New To Poi? ASK ME ANYTHING!!!

can u explain the 360 butterfly to me,or point me to a video that does a good job of explaining,i cant get it right.

Ummm im new to poi and have just made my own with socks and tennis balls, and watched the wonderful videos in the library section of this site (thx HoP GODs) and i have discovered i have one stooopid arm and one good arm...javascript:void(0)
has any one had this problem that one arm does not seem to follow direction well?javascript:void(0)
its mostly while i am doing backward split time. Should i just cut off the offending appendage, or is there some help out there?
Thx
Genie

Unless you're ambidextrous, this is the case for most people. You'll find spinning one way much easier than the other, and you're strong arm will naturally want to lead.

The only way round this is practise everything backwards. It's a pain (sometimes literally) but it will massively improve your spinning, especially as being able to do tricks forwards and backwards often enables you to turn them too, which leads to funky transitions and good flow.....

I tell you the thing that seemed to help me most with my "stupid arm" is to drill with just it. I drilled planes with my left hand forever it seems until i felt i could control it mostly as well as my right. There are a LOT of subtleties to poi control that often your strong hand will do automatically.

just keep practicing, when spinning with both arms concentrate on the stupid one and let your strong arm do what it needs without thinking.

thanks Imbalance, many years ago i took tap dance and i had a stupid foot also... but so did everyone in class, so i wasnt alone. Because its only me and my daughter doing poi and she is a teenager and is picking it up much faster, it made me feel broken... lol thanks again
Genie

hey,

me n a friend have just started using fire poi, but we're having trouble keeping the wicks alight. we soaked them for quite a few hours as they were new. did we soak them for too long or not enough. could you give us some tips on fuelling in general please. we are using parrafin as home of poi suggests.

cheers
em

What'ya mean trouble keeping alight?
Did they sort of catch fire, but then go out (sparking?) or just not burn for very long?
or not catch fire at all?

I don't think you can soak them too long- the first time I used fire poi, I wound up soaking them for 2 days, as it started raining just before I went to start, so I stuck them in the shed corner 'until the rain stopped' and forgot them..

Likewise soaking them not long enough seems unlikely- you can just pour a bit of fuel on, and they still burn.. People recommend soaking them a long time before first use as it's thought (not sure with how much justification) that this helps the kevlar take less damage.
I tend to recommend it anyway, just because it means people are more likely to think and plan ahead before their first spin, rather that just have a go after a few drinks 'cos it seemed like a good idea at the time..

The wicks weren't damp were they? That's a good way to make them hard to light, and sputter out fast.

Just this last weekend I saw my first fire spinning at a renfaire in Ojai. A friend of mine spins but omg wow, it just looked SO GOOD. So I quickly learned the 3bt and butterfly from him, and am now at home learning from the HOP site's videos.

I've got a pair of (ugly, but soft) sock poi and some cathedral fire poi chains coming (no fire for a long while but I want to do it eventually so I figure I should get used to those too).

How long did it take you guys to get really good at this? I was told a martial arts background is good (which I don't have, woe) as is dancing (double woe). I think I'm doing pretty good since I've only been doing this a couple days (literally) but I have so very far to go that it's intimidating. I know the butterfly, alternating butterfly, 3bt, reverse 3bt, and am trying flowers now (making those things go straight is harder than it looks!).

Damn, I don't even know if there's a question in there! :P I guess, well, what course of action (aside from practice practice practice!) or sequence of learning things/moves/patterns do you think a n00b should go?

Emma - How long do they stay alight for? 2-3 minutes is about normal for small-ish poi, 8 mins for pretty hefty wicks.
If it's a matter of seconds, make sure the poi are properly burning before you start spinning them. Erm, other than that, unless they're wet, as Hammelis said, I can't think why they would't burn. Unless you've got some dud/poor quality paraffin.

Sarah - How long? All depends on what you call "really good";) It also depends on how much you practise, natural talent, perserverence and availabilty of good teachers. The wonderful thing about poi is you can never know it all, there's always stuff to learn.
Also, you can learn 2 moves and move well and look as good, if not better than learning loads of moves.
Aside from coordination, I don't think martial arts would really help. Likewise with dance, you'll have good coordination, stance and balance, but with regards to learning moves I don't think it's really a help

Well let's see, I first saw spinning poi on Saturday and got to learn the 3-bt Sunday night from a friend, then made my own poi on Tuesday when I got home. I'm now practicing the 5-bt weave (thanks to Nick/meenik's Youtube video) but am having problems with the crossovers - I've got the move but whenever I pull right (I'm left handed) I get really floppy and lose momentum. Should I add a little more weight to my sock poi or is there a trick you can suggest to keep the tension steady?

Well, it depends how heavy your poi are to start with
Orange/juggling ball weight is a good average.
A good exercise is to see how slow you can just spin them at your side without them going slack.
It's possible the floppiness is coming more from a change of speed rather than spinning to slow or the poi being too light. Try and keep it smooth, work on each side at a time... If things keep going slack, try speeding things up a bit, at least till you can keep the tension there...
One bit of advice is to use your shoulder to push the crossover across rather than your wrists/arms, kinda hard to explain with text though

Oh cool. I'd been focussing too much on keeping my hips out of the way that I hadn't thought about my shoulders. Using them has also helped the same tension problem I was having in the backwards 3bt. Thanks!

Okay, here's a question about butterflies. I've been practicing mine since I first started but I've noticed that from my pov they aren't in sync - each poi goes more towards the respective hand's side on the outside of each circle. (does that make sense?) Many of the pictures and vids I've seen have experienced poi users doing near perfect circles with their butterflies so are my planes off or am I fine and my perspective just gives me that viewpoint?

They will be slightly off I think, no matter how good you are.

If you want to answer it for yourself, spin a 'fly in front of a mirror or a large pane of glass (sliding door type thing).

The other thing is that the poi can be kept moving with very little movement, so maybe work on that?

Hello
Can anyone give me advice on the tuck turn? I've started going through the tutorial videos on here and I don't get it at all, I just keep hitting myself in the back of the head.

I searched on here, but the info was very technical. Can anyone explain simply what she is doing with her arms on the video? It's too fast for me to make sense of it.

cheers.... been spinning for a week and loving it

From what I do, it is a low turn, but with your arms right up in your armpits, so it looks higher.

So, as the poi start coming down as you spin them forwards next to you, move your hands to your armpits, but before the poi start to wrap, turn around and they will be swinging (to you) in reverse.

Helpful I hope.

cheers Aston, kind of makes sense! Have to go back to work now, but I'll try later. I was confused because in the video it looks like she is crossing her wrists or something.

You can do a butterfly with your wrists crossed, or with your hands adjacent to each other, or over-under (switching up the over/under is the essence of TTN), if you like; whatever suits your style, and your overall routine, whichever you think looks better. But as long as the poi are the same length each hand is slightly offset from the other, which means that the circle made by the poi head, defined by the length between your hand and the head, will be equally offset, since that length will be the same for both poi. The further you move your hands from each other, the more spread the two circles become, until eventually you separate them entirely and crossed both arms over (the first poi move I ever learned)...

Try working on reverse butterflies; at least for me that amplified my errors in form, if you will, showing me what I really needed practice on.