Ideas on excercizes to get my left hand in synch with my right hand

my laft hand isnt as supple as my right ...which means it dosent go round enough to make my 3 and 5 beat weave equal on both sides which make it look like i really dont know what im doing when i have been doing it for a week and think ive picked it up really quickly.
has anyone had a similar problem and if so how did you correct it?

cheers poi peeps

love star xxx

You are right hander, in this case you need to concentrate more
on your left hand. When spinning try to think of your left and for-
get your right hand. This is called 'leading' or the hand you are
thinking of at the moment.

When you think only of one hand you can correct what the hand
is doing, but don't forget to return to the other that was messing
around during the time.

keep on spinning,

:R

I had the opposite problem, desipte being right handed my left wrist was a lot more flexible due to playing guitar. Aswell as what richee says about thinking more about it, I'd say make sure you stretch before & after each practice and spend a bit more time smoothing out the moves where it's a problem but other than that it should just become less noticeable over time.

I have this problem as well.
I have been trying to do all the moves just with my left hand to get it into to line with my right.

I think trying all the new moves first with my right might not have helped the inbalance either.

Everybody (well almost everybody) has a weak hand and a strong hand I'm afraid.

I am no exception and I am goin to tell you to practice, practice and practice some more.

Yes I know what your thinking
"duh like i hadden't figured that one out"

So Here are some training tips.
1. Practice, this is the key to both timing and plane control.
2. Slow down, if you concentrate on slowing down your moves you will find that timing them is easier.
3. Learn some other moves, don't ask me why but when I move onto a new trick the old ones start to sort themselves out.

Hope that helps

Especially point number 2.

Make the dodgy timing a feature and talk about polyrythyms and timing.
It can help to practice with something that isnt going to tangle and confuse you. Like washing machine hoses or those whistling tubes or bits of hose. A little bit of flex but wont tangle. Helps for teaching the 3bt weave as well.

I've been spinning for four years now and I still have this problem with the 3 beat weave. Psh, I still have this problem just spinning reverse split time.
It usually happens if I'm not focused on what I'm doing, and it evens out quick once I notice it. So it helps me if I'm spinning with someone who can tell me when I'm off beat.
Other than that... contact juggling isolations helped with my wrists. And sometimes I just play around and spin one poi with my left hand.

learning to juggle helped me get my hands coordinated

I took up double staff recently and it's really made it clear how off-kilter my left hand is. My strategy (both with poi and now with staff) is to practice moves meticulously with the weak hand. It allows you to focus more on your weak hand (ha, duh), it will help you find the muscles necessary to make "clean" moves (I found new muscles yesterday with the doubles... ow). It's a little monotonous, but there's really something to be said for getting it into muscle memory.

There are stretches and things you can do to supple-ize (yeah, I said it) your wrists and work on strength. for example, isometrics (stretching/pushing your hands against one another for resistance) and elastic bands (or light weights) if you can find them. I did some physical therapy for my wrists and my doctor gave me a couple elastic bands, they offer a nice, light, variable resistance. PM me and I can describe the exercises he had me do, if you want.

I've got a bit of an amateur interest in this subject, so I went on a bit of a hunt. there is a *fabulous* article and some subsequent discussion on the transfer of learned motor skills on juggling.org:

learning both left and right - terry jones

reading through the article and particularly, david naylor's response, uncovered the term "transfer of learning"; throw that and motor skills into google and you will return a massive amount of information, including a good deal of scientific research, into the subject.

just practice with your left hand on its own so it knows what its doing!

Hi Star,

had the same problem and one thing that I found a big help was to focus on the fingers that were holding the poi handles. I tried focusing on my wrist at first, but my planes and rhythm were still wonky.

What I did was to concentrate on the top of poi handles and imagine that I was tracing my circles with them. I know it will sound stupid, but I'd never realized that my hand was facing up for half the (in plane) circle and then facing down for the other half of the circle. The wrist motion is just the flipping from one to the other, so focusing on the wrist was doing me no good whatsoever.

Try holding a pencil upright betwen your index and middle finger with the eraser up. Then trace a circle in the air with the eraser. See how the top of your knuckles is facing completely up for half the circle and then completely facing down for the other half? Repeat with poi. I swear to God, this is the only thing that has helped me get my planes straight and my hands in synch (by doing the exact same motion on both sides).

Using heavier poi (180 grams) also helped bc it afforded more control until problem was resolved.

Still working on the muscle stamina though... *g*

HTH some.

i find that i only learn a trick with both hands fully if i learn it backwards too

so my forwards weave was sloppy until i learnt the backwards weave for example. when you have had to break a move down again for a second time to learn it backwards, it often drills it into you and you get better at it the other way

but then, maybe thats just me!