The Problem with new spinners today...

Quote:

---

i think also, once you know how to do it, no matter how you learned it, when you actually DO trying teaching, you begin to learn better anyhow. i don't know my chords or scales, but when i tried to teach piano to others, i was forced to begin to understand it better.

---

Too true, pounce. I realized this very thing when I taught intro geology labs in Grad School, and again when I helped teach a field course.

You typically have to break things down into their most basic form when you teach, and often, you have to find multiple ways to explain one concept.

It is incredibly rewarding to watch someone go from a look of confusion to a look of "I've GOT IT!"

I think the key point is that this is supposed to be fun. If you are willing to teach people what they want to learn, they will enjoy it more and will be more interested in practicing and developing their own moves from there. The best teachers are not the ones who go step by step; they're the ones who inspire students to care.

Anyone who really enjoys what they're doing will go back and work on the basics to improve their spinning. But if no one will show them how to do anything else, they're more likely to just get bored and put down their toys.

The more you teach each person, the more they have to build on, which takes the entire field to new heights in the end.

oooh, so well said regyt. i agree. i wanna be like you when i grow up. will you be my teacher?

Haven't read all the posts b4 this so don't know if this point's already been made. But me and Jim were trying this 5club juggling thing where every 3 throw you steal a club. Anyway hadn't really got this solid when we started messing about with it and tried stealing every throw which we failed at compleatly at for a few mins. After that we went back to every 3 throws and could do it perfectly (ish). So somtimes it's worth trying somthing completly beond you if only to make you better at the easy stuff.

in terms of teaching someone techniques, its really a case of look at the (pupil/victim/idiot/next date, etc...) and decide FOR THEM what they need to learn first. EG: i have a friend who wanted to learn some staff techniques and had been doing Jodo (art of the staff) for about 5 years, now i'm not going to insult him by trying to pass off the standard spin, i asked him what he could do and i all i had to do was curb the end grabbing techniques and add a few more 'artsy' style moves as crowd pleasers, he came out with us that night to a beach demo for about 600 scouts, girl guides and shyte and was probably one of the best spinners out of the 20 of us...the other flip side is that same weekend a young female scout wanted to learn stoi (small staff with two poi attached) and we had to start RIGHT from the basics...so really, tailor it to your audience i think...

or maybe i'm just rambling...
u tell me...

Just a small little point I have to make:

Poi is quite obviously expanding at a very rapid rate. New movements are being discovered daily/weekly/whatever, and it's really cool to be able to come on to HOP and learn new things. I think that if we teach people how to do a hyperloop and a 7 beat weave and they do that until they get bored and want to learn more uber technical stuff, that's great, they are having fun and that's what they want to do.

The problem is that that person will never discover new moves by themself. if they can do a bunch of crazy technical stuff but don't have any of the "lesser" moves down, they'll never develope their own style and come up with new found moves like so many on these forums do. I myself am guilty of being a "technical-hungry" person that would learn things, be able to do them sorta-ugly-ish, and go on to something else. I then realized that yeah, I could do a lot of stuff, but none of them looked polished and like I had control. I worked on fluidity for a while, and in the process, came up with a lot of stuff I'd never seen or read about on HOP.

The moral of the story is that creativity lies in a build of abilities, rather than a plateau of the most difficult parts. If we look at poi as something to teach to others so they can do what you can do and nothing more, this will become as static of an artform as most popular sports are - where everyone molds themselves to convention rather than find out what works best for them and improving themselves.

*replying to original post only, not had time to read everything*

no. IMO you are wrong to not teach that just because you consider it to be hard.
someone posted soon after about sth like this: 'whats the point of calling it an advanced move if you can teach it straight away'. well. as tom said an airwrap is pretty basic. easier than (IMO) most thruwraps, the 4 and 5 beat weaves, wrong direction windmills, 2:1 time, most things iin fact.

just because you came at it from another direction you consider it advanced.

but my best advice to you (i hope) is to pretend to study(shouldn't be too hard, you have been practising after all...?) and go and read ALL the teaching moves thread cole posted. and make up your own mind. cause there's a lot of good dicussion in there, and my opinion is i think in a minority.

smiles
R

Quote:

---

As a poi teacher I feel that I have a responsibility to teach theory and philosophy as well as 'moves'. And if you're not willing to buy into that, then go find another teacher.

---

Hit the nail on the head mate

When I re-inforce the basics before moving onto the advanced stuff I always try to explain what makes a good technique, and I underline the timing/planes issue, as after all a good understanding of this leads to easier comprehension when it comes time for advanced stuff.

I dont think Ive been really impressed by a 'new' spinner who has just picked up all the hard moves quickly, it almost always shows in sloppy technique. The exception being with people who already know the underlying plane/timing theory from learning something else.

Josh

and dont forget, we are just he punk ass spinners to another older generation.

ha! i had a rant about this with a friend recently.

my newest move is a kind of butteryfly double suicide neck wrap thingy [think i got the name right?]. some dude came up to me and ONLY wanted to learn that move. i couldnt even persuade him to master the basic butterfly first

idiots. people who want to spin purely so they look cool for their freinds.

right, ive only read through the posts very quickly, and havnt really taken much in and im sorry

but my thoughts on the matter are, i dont think you can make a spinner worse by teaching them something.

so i think if someone asks you teach them something, you should explain how the move works, and then try and teach it to them. even if they dont learn the move, they might learn something on the way, and being shown how to do it, gives people something to aim for.

and dont we all spin to look cool? to a greater or lesser extent? it is a performance art after all.

I replied early on to this thread and have read a fair portion of it, but, like several others, have to apologise for not having seen it all (it's got a bit big).

I do have opinions on the issue of whether learning the 'basics' is essential to mastery of the advanced, especially with regard to the mentioned analogy with music.

i.e. the necessity of loads of scale practise before working on the actual stuff that you're aspiring to play.

I'm a self taught guitarist, partly through books and friends, but mainly through making up my own stuff. I play 'incorrectly' i.e. using my thumb to fret the bottom string, little emphasis on wrist angle etc.

But, on the other hand, i've seen the value of playing certain things in a fixed way that, initially, seems to make things harder, but, in the long run you come to see that it makes sense.

Then again, I'm aware of many people who learnt an instrument at school and, as adults, have no interest in pursuing it because they found the tuition process very dull and unpleasant.

What I'm saying is that neither approach is 100% right or wrong.

Some people can go through the process of structured iron tight training and thrive on it, others have their creative spirit destroyed by it.

Some spinners want to learn the advanced stuff because of greed, wanting to show off etc, and will never learn a beautiful flowing style because they'll soon be looking for a new activity that they can learn flashy bits of to show off with.

Others have an intelligence/talent to be able to assimilate 'advanced' stuff (quotes to remind us that it's debatable whether an advanced move is truly more difficult) in an effective manner early on in their learning.

Lastly, a lot has been said about people learning advanced stuff and having no flow and style. we should remember that however someone learns, whether 'by the book' or not, it's generally a long,long time before they manifest a real ease and flow of style.

Before condeming someones style because they learnt to run before walking, we should look at someone else who learnt things the 'right' way round and ask if they're doing any better?

Quote:

---

we should remember that however someone learns, whether 'by the book' or not, it's generally a long,long time before they manifest a real ease and flow of style.

---

this is a really good point. Once i brought a flatmate along with me who's never tought before to a lesson i was doing.

she got really concerned that the learners were behaving lke windmills and kept trying to get them to use their wrists more - a valid point as they were behaving like windmills, but trying to refine their movements only served to confuse them, cause they didn't really know the actual movements yet.

my opinion is that neatness and style are things that you can't teach or learn (i know there's debate on that too, but this is onymy opinion.) the only way most people learn to use their wrists properly is by doing a lot of poi.

this is why when i teach, i generally teach whatever the person wants to learn, but folloing a kind of basic structure (i.e. you can't learn a reverse btb waeve without being able to do it in front of you) however if someone manages to do a more advanced move without first learning the basic one i can hardly tell them they can't do it.

And don't forget that there are plenty of appreciative and respectful newbies as well.

Sometimes I forget that there are knuckleheads, flakes, and flat out jerks in EVERY aspect of life... but when the wander into an area of life that I care about, I sometimes get more offended than if I just see them in passing.

I think the phrase "The problem with new spinners today" is of course, and unfair generalization. Some newbies are fantastic. Some oldies are jerks. Just like every area of life.

true - otherwise why would any of us care so much about how to teach stuff?

i think it's really nice that people on this site care so much about their art (or whatever you want to call it) that they have huge discussions like this about how to make it a good experience - well done everyone!



*pats on the back all round*