to poi, or even to be really good, and not want to perform. Many people I run into don't understand how guys like Cole could practice so much and be so good and have no interest in screaming fans.

It was a well written post. Feel free to make up quotes that I probably said as I ain't going to retype the whole damn thing...

Throws are often overlooked by non-spinners, especially if lighting is bad. Hyperloops can be good if done right and you do more than 1 in your set... Even better if you do a few back to back (ie hyperloop buzzsaw 360 turn). Im still waiting to hear what a fishtail is so I cant comment of those.

Good thread!
Techy stuff that doesn't get the audience going - extra beats on a weave. I've found that 5 and 7 (and 9, if you're that flexible ) beat weaves most non-spinners don't really register as being any different, and even most spinners tend to miss the 7 beats if they're done smoothly. The only way they even seem to get noticed is if you look really awkward doing them, and that kind of defeats the purpose for me. Rolled weaves (5 beat weave with two beats in between your arms - imagine 3 beat with buzzsaw in the middle passing both ways) - no-one notices these (especially when it's dark) unless they're really paying attention. Having said all that, I still do these moves when spinning, no matter what audience I have.
Performance pieces - lighting the ground with excess fuel at the beginning . Btl moves, especially short chain. Always seems to get a big cheer for those. Wraps with fire. Isolations, esp. buzzsaw. Just wish I could do them!

J

I think it only depends on who is watching, you can do some pretty amazing basic stuff if u combine your moves right, but as for the 7 bt... i saw this gurl do a 9bt corkscrew and it blew my mind, im still trying to figure "what time it is" and the crowd was in awe, mind you she was standing in a circle of fire on a wodden stage

Same must go for hyperloops... i neva thought that much of em but iv shown afew peeps who spin and they'r like WOW

Personally i dont believe there is a limit to what u can or should perform, everyone is different, and what some people call tech others call basic.

Ah yes, another crack at the old chestnut.
Plenty of civilians think it all looks the same. Like the 2 young girls at new years who grabbed my LED poi and swung em around and screeched, "Is this it, am I doing it" and very shortly went on to agree that they had no clue about the concept of "moves" and that I couldn't teach a weave-fountain-corkscrew-butterfly combo from scratch in 5 minutes, so I played the grumpy old man to get my poi back.
Yes other poiers with some experience know the value of a cleanly executed tech move and no, some civis don't understand why you don't burst into flames. This goes back to the "Mainstream" thread. The art is not nearly as well known to be common knowledge yet. Which makes the community of spinners more valuable as you can draw encouragement from understanding. It's context. A newbie who just got the 3BT weave will stare blankly at a 5 BT, but want to know how to transit to a reverse 3 BT. It's progression, and the wider population is at 0 points of spin cred.
Realising this helps you to be at peace when a crowd thinks you're a legend for buzzsawing so close to your face, but disinterested at your 5 BTs etc. It's not such a big thing unless you want to busk or gig. So be proud kiddies, because you have something special in your skills and your community. Awww

Well, for me as a "performer" - I do poi for the fun and relaxing aspect of it, but also to entertain - it means that I have never tried to learn a lot of moves as I don't really see the point in learning a move that either makes you look like you've tied your arms in a know or just doesn't even register with the onlooker.

I agree that to non-spinners all beat weaves look pretty much the same, however a 5 beat is useful in terms of flow - a leg through wrap into a five beat for example - but you never flow in to a 7 beat, it doesn't feel nice and no-one really looks at it and goes "Oooooooo".

The tricky "they all look the same" problem. In theory with poi, to an audiance member you either have two poi spinning the same way - in sync or split time, one each way and in either verticle or horizontal planes. So in terms of the pure direction of the poi, they are pretty much all the same.
But once you start dancing with them, playing with speeds, varying circle sizes and moving about - it "takes off" and becomes all about "flow".
Poi shouldn't be about one trick, another trick blah blah blah - it should be a serious of intertwined moves seemlessly put together.
This is partly why I prefer poi over say juggling - less "tricky" more "dancey"

Ah, but with fire/lit props - I reckon non-spinners are looking at the patterns, whilst the spinners would be working out what they are doing.
I mean, why did you start spinning or what did you think when you first saw poi? I know I was captivated by the fire and the noise and the patterns it burned into my retina - I wasn't standing there trying to work out what the person was doing.


As to the fishtail point - the staff obviously takes a different path than a normal fig-8, but from the side they both just create one circle. Only with a fishtail you look a bit more worried and your arms out straight....

Five beat stuff can look different in that you get complete circles rather than part circles when you spin... the quad corkscrew looks a lot different to the regular version especially. And as Durbs said it does help with flow... certain moves can leave your hands in the wrong position to flow into a 3bt and knowing 5bt means you can continue smoothly.

But just doing 5bt isn't really worth it