Guff politics

Aaaaaahhhhh...
the peons are finally learning...

(never get too predictable)

Written by:

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It seems the path laid out for me now, is making up cheese and funny dance moves with a stick.

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Looks like the Choreo workshop worked then
tee hee
*Vader voice* come Meg.... pchhhhh shhhh........... join me......pchhhhh shhh...in the Cheese Side

muahahhahahaha meg has finally passed into the cheese zone, it happens to us all. technique is dead long live the pointy toes *

by the way typing on a french keyboqrd is really hard

i hate cheese.
especially runny cheese with blue veins.

Especially when it gets all over your stick.

......i was going to go there but decided, no i cant........



Ado...... when was the last time you got cheese on your stick ?

Depends on whether im doing doubles or not.

ok enough... (gets coat)

Hmmm - misread that as "Gets goat" which was much funnier...

On a side note from Megs first post - there is a lot of uber-poi-ness-which-isn't-poi out there for the learning...

A lot of the acrobatic elements or double chain-whip could be included into poi. Not just the crazy arial stuff, but alot of the rolls and arse-skipping and the like.

Some rope-dart can be incorporated if you use long poi.

Martial arts aside, there's ummm...hmmm...

Arse

mcp, I think the thing most people seem to miss in this tech vs dance debate is sport spinning. Like tech to me is more a sport than a dance, as in dance sport or rhythmic gymnastics or exhibition club swinging.

Dunno about ballet, but take the Latin section in sports dancing and it seems completely removed from its salsa or samba origins in that the dancers seem to entirely lack rhythm. So, I think the thing I notice about techie spinners (and I count myself here) is lack of rhythm. Like there are great tricks in rhythmic gymnastics, but from my couch the sport is entirely lacking rhythm.

Hi simian, to my mind it’s like dance sport has taken the carnival out of samba, for example. Or to put it another way, it’s like comparing the dancing at carnival to a dance sport competition ie. dance sport is very rigid and technical, and you have to count all the time, where as carnival is fun with expression of natural rhythm. In the local dance scene, it's stomping (considered organic by many) verses melbourne shuffling.

On a similair note - the floor discipline of gymnastics never seems to be sync'd to the music, especially rhythmically...
Just random striking of poses (a bit like Ben ) which makes me wonder why they bother with the music - they don't with the men and it's more watchable for it...

However, I completely disagree that tech spinners lack rhythm... In my mind tight timing is precisely what makes them tech in the first place

don't you mean that they lack an ability to escape their honky-ness?
they don't lack rhythm necessarily, just an ability to move their bodies well with it, not just the poi.
and i'd have to agree there.
(unless they've taken my workshops, which give someone an average of 5% blackness per class; see meg's hair as an example) meg can i use you for my advertising?
"if we can save this spinner, we can save you"

yo,

I really like this thread, better than the Non-jedi thread, of witch it is a close relative, I must say that megs posts have made me laugh out loud in most places and also made me very thoughtfull...

for me I quit staff years ago because i could see where it was going (technically), couldent be assed getting there and had a load more intresting things to do instead.

I think its true about the baton twirling thing, after seing that lot you get a bit of "why bother?" feeling, but once you start juggling and see thomas dietz you get used to that feeling real quick, infact thats what i like about juggling.

but on reflection, the thing that got me into technical staff in the first place (and you will have to be a really old timer to remeber this!) is a little video by CubeFX called TridentPractice.

this video is still the most techincally impressive contact vid i ever saw and beats the sparkly lycra pants off any skinny baton twirler you care to mention.

just to learn a little of this technique was what inspired me, and later, as i forgot, I thought we were breaking ground, like everyone does, but spinning is just spinning, and someone who has been in the circus from birth was probibly already there when you were still in nappys, again this is what i like about juggling, no goal, no pressure, just play.

also ive been watching fire shows a lot, street shows, I know for a fact that i can beat the ass of any street fire show ive ever seen in europe, but i dont do fire shows, I do juggling shows, at which I suck, and most jugglers will be better than me.

why? because you dont need to be very good to make a good fire show, ypou dont neex to know more than a few contact tricks to wow a crowd, you just need to be able to move well, have confidence and engage with the auidence, skill is not the issue.

skill is for yourself, and if you dont want to spend the time, or enjoy the diciplin, then dont bother...

bill odie (the short fat one who likes birds) said tonight on tv about painting, "its not a job for me, if i dont have any ideas for painting, i dont agonise about it, i have a cup of tea and do something else."

to get more skilled is not a job for me, its a pleasure, and if i dont feel like it i get drunk instead, my job consists of performing, and being as entertaining as i can be, my ideal as a professional juggler is to do a show that only has the three club cascade for its finale and still get paid a lot of money.

this is rambling around as much as the original post (and is quite a bit longer) and so i hope ive kept to the spirit of the thread. Thanks meg and kyle for keeping the staff thing going, and ben too, even if hes a bit weird

the tech dance debate?

fuckit, I dance, I tech, i dont do both at the same time.

arashi, you are the whitest person i ever saw, your eyebrows are even blonder than mine, good thing you got that cute ass to wiggle around....

no, i dont know where thats going either...

bedtime...

T

Hey I've been doing no-fire street stuff and yeah it really does make you work on the general show skills much much more. Hope I get to see you do one sometime.

Arashi:
You funny man.
re techies & rhythm:

Written by: Durbs

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However, I completely disagree that tech spinners lack rhythm... In my mind tight timing is precisely what makes them tech in the first place

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Written by: Arashi

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they don't lack rhythm necessarily, just an ability to move their bodies well with it, not just the poi.

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Written by: Stone

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So, I think the thing I notice about techie spinners (and I count myself here) is lack of rhythm

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Written by: Simian

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maybe you have a different definition of 'rhythm' to me...

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I think there are a few different things here. Firstly there is flow and full body movement and all that jazz. Great stuff. Not for some. All good.
But thinking more about the actual quality rhythm, there are a few factors involved that might lead even people who have indentical tastes to get bogged down in crossed wires and symantic gobbledygook. What make someone say "Man, she got rhthym!"

One way to think about it is Chops & Choose. Take a fictional young drummer (we'll even pretend he's black) just starting out on the road to rhythm. On the one hand he has to get his chops up. This means raw tech. He learns to play really fast rolls. Really get the different sounds down pat. If he works really hard at this he will become a very fast drummer. He will be very tech. He will have good chops. But if he wants to use it as a form of communication he also has to learn to Choose. This means playing the easiest rythym in the world when's it's needed. Maybe sometimes not even hitting the drum at all. Knowing when to do which. But really playing it as it should be in that moment.

There is a big fifference between

chkichkichkichkichkichkichkichkichkichki

and

chki---ch chikchik ch ch-------chkchkchk

The first might be much harder in a sense, but is also much closer to verbal diuria.
And it's really only harder on one level. A very famous dude (maybe Neil Young??) once said
"I like to play with muscians who are not afraid to play simple. That discounts about 95% of them"

Ha ha fifference
no way I'm fixing that.

forget twirling for a moment, bad rhythm curses one to a life of bad sex.
usually with other people.

That puts it all into perspective.
It's also a really big problem when leaping on and off moving trains...