New To Poi? ASK ME ANYTHING!!!

Ok heres my question : What is the meaning of life?

Na only kidding, i was wondering are there any tips you can give me about shoulder reels? I can do it, just but my rip reels and shoulder reels arent very flueant

Work on hand at a time. (Useful tip for any move.)

Focus on rotationg the wrist as well.

work on that scooping motion that i'm sure you've heard mentioned on every video and site that talks about poi. It is probably THE MOST useful motion you can learn. Once you progress more you will find that you need less and less movement of your hand/arm to get the desired movement from your poi. Work on this now, let the poi spin and try to force it less and let THEM do the work. Just tug gently at the right times and you'll find the spinning looks more fluid and is much easier.

A mistake a lot of people make as beginners is over controlling the poi. Forcing them around and trying to make the poi do what you want 100% of the time. This WILL NOT WORK. Poi will happily spin in a lil circle with very little help from you, use this to your advantage, just tug enough to counteract gravity and nudge the poi to the side you want them to go.

Keep trying!

Indeed. I've found it more of a "when" to give that little tug becomes more important than "how" or "where".

I just don't get regular hip reels...

Thanks for the advise folks, sure enough i took your advise and i'm looking alot more fluid already!

Now i've started working on angel wings, so i was wondering ....There like a butterfly into a shoulder reel right?

And a second question, i recently learned the cork screw. But i'm not sure how i can switch into this move, i find myself havin to really slow my poi down till they're almost in a stand still position

Mike

I'm dodging the angel wing question because I've never actually heard of that term.

As for the corkscrew, there are a few different approaches. Perhaps one of the easiest ways is just to bend over from a windmill (since it's the same move just horizontal.)

There are ways to radically change planes in a smooth manner if you can manage to flick your arm at just the right time.

If I'm doing a forward weave on my left side I'm going
Over with my right hand
Then with my left hand
Then I can bring my right hand under and radically change planes to have that right hand sweep under my belly from left to right and the other poi follows.

So if you just try it with your right poi (put your left down) it goes:
Over the left (on the left side)
Under the left (on the left side)
Then twist the poi so it's going across your belly button (right paralel with your belt) in the first move of a corkscrew)
Then above your head

But that does mash your planes as my girlie just chastised me for.

A smoother way might be to transition from a weave to a windmill. That involves just a 90 degree twist.

If you need help with that, maybe someone else can take the question as I'm heading out to the countryside for the weekend.

Have fun.

Ah, thats awesome. I didnt anticipate going from a 3 beat weave into a cockscrew but it seemed to work pretty ace.

Dont know how a windmill goes yet, angel wings is still proving a problem though :O hehe

Thanks,
Mike

Angel wings is one of those moves that I believe has several similar but different definitions.

My version of it would be Behind the head butterfly (1 beat) to giant butterfly ending in behind the back butterfly then reverse and repeat. But that's just me.

I think the key linkage in all the "angel wing" moves is the multiple butterfly transitions. First, you can do angel wings in inward AND outward butterfly. And you can actually do them sorta antispin as well but thats a bit more of a brain fooker to describe in text i believe.

The first way I learned to do angel wings (my version) is:

start in outward butterfly. Right poi clockwise, left poi counter clockwise... or anticlockwise for you brits.

Move to BTH (behind the head) butterfly. do one beat.

On outswing of the beat straighten out your arms and do a lockout all the way down into BTB butterfly. 1 beat.

On outswing again, bring poi in front and do lockout with arms crossed all the way back up into BTH butterfly again (repeat from first step)

All this can be done in inward butterfly you just start from BTB and move to BTH. again with lockouts for the transition.... which is really just 50% of a giant butterfly...

Hope that helps...

For those interested... the antispin version i was referring to is REALLY cool if you can nail it, I can't get it perfect YET (something to do with shoulderblades that don't want to just break in half and let my arms go back far enough...yet)

Anyway, here's the best description I can give:

Start in BTB OUTWARD butterfly (i usually stand still and do btb ttn to get set up for this, but that's me)

When ready you are going to do an INWARD giant butterfly with your arms, but keep the poi spinning outward butterfly (so this makes antispin petals as your arms move up)

Once arms are nearing the top, bend elbows and drop into BTH outward butterfly for a beat or two. Then for the second half..

Do an outward butterfly lockout (1/2 giant butterfly) back into btb outward butterfly.

Essentially you get two sets of antispin petals up to your head, then a giant circle for the reset, then move repeats.

The really tricky part to me is the transition from the btb butterfly into the lockout for the antispin as you have to turn your arm over at some point to continue all the way up, but you don't want the poi to come in front of you. Well you COULD bring the poi in front of your arms on the way up if you wanted to... but thats cheating and I don't wanna do it that way :-P

A variation to this move that I def can not get my body to do yet is the split version of this, so as one arm is going up doing the antispin, the other is coming down in the 1/2 giant butterfly to btb, then you switch. Also you can turn while doing this move when you get to the bottom or top, either in split version or not.

I REALLY want to get a good long exposure picture of this move as the image you get would be antispin petals (for me it'd be 6 petals, 3 on each side, but you can put more in) surrounded by a giant circle.

GOOD LUCK! if any of you get this before me send me a picture! *stares at NYC and taps foot impatiently*

This isn't particularly a how to do this move question, but it concerns learning to do moves, so I will ask it. What media player do you need to watch the videos in the library? Everytime I click on one it says I can't play it. I use a MacBook Pro. How do I get them to play? Thanks.

Faith: Hipreels. Practise making slow, flat circles anywhere you can. when making circles, practise one circle in front of your body, one circle behind. practise with each hand. when you're ready, try doing two circles at once, one on each hand.

a lot of the movement for getting the circle around your back is only in the wrist.bend your wrist and poi will just go behind you, if your planes are good.

The key is slow and flat (good planes). the slower it goes, the more time you have to think about what you're doing, and also it will hurt a lot less if it hits you.

I can do split time just can't do the regular ones. I'm fine with it for now...

Hey guys - i've been playing around with butterfly and all its zillions of variations and I've got a move that involves crossing your arms [so you're spinning on each side of you, arms crossed across your body], then bringing your hands together into a butterfly so the BACKS of the hands are next to each other, not the wrists.

For the onlooker, this looks identical, of course, but it's a pretty sweet move from a technical viewpoint, and i was wondering what it's called? 'reverse' or 'backwards' butterfly are taken!

I dont know if its got a specific name, but like you said, there are a zillion variations. Sounds like a fun way to play with it though.

its really just a butterfly. Hand position doesn't always dictate a move. If anything it'd just be called a hands crossed butterfly. The thing about butterflys is they are the same overall visual no matter how your hands are arranged. You can have one of the other, side by side palms in, back to back, open hands, closed hands etc etc... still just a butterfly. Good job finding a new (to you) entry to butterfly that you like! That's the thing about spinning, finding the transitions and modifications of moves that work for you.

Cheers for the advise imbalence, sure enough i've nailed the angel wings.

Still certain moves are fooling me over and over and its particularly the moves that involve the backward spin. My backward spinning is very weak compared to my forward.

The backward weave is a prime example

Practice practice practice...

the more you put in the more you get out, try focusing on your weak spots, try and see where those weak spots are.

Remember if the poi hit you, then you have one if not two problems.

Timing and positioning... which means you need to watch you hands to see where the problem lies... I came across this a lot at the weekend with people asking me how to do a reverse 5bt weave.

Is their dowel in tube core fire poi? Or is the wick just screwed into the hole drilled in the tubing?

Wow, that was a long answer. Thanks! I have been spinning fire staff, nunchucks and poi for over a year now, but I've never bothered getting any tubecore poi, as they burn time is so bad. I just went stright to cathedrals. However, now I need to make lots of tubecores, and so I was thinking of the design. I have never seen a tubecore with a dowel, but it seems like a much safer design in all.
If you crushed and bent one end of the tube (see homeofpoi tubecores) I don't get how burning wood would fly out the bottom, cause there wouldn't be enough oxygen for it to burn. Or if their is enough oxygen for it to burn, how come it hasn't on my firestaves?

I get what you mean with your fire head, but you actually use bolts to hold it in, not screws?
Do you have a picture of this firehead you were describing?