PoiGeek.com - Thoughts, opinions etc

Wicked post Gabe, totally agree with you, tomayta tomato!

I just went to have a little looksee at the site and some of the free trailers and it looks fair enough to me. Not sure how good the actual breakdown lessons are.. but from the freebie it's pretty clear to see what is being offered and to make a choice about if you want to pay to, as it says, have it 'broken down so you can pick it up'. A lot of us would be able to get the idea, pick it up and teach ourselves just from what is there for free... . Good luck to her I reckon. And hey, she's not a skinny boy with long arms so she gets my vote just for that

I'm not sure the naming issue is quite as clear as you make it Gabe; most of us are brought up with Duvet's or cell phones etc.

The point with poi naming conventions is that the patterns we use in poi are almost completely alien to someone when they start spinning, so the name they are taught is their only reference. The reason there is no problem with cell/mobile phones, Duvet's or doona's, is that both names are recognised, despite a local preference to a particular name.

If poi is taught with one name, then someone hears another, it is unlikely that a fresh spinner will have any inkling that the two are synonymous. I suggest that this creates at best a hindrance and at worst a barrier.

Names take a long time to come into common use on a wide scale, once those names are established it can appear belidgerent to ignore such conventions or rename without good reason.

there are problems with that approach to naming of things. i think we would all love to have a unified poi language. a set of unit terms that can be built up to describe things.

therefore describing a 1 long arm/1 short arm weave is more descriptive to someone who doesnt know the move than the "archer weave" is, even though the archer bit of it does describe it to an extent.

For that particular move, I think Archer is a great name. Let's all use it!

yeah but the problem with that is if someone has never heard of it, they would be hard pressed to work out what it is from the name, but if you call it longarm-shortarm-weave, a lot easier to work out.

wow.. got me posting something moderately sensible in discussion for once...

when you're a beginner, I really don't think the name of the move matters that much: 'Archer', 'longarm/shortarm', 'reaching inside the cow'....

so long as you can see what the move is and figure out how to do it, it's still teaching you basic elements of coordination in a way that's understandable.

I'd agree though, that when you reach the intermediate-advanced level, it helps to start breaking things down, as people get into the idea of 'there are no moves, simply endless variations', at which point, terms like longarm, shortarm, antispin, isolation etc all start to become rather useful.

I've made the mistake in the past of trying to explain the 'no move' theory to people who've been newbies and often received blank stares. I think it can actually be disheartening for some people when they realise what a mountain there is to climb.

Whereas if you say, 'learn this move, its called the archer' its nice and simple, no further explanation required

on a side note, I think its nice to see how GG's spinning has improved since CoL5, although I totally don't agree with the reference to HoP on her website.

Just on the names thing.. I know it makes life awkward to work out what people are talking about when everyone has different names for stuff, but it *does* make it sound more interesting..

(anyone else a Pratchett fan.. Leonard of Quirm anyone..?)

I suspect they won't do very well on that site, so it probably won't matter what we think of it.. You do really of need a better reputation to sell stuff 'blind' for long.. That's not really inspiring.

I think everyone should have their own name for every move, poi is too easy to understand, we need to add something interesting or we'll all be bored of it next week.

Excuse me, I'm off to go practice "Poking the bear in the eye"

dunno, never did me much harm: I learnt 'the mexican wave', not 'alternating butterfly shoulder reels' and it didn't do me much harm

long term for the scene i think it is harmful though

Good vids are hard to make - lot of time and effort as stated already. A website costs money... so "pay per move" is inevitable in this case and if the market is taking it... why not?

But they need to give the moves new names. Who would pay for the "btb butterfly tutorial", if it's free elsewhere?

Makes me ponder whether Nick gets freebies from those who learned from his YouTube vids (apart from recognition)?

Teachers are greatly underpaid and tuition is greatly undervalued... Life's a supermarket and nobody's sitting at the cash counter - except for ringing tones and other bullscrap... (but which are happily paid for?)

I do agree with a unified language for poi, but nicknames for moves make things quicker, if there's no other name for a longarm/shortarm weave, why not call it an archer weave.

There's another thread now for discussing naming issues.

Ok, so I am involved in this to some extent and can answer some of the questions and concerns you all have.

First off, Glitter Girl (and thus, PoiGeek) markets to a very different demographic than you will find here at HoP. Generally, the people she serves are people who have a lot of money and don't care for spending hours reading message boards, watching videos, or hanging out with real poi geeks. They also tend to like things spelled out for them in a very simple and easy to follow structured manner. In essence, she is catering to... wait for it... pop culture/main stream.

Poi Geek's lessons are very high quality and sterile. Each 'course' has 10 lessons which are slight variations of one move (ie - my lesson was on buzzsaw fountains, I did fw buzz, rv buzz, fountain clockwise, fountain counter, anti-spin clockwise, anti-spin counter, turning left in regular, turning right in regular, turning left in anti, and turning right in anti) The moves are broken down as far as possible, teaching each lesson with the footwork, body position, left hand, right hand, putting it all together, then some tips for trouble shooting. There is also 'inspirational' footage included which shows some other things you can do with the moves featured in the course.

As for the naming stuff and the seemingly misrepresented 'free' lessons, its all part of the marketing game. There are no lies as there are free lessons on the site. Each course will have one free lesson available. The names of the moves (in certain cases) are different but only because that is how GG teaches it. Her students can relate better to the way she names things than the more technical names which are more widely accepted among this community.

Also, yes, there was a lot of work that went into Poi Geek.

My course alone was pretty time consuming. Beyond the script being written, I spent about 20 hours filming on set and 20 more hours recording voice in a sound booth, and 5+ hours filming inspirational footage. The lesson still needs to be edited and published.

Hey thanks for posting, Icon. And I hope your vids get due respect for the work you put into them. Why do you call the poi geek vids sterile though? Strange word!

You mean.. really clean? Or ... not likely to produce results?

 Written by :simta


if someone has never heard of it, they would be hard pressed to work out what it is from the name, but if you call it longarm-shortarm-weave, a lot easier to work out.

Lots of poi moves vids here have visually descriptive names. Thread the Needle, Flowers, Chase the Sun etc is a lot easier to say and remember than where-the-arms-go etc descriptions.
Try describing the Windmill that way. No way! But say Windmill and we have a picture in our heads straight away.
Archer ftw

And what;s a fountain? I thought that was a juggling term?

By sterile I mean really clean. White backgrounds, black clothes, color coded poi to correspond to left and right, very clear voice recording, HD video, etc.

So why not make everyone happy and put both the names on there?