What are you working on now?

The left and right brain crashing thing happens often Or at least it does with me O.o

How are you going with the weave? Just keep practicing, it will come... That one was one of the hardest for me because no one could really break down the pieces of the move for me. It will come though

Lol, I find the sock poi far easier to spin than chain poi for some reason... but everyone is different

As for what I'm working on...
> Hand spiral wrap things...
> Smoothing out isolations
> Split Time Swishy Swishy Butterfly Thingy - this one is evil <_<
> Fountain - still not smooth... Needs some love and attention.

I'm trying to do the 3 beat weave. I get the mechanics of it, but I still keep hitting myself at the same time in the same place! lol. I will get it eventually...I hope...Because it looks really good when my boyfriend does it. Fingers crossed I can get it right, atleast before the end of this week.

when my girlfriend got it, I was like :DDDD

At the moment I'm working on 3 beat weaves. I'm almost there. I've also been working on turns and how to put moves together, so they flow nicely.

Horizontal cat-eyes. When I can get my hand to keep in a smooth circle they come out fine, but the movement of the poi keeps throwing my feel off. Basically the same challenges I had with the vertical cat-eye, really, not as different as I might have been lead to think. So far my record is four in a row before my circle goes wonky.

I'm working on spiral wraps, hyper loops, and air wraps at the moment. Speaking of which, the spiral wraps are really frustrating! It seems so easy! I can get them to wrap around my hands but when I try to undo them, it unwraps equal time! I just can't seem to do it right and get it to unwrap split time. Any tips?

Start unwrapping earlier than you think you need to. Do not let the poi clamp your hands together.

Yeah, I picture it as less "unwrapping" than "kicking the poi back out" with a firm twist back the other way. You don't exactly let them stop so much as twist your hand to meet them (and bounce them back out). Also the grip you're using vs. how you're bringing your hands together can make a difference, but I think if that were the case you'd find that your poi were finishing their wraps at slightly different times, which it doesn't sound like.

But getting them to wrap in the first place is the hardest part, and you're already through that, so you're almost there.

Huzzah! I got it. Thanks for the help. Now I'm practicing the other direction so I can try the continuous spiral wraps.

All the horizontal CAP's the reel based one..

Cleaning up horizontal cat-eyes and related hybrids, but mostly trying to tighten up my spinning in general. That is, my spinning usually contains too many slow bits where i revert to reels, but i think i could keep up a more interesting pace than that. I need to spin without "safe moves".

I thought today about complete reel spinning I meen, with
absolutely no cross-over and I'm finding it quite enjoyable
idea .

Working on Charlie-style momentum conserving polyrhythm flowers. Passed over these when I first saw them because at the time I was still spotty with wall plane flowers, but now I think they round out a bunch of stuff I've been playing with.

Umm... Just the butterfly. I should have gotten it by now, but I'm just taking ages to.

The top hand will want to be about half an inch in front of your bottom hand... it helps the planes not clash.

Decided to finally get round to finishing of learning 3-beat waist wraps and after far too long I want to start on flowers properly. Any advice?

Stretching can really help with waist wraps.

Also, try with one poi, getting your planes with your hand in the waist wrap position straight.

Spinning the poi along a plane and turning your body around until you're wrapped into the waistwrap position is the easiest way. If your planes are going whacky, come a little bit out of the waist wrap position and work your way into it.


As far as flowers go, there are many ways in which to get into them.

If you're hazy on the terminology of flowers, then try this page

Flowers are basic components of poi put together to create complex patterns, as long as you never forget that they're simply basics put together in advanced ways, then you'll be able to extrapolate all the variations once you learn a new one.

I try to get people to move their arms without poi before they start a practice session focussing on flowers, which is why I made this video.

The easiest flower for most beginners to learn is a prospin butterfly flower. You can have focus points at the 12 o clock, 3 o clock, 6 o clock and 9 o clock positions. You can also do just the 3 and 9 positions (easier than the 12 and 6 for a beginner)

If you're ready to try antispins (after trying just antispin with one poi) you might want to watch the first minute or so of this video

Apologies for just linking to my videos, but text is difficult and I made the videos because... thats the way I teach them. ^_^

If you have any questions, feel free to pump em out!

Happy twirlings and sorry for my ramblings!

Wot 'e sed.

MNS still has one of the best intro videos for stalls as well. Just as a by the way.

I'm currently exploring the wall with inward and outward TTN. Trying to become more comfortable with an extended range of motion in preparation for triquetras. I need to devote some effort to split-time butterflies so that I can break through the frustration of crashing poi heads. Flowers are coming along nicely, working on smoothing out the timing of my same direction same time and same direction split-time variations.

I'm working on many different things, but for now, I'm trying to focus on these:

Flowers and turning with them
Isolated moves
Hybrids
Stall patterns (stall switches, horizontal stacks, etc.)

Looking for some guidance and direction from the folks here at HOP. Lately I've been working on the triquetra, CAP No. 2, wallplane anti-spin flowers, and same-direction split-time wheel flowers (not sure what the specific term for that is). My triquetra still needs a lot of work but I've got the rest of them down for the most part. Could you please recommend patterns that I might consider learning next? Oh and I'm also working on the 3-beat BTB weave, progress on that one is a little slow. Thanks in advance!

Hey Droid. I can show you some stuff in a couple weeks if you want. Bulwer Park around 1900/1930is till 2200 or so, every second Wednesday. There are people there now actually, but I have had the plague so am staying in.

For now I've decided to focus most of my practice time on various anti-spin flowers.

There are a few that I know of: same direction 4 petal wall plane anti-spin where the poi are doing the same petal at the same time, opposite direction wall plane anti-spin, double triquetra, 6 petal circle of life anti-spin, split time same direction anti-spin where the hands pass each other vertically in the middle, wheel plane anti-spin, and wheel plane butterfly anti-spin.

Then, of course, there are the hybrids: triquetra vs. extension, wheel plane anti-spin vs. extension, wheel plane anti-spin vs. pro-spin (goofy flowers), and anti-spin vs. pendulum.

Anyone have any advice for me? Anti-spin moves that I don't know of or perhaps a really helpful video or two?

Hello everyone I am new to this forum.

I CAN TURN WITH ANTISPIN WHEEL PLANE FLOWERS AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

this ranks right up there with 3bt weave turns and my first spiral wrap on the scale of awesomeness. and I got butterfly weaves down the same day! it was a very good day for poi. all those practice sessions where I felt like I hadn't improved at all suddenly seem worthwhile.

accidentally did a hyperloop/cateye combination last night. which is funny because I can't do regular cateyes. it looks badass though.

think hyperloop -> half of a cateye upon exiting -> back into hyperloop, repeat

It sounds pretty awesome, thirteen. I've yet to master the hyperloop. I can't even do it. >.< Though I can do orbitals, which I find kind of strange since most people learn hyperloops first. Heh.

Right now I'm working on various flower patterns, footwork, stacking, and a bit of 3d spinning.

that is strange! I can't do orbitals yet, lol. if you were closer I'd teach you all about hyperloops; they are one of my favorite things to do and I like figuring out new ways to mess with them.

and <3 footwork. not enough poi artists working on footwork in my opinion! have you seen Nick Woolsey's tutorials on footwork and whirling with reels?

Well, if I'm ever in Minnesota, I will send you a message. Or if you're ever in Austin.

I completely agree! The dance aspect of poi has always been my biggest influence and so good footwork is my main goal at the moment. I was introduced to poi by fire dancers at a Ren faire, and they actually danced! Unlike the tech spinners I mainly see at raves. I've seen Nick Woolsey's tutorials on footwork. I can't whirl yet though. >.< My planes go crazy. There's also a pretty good footwork tutorial in the poi library under movement.

...seriously? I'll be in Austin in a week! Fugee is going to try and make the trip down too. we must meet up and spin, do you guys have a fire jam or anything like that?

I am really shy in person though

and yeah, I don't want to rip on any one style (although I kinda do...) but I much prefer fire dancers to fire spinners. you can integrate tech with dance; I see no reason to do tech alone!

yeah keeping planes while whirling is hard. mine probably look sloppy; it's a hard to find a good practice space with enough room to whirl that still has a mirror. next thing I want to learn is barrel jumping per srikanta barefoot's tutorial that was posted on playpoi recently... so cool!