Guff politics

So, Orbit was all like: "was some of the best spinning I'v ever seen. (and yes I've seen uk spinners)" in da BM thread.

And I was like:

Obviously, this only applies to poi spinning, cos lets face it, america is crap at staff.

It just made me think of a couple of things like:

Poi doesn't have a well defined weird technical cousin, like we do. (Baton Twirlers) They can use martial art influences, but not as directly as we can. (At least I haven't heard of any actual poi based martial weapons, though rope-dart, and nunchucks can be both be applied somewhat.)

Secondly, unlike in poi land, we don't have annoying beacons of ancient technical mastery like Arashi. Thank the lord. Kyle Maclean is the closest thing we have. (And why can't he hurry up with that?)

But like uk poi land, we do have a continent of technical rivals: not america, but Australia. Unfortunately Australia seems to be populated with out of plane doubles spinning girlies doing girly australian doubles, and not advancing the technical envelope. Or at least, this is the analogy to uk-poi-land. Where we are haveily influenced and in fact part of the juggling (OMG quick change that to Object Manipulation!) scene, over in australia, they've realised that juggling is geeky and have gone for the dancing side. (Apart from ben-ja-men who have just closed his eyes to the world and decided to pose.) Or at least this is how i think it is like over in australia.

Was there any point to this post, apart from offending everyone on hop? No. I don't think so.

I'm off to go and organise the welcoming in of winter.

scince i don't know what the point with your post is, nothing i write can be off-topic? right?

therefore:

i really don't want the winter to come.i remeber last winter and this summer. i compare them. i realise that winter SUCKS! (oops! my big mouth!)

no staffing. no poiing. not much of club juggling. very little ball juggling. WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?! I'M GONNA DIE!

so? was this off topic?

Indoors man, indoors, but my ceiling is way too low... ouch...

right, its getting "cold" in the UK these days... (complaints of a whole 60F- was the conversion just wrong??!!)

Anyway, poi has chain whip..... er, think thats what its called... my memories getting fuzzy its been years..... and poi is after all in its origin somewhat martial arty, but not the way staff is yes!

I've known several world champion baton twirlers (??!! I don't know why!) and altho they are very good I don't like what they do as much as I like people who are more properly staffers... could just be me....

Anyway, my reply is about as pointless as your post, I should go practice again instead, ta!

'best spinning'
what a challenging term!

such a verdict can only be limited to just how comprehensive a person's experience of twirlers internationally, qualified by how they define what good fwirlage looks and feels like.
As ever, wisdom begins the moment you are quite aware about just how much you don't know.

To this thought, there are two lessons i have learned:

* someone's 'best' is another's 'too techinical'/'too dancey'/'not monkey-like enough!'

* attachment to the concept of being the best will cause emotional suffering. It is motivation that makes an action good ... if you twirl purely to impress others, your twirling-happiness is linked to their approval, then it is built on an unstable foundation. If you are motivated by the self-challenge and inspiration it gives to others, then how can you not fail to always benefit?
happiness is an easily amused person.
:eats pancake stuck on ceiling:

true words, o wise bender.

i thought poi were a weapon of themselves!?
i mean, try bashing someone with a hard bit of something heavy going fast on the end of a string and see wat happens.

meg was referring to the 7 section chain whip, i believe.

please refer to the double chain whip videos availale for download in the flexible weapons section of the *great* wushucentral site.

http://www.wushucentral.com/videos/v.php/miscellaneous/library/flexible#ifckf_26_double_chain_whip

no direct linking to the videos themselves, plz.

err....technical rivalry? we tend to be normally too lazy to think about rivalry... that is unless it comes to sport that is... which is something that i wont be dwelling upon at present due to obvious cricket related reasons

meg was now?

good words, nonetheless, bender...

but then you always have them. i sound like such a fan girl some days. but your three section performance (from years ago ) rocked my world. my poor little no-one-does-staff-here world.

aww, anyone is lucky if someone as thougthful as you listened to their words!

It's sweet here in melb, I can only speak from my own experience but the hippy and circus communities here have fostered a great individuality amongst twirlers. watching people like Pyroptix practice really pushed my expectations on what technical wizardry can be done with doubles.

then again, nothing really compares to the fwirlage diversity of HoP!

I haven't reread what I wrote. Cos I can't be bothered and I didn't really put a whole lot of thought into it, I was just a bit bored.

But after that, I thought up a new analogy for technical vs dancey flow and manipulation vs dance shenanigan.

So If I were a ballet dancer, and I had abused my joints from birth so that I could achieve the most beautiful lines the human body can achieve, while standing on my toes, when I look at breakers or music video dancers, (hip hop dancers I guess) I would be like: "Well that would be nice if they were straight and doing it on point." And somethings I would just not do. [I think I would quite like to be a ballet dancer, years of training would really give me a elitist high ground.]

Whereas b-boys and funk dancers go for a completely different approach to the lines and shapes a body can make.

And then liquid dancers go for a style based on illusion.

Oh I'm lost my thread of thought once again. Darn it. Oh well. It'll come back sometime. I just need a doggy snack to lure it...

It was something to do with tech vs dance right? And how ballet dance might not be to everyones taste, but that it was engineered for a purpose and that you shouldn't care if they have their own body gesture ballet language? No that wasn't it...

i'm starting to come to the idea someone may be nearly-as-random as bender....

followed the thought nonetheless

ballet and staff, there's two things which shouldn't go together...
Now I'm sure I've challenged someone, send me a video if you ever make it work!

zzz... I thought I'd qualified my statement quite a bit by saying "some of the best"... leave it to Meg to turn it into a nationalistic battle.

RE UK staff vs Australian staff

I think there is simply a difference between the emphasis placed (on average) in each scene. The Aussie scene is mostly music driven, with emphasis on dance, movement and musicality, and the english scene is mostly juggling driven. In terms of driven Im talking about the the influences of the people whose styles are influential. Obviously there are as many different styles as there are people who have picked up a staff, but this is my observation from travelling to meet firey types in both countries.

Another related big difference is that there are MUCH less people in Oz doing contact, and many more still doing (I guess what is considered in Europe and the UK at least) more traditional hand on handle style twirling. So if you judge all twirling by workign out the proportion of time spent with the staff not in hand per burn, you will always rank Oz lower.

On a more personal note; characterising me as;

"out of plane doubles spinning girlies doing girly Australian doubles, and not advancing the technical envelope"

at first slightly angered me, but then I thought the only part that was inaccurate was the out of plane bit (although its been a while, I dont think the spinning in my last video could be called out of plane) Thanks for indirectly reminding me that I'd rather not be concerned with how others view my twirling, only how I perceive it. Its wonderfully emancipating, especially in the light of the competitive perspective that seems to have inspired this thread. To paraphrase the ever wise Bender; sooner or later an externalised motivation for improvement will lead to disappointment.

yeah what josh said.... he is clearly infinitely more eloquent than i can be bothered to be this morning... too many big words makes my head hurt before my morning caffeine hit kicks in....
see you soon mate

I think Meg is just a bit fed up of being the one of the main people to bring out new moves over here, and what with winter coming there will be a lot less going on for the next few months. Much less learning all round me thinks.
Unless i can aquire a nice big warm space, hmmm.....
Any one know of any in the Birmingham area?

i do love apples and oranges.
they are lovely in their own way.
depends on your tastes, really.

Meg we sent Jed over....

Did you bludgeon some stuff into him??

Tell him to make new stuff happen...in a few months.