Huge meteor thread, anyone?

Well, I'm certain there are more than a few meteorists around this place - some of which are probably quite good. That being said, all the information is scattered all over the place.

I think it'd be a cool idea if everyone puts down something they want to say about meteors - tips on making them, tips on starting out, tips on hand positions from different kinds of moves - whatever!

I'm fairly new to it all and I cant quite get the 3beat weave down... I can do 2 going forwards and 4 in reverse! Any tips on how to get the third? Hitting myself in the face/nuts every other time is starting to wear thin

Best thing to do would be to go through all the posts that appear in the search you did for meteor, its alot i know. I got 149.

Copy out/Quote them all in a big giant post here.

I can guarantee that if you do this, you'll get the response your looking for.

I have meteors so im in.

I was looking at meteor threads about 2 years ago. But the technical jargon just got too much for me. I would take so long trying to figure out what the name actually meant, only to find out that I was doing it anyway.

So don´t break the tricks down into beats and boxes, just dance around and be patient. If the meteor wraps you up, make it into a trick. Contact meteor is underestimated and underdeveloped. Except for in olympic rhythmic gymnastics and possibly Chinese circus.

My two favourite meteor tricks (the first one was shown to me by a guy from Sheffield, the second one is just an old contact staff trick):

1) Ya know how if you do a butterfly with poi, you can put it behind your head and back? Well, this creates many possibilities with meteors. For this trick, you start with a one-handed butterfly.

As the ends are travelling upwards, bend forward and stick your neck in, where your hand is, at the same time taking your hand away. This seems scary, and people cringe when they see me do it, but your neck is in the centre, as far away from the hurty bits as it can be, so don´t worry.

If your butterfly is good, then the meteor will wrap nicely around your neck and keep butterfly-ing. At this point, you are still bending forwards. After the ends have crossed over and start moving downwards, just lean back, so your neck, and the meteor, are behind the rest of your body. It´s exactly the same as if you were holding the meteor and putting it behind your head. But then something magical happens.

When the meteor were in front, they were wrapping. Now that they are behind you, they will unwrap. When they´ve unwrapped completey, they will fly upwards. With practice, you can catch them into a normal butterly, or even pass them to someone else. I love this trick, it always gets a smile.

I hope that all made sense

2) The second one, well, this is all taking too long, so I´ll tell you the second one later. It´s quite hard, and I used to do it when I played with meteor lots, but now I´m out of practice I can only do it sometimes. Grrr.

This is the frustrating thing about meteors, they´re bloody hard, and they require regular practice, which in turn requires lots of space and nice weather. But they´re the coolest prop around

Musashii, you have just described the trick that I was going to talk about, more or less, I think.

When I do it, I start with my body side-on to the meteor holding one end of the meteor, so it wraps around just one shoulder. When it starts to wrap, I throw the other end down to give it some momentum, and then turn my body around so that it rolls, staff-like, over my shoulder, then my neck, then my other shoulder. It´s great when it works.

I´d love to see your video. I´ve been a bit slack with the meteor, it´s so much easier to find space to contact juggle instead.

no, wait, that´s totally different. Nice name, by the way.

Musashii, Which country are you in right now? It would be good to play meteor again, and I never meet anyone who´s into it.

us for a bit, seattle washington right now... nz might be the closest I'll be to oz for a couple of years

ugh...the lingo for the descriptions is confusing...we ought to get together and make a meteor lessons addition to the staff and poi..

are there any good sources for metor moves?

i'm sure chain whip and rope dart texts would be helpful, i know i carry some moves over from them. (i don't nesseccerily condone the use of these weapons outside of martial arts classes).

Whip and rope dart styles are always nice. I wish I knew more than just the basic wraps and flingy-things.

A good (but demoralising) source of meteor mastery is Chinese circus. You may have seen that Cirque de Soleil, I think it was Saltimbanco. Teeny little Chinese kids doing helicopters with their feet, and so on.

I went for an audition for the circus school in Melbourne, a couple of years ago. The meteor was supposed to be my secret weapon, but the trainer, an ex Chinese Circus trainer, just gave me a little encouraging smile when I pulled out tricks that normally stun firespinners into silence. I didn´t realise why until I saw that Cirque de Soleil vid.

But I´m going to audition again next year, and contact staff inspired me to come up with a whole bunch of meteor moves that he hasn´t seen. Think outside the box, there´s so much potential for meteor that hasn´t been discovered yet. The most important thing is to become really comfortable with your meteor, which means wearing yourself out, bashing yourself around and tangling yourself up. A lot.

One of my favourite tricks came from constantly tangling myself up when I was learning the helicopter. It takes a bit of practice, but the idea is simple.

You do a helicopter, let it fall and tangle around you, and turn with your legs in the same direction as the meteor, to slow it down before it whacks you.

This means that you can stall the meteor and change direction without burning yourself. stall the meteor, just for an instant, and then fling your body in the other direction, so that the meteor unwraps, and straightens out. From here, you can go back into a helicopter (in the other direction), or do a horizontal plane contact staff trick.

Once the meteor has enough momentum to act like a staff, the basic principle for contact staff and contact meteor are the same: don´t try to move or control the object, just move your body around it, so that it keeps doing what it´s doing.

If you think about what your hand is doing to make the meteor spin, then a lot of the time you can do the same thing with a shoulder, neck, leg, etc.

The meteor is a lot less forgiving than the staff, of course.

Written by:

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Think outside the box, there´s so much potential for meteor that hasn´t been discovered yet.

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I agree

If you are still looking - Some more meteor threads can be found on Spherculism

Huuuu, Spherculism is back! And the first thread I see contained a link to a meteor video from varekai [Cirque du Soleil!!!!!!]

pleeeease put some meteor lessons up?! at the moment i use what ive learnt on poi and staff and just hope to god that the fists dont come flying back towards me!

did i mention it really hurts?

I've just bought some meteors, can't wait o get my hands on them, but don't really know what I'm doing apart from poi tricks. Also got a staff, I'm hoping, the poi meteors and staff will all benifit one another. I think HoP should definately have meteor lessons up as there're a lot closer related to poi then staff, and they have lessons for staff!

i just want to add to any meteor thread the fact i got off a vertical throw and catch from a pinwheel last week with meteor.

its one of the easiest staff throws to do but with meteor its real hard
prickly leaf. you will have fun with meteors. they are a lot of fun. and if you play with staff poi and meteors ...well these three complement each other so well its difficult to describe.

brassmonkey. off to try your helicopeter tangle moves tonight. they sound real interesting (nonfire i might add)

Hello,
i have done a meteorwebsite. it's all in german and there are some very good videos on it. you can find the history of meteors too. look at the Auftritt FH-Grillparty video to see me and my team playing meteors in the video section. there is a forum for tricks and so on there, so you can fill up the Trick section with your tricks there if you have videos, write me and i will upload them to my website, i have enough webspace for it. have a lot of fun!
http://www.burningmeteor.de

Danke! i don't speak much German but i'll probably be able to make my way around through the site.

Brass Monkey, I tried your butterfly/neckwrap... nearly took myself out the first time but now I've got it downpat. It's AWESOME!

I'm pretty new to Meteors, but recently got some fire ones from here. love them. Been doing meteors and poi for about 6 months now, and staff for about a year. but something i was wondering.... has anyone ever seen a pair of Meteor Poi with MORE than 2 Wicks? I.E. 4....

yeah, i guessed that already, which is y i'm starting weight training, so i don't pull anything when i make them...

I'll post pic's as soon as i make them.

i only started meteor a few weeks ago, so its realy giving me some hasles. iv been doing poi and staff for about 5 years, but i didnt even know about meteor untill about 2-3 years ago, and i dont know anyone wot does meteor, so its taken me till now to figure out how they work, and how to make them. iv got 9 mm cotton rope, with gulf ball monkey fists. so if anyone recons i should change it, let me know.

I do some meteors but I try to do it with my spotter only. I tend to stick to triditional fire meteors rather than kevlar wicked ones. (triditionaly fire meteors are just two bowls filled with fule teathered together with rope or chain.)
Because of this I'd rather not take the risk of putting others in danger just in case I do accually happen to mess up.

I've been doing meteor for exactly a week and 2 days! I've done a bit of poi before and just like everyone has said... it doesn't help.
But I'm getting better at meteor I nailed a HUGE butterly throw on sunday! I was with my friends and I said "Ok I've never pulled off a throw before but I'm gonna give it a go."
I threw it from a two handed butterfly it went HIGH it came down and I brought it into a one handed butterfly.
It made my day, it really did.

I am new to Meteors. I made my own from two strings and two marbles. could someone post some tips on getting started? I'm clueless...

I just got my meteors a while ago, and I think I'm getting the hang of them - a bit different to poi, but I'd love to learn more wraps or throws. Right now I'm either doing really basic stuff, or just flailing, enjoying it and hoping I don't end up strangled or bashed up.

Anyways, if there are any meteor twirlers in the Melbourne area, I'd love to hear from you