Help with hip reels

I have looked at the existing threads, and also at the video on poipoi.info, and I just can't get a hip reel to save my life.

I can do the two arms separately with no problems - I can do them for long periods of time, no mistakes, no hitting myself, just strolling around. But the minute I put them together, all hell breaks loose. At best, ONE arm does what it is suppose to. Last night I had to stop working on it for fear someone was going to think I got into a fight, and the beater centered entirely on my hips and shoulders.

Any advice for how to get the two arms to work together?

Imagine you're holding a devilstick between your hands. Whatever one hand does, the other does the same because that devilstick has them locked together. So long as it's pointing straight left to right then the hands are in ther right place.

The only thing i can say is practice. I had the hardest time with shoulder reels. I could do them with one hand, but when i started to through them together, it failed. The only thing that i did was practice fanatically! They just finally clicked. After i put the poi down for a about 4 days. That is my only suggestion. Good luck!

I just got a PM from a new user asking for help on this, so I'm bumping this thread with my attempt at an explanation

I haven't had to think about this for a loooong time, I didn't realise the hop lesson on it had disappeared!

I'd try looking through other threads on reels you find with the search function too, but otherwise :

Practice looking at a mirror/or a window with darkness behind it, this helps everything a lot, but especially things like reels.

What your aiming for with basic reels is the poi to be moving parallel to each other in the same time, so // then || then \\ as they swing.

Try to Keep them nearly on the same plane as the window/mirror you are facing, (of course the reality is the poi head will be slightly further forward than the handle or you'd hit your hands) then you try and see where you can place them without breaking that parallel position,

keeping your hands close to your sides, but slightly in front or behind depending on where you want the poi to go :

Either start by moving your hands either over your shoulders (easiest if you then let your wrists bend, hands palm up, fingers pointing behind you)

or low reels, keeping your hands by your sides, flick your wrists up behind you at hip level, again so your fingers point backwards, and your palms end up pointing upwards.

one way of thinking about it is the poi keep moving in exatly the same position, and space, and you are just learning to walk through them in the gaps (this goes for most poi moves really)

im having an extremely hard time and im not even sure if what im trying to do is right or i just dont know plz help

This is a visually, and audibly clear guide, it covers most, don't worry about all the showing off he does at the start, concentrate on the same time/parallel stuff from about 2 minutes in

when im switchin how do i get them both behind my back like he does about 2 min and 50 sec in

just start with one, it's just a figure of eight movement but to the side,

ie, do a traditional figure of eight, where the poi spins once on your left, then crosses immediately to the right to do a circle there, keep that motion going in the same place , but turn your body 90degrees, so the poi is instead going once in front, and once behind repeatedly.

you will find this easier spinning in once direction than the other, (ie, either anticlockwise, or clockwise as your facing it) which is right for you won't be for someone else, so try both.

do it with your left hand for a long time till your really comfortable with it, then do it in the same direction with your right hand only, and then try both.

doggedly practising it is the only way to learn, at some point it will just click and work, it could take minutes, or it could take many hours over days, you just have to keep trying. I can't emphasize enough how much seeing your reflection in front of you will help.

Alright, can someone PLEASE tell me how to position my hands? I've tried to make my palm up for btb but it seems so screwy to me and somewhat uncomfortable. I clocked myself in the eye a few days back with my oggz and it kind of scared me off poi for a while but I'm looking to start back up again. Still, arg. Help?

Practice rolling your wrists in a figure 8 by your waist. On the btb beat, curve your fingers up towards your wrist.

I made this quickly. I hope it helps out

Nate you are AWESOME. Thanks for the video, it cleared things up enormously!!!

Glad to be of service. It was a tricky one for me to learn too, because whenever I saw videos of people do it, it was really quick, far away and usually obscured partially by the person's body. Once you get it, everything feels so much nicer.

A few things to consider for hip-reels and shoulder-reels:

Look at yourself in a mirror. Hold your arms straight out to the sides, palms down, making an horizontal line at shoulder height. In other words make yourself look like Vitruvian Man.

This is illustrating a horizontal line of symmetry that helps to define the different zones around your body in which you can spin your poi. Notice how your thumbs point forward.

• Try turning your arms in the shoulder sockets, so that your thumbs rotate down and back. You will end up with your palms facing up.
  
• Rotate them the other way thumbs up and back. You will also end up with your palms facing up.
  

Now try rotating your arms in the same way wile spinning your poi. You should be doing crossovers in the wall plane.

• Try to lower your arm slowly to hip level. Notice that it becomes more awkward to turn your hand OVER your arm the lower you go, but turning under is easy.
  
• Now try slowly lifting your arms up from their "Vitruvian" man position. Notice that turning your hand UNDER becomes awkward, but over is easy.
  

Get used to making crossovers both under and over, and you will begin to automatically use the natural positions for wherever you are spinning around your body!

-Alien Jon

Nice advice Jon.

//goes to play with that

Here's another question: how do you do turns (beside the basic 90 degree turn) with hip reels? I've gotten down the basic turning as with the HOP and general reel tutorials, but whenever I turn in a wall plane they go all kaddywompus on me. I'm sure it'll just take some practice with, hm, me turning, but is there a mini-tutorial on how to start turning/dancing with plane hip reels?

Here's a video I quickly made to help you out.

I'm getting a 'sorry, this video is no longer available' message when I try and play that vid, with both the embedded version and trying YT direct; is YT borked or did you take it down?