Has anyone tried poi with dance?

so has anyone thought of or tried anything with poi and dance or gymnastics?
im trying to improve the look of simple moves by combining them with other disciplines, ideas?

How do you mean? A lot of stuff does work and can be done....

Look on youtube? There are plenty of things there.

Otherwise, just move with the poi and see how you can extend things. One-legged windmills, reels combined with pirouettes and similar will all work.

i have just looking for someone thats tried it. thanks ill try those. what about combining martial arts into it? im a black belt in go kan ryu but trieing to get it right while spinning proving rather hard.

My main focus is combining poi with modern/contemporary dance and the last thing I want to do ever is stand still performing tricks. Keeping it simple and having amazing body movement is more fun to do and to watch in my opinion. Just do lots of practice to see how you can spin with different body movements to make sure there are no collisions.

I think you should experiment and use all of your skills to be a well rounded performer

Poi would be difficult for most things I bet. Learn to play with stalls a lot and pirouettes as said above. Other than that, just try to dance with them how ever you let loose.

And btw, I think double staff would be much easier and work much better, especially for martial arts.

With martial arts stuff, you can use kicks and footwork. (Aikido has some particularly nice footwork.)

Hand techniques tend to be a bit harder because they are dictated by how the poi are spinning, but (I come from a relatively classical Goju Ryu background so not sure if you use the same terminology, and not sure my spelling is correct either) a 180' turn with exaggerated hike-uke can work, for example. In general you will need circular techniques in the plane that you are spinnning in. Again, aikido has some nice stuff that can be used.

our styles a mixture of shotokan and goju-ryu

All the best spinners (well, a couple of exceptions) combine dance and poi/staff.

The style of dance varies, but it generally always = Epic Win.

A few people use martial arts with them too - tends to be a bit cheesey for my tastes, but skilfull nonetheless.

Martial arts works very well for fire battles on stage

Interesting.... (In which case I will mention some stuff that might help that I have used on occasion, but will not make much sense unless you know Goju-Ryu kata.)

Also, like I said, you can only really use the footwork, your hands are already busy and full of poi. If done well, you can also try fairly explosive turns and steps. A good example is the sweep, forward step with oro-uchi towards the end of seiyunchin kata and the second-last movement of saifa. Well, not those movements precisely, but the feel of them.

Dance-wise, many things will work. I have seen ballet done with flags, so it should work for poi.

*brainwave* Anyone seen a good video with Lord of the Dance style tap? Since they tend to keep their hands still, it may have possibilities....

we do both saifa and seiunchin, is sanseryu or sepai a goju kata? i think it is :S

I have a friend who does Odissi (a style of Indian classical dance) and claims that it's incompatible with poi (she's the one who got me spinning). I disbelieve her. It makes me wish I was rich enough to put out hefty rewards for videos of unique poi/dance combinations like Odissi and Riverdance-esque tap.

Paddington: We do Geki-sai-dai-ich, Geki-sai-dai-ni, Saifa, Seiunchin, Shisochin, Sanseru, Sepai, Kururunfa and Superumpei, as far as I recall, in that order.

In addition we have Sanchin (dai-ich?) and Tensho as breathing kata.

arent they the guys that helped out willy wonka?

You mean Oompa-loompas.

Suparumpei means 108 Steps, which is pretty much what it is.

we do tagiyoko shodan, tagiyoko nidan, saifa, bassi dai, seiunchin, empi, sanseryu, sepai and hangetsu. theres more but i only know up to hangetsu. we also do tenchu but its not a grade kata so i dont know it, wouldnt mind learning it though

You mean Irish Dancing (best example of which is the show, Riverdance)

Here are examples

(I am aware the last starts with flamenco, but it's a good piece anyway :P)

I personally mix in bellydance, as well as some jazz and ballet. Other than that, I just let my body go with the music, and the arm movement.

I meant poi video, but anyway.

yeah... you might be onto an original idea there, only thing like that I can find is a video of a fire performance followed by some Irish Dancing...

I've really been getting into gypsy, eastern European style music and wanted to incorporate some of their dancing technique into my scheme. I've got moves like Al Gore though so it's going to take some work...

here you go:

I've incorporated poi into Modern and even ballet pieces. Currently working on choreographing a Pointe piece that will include poi which should be so fun!

i irish dance and have been learning poi and while it's true, your arms are kept at your side for irish dancing and could presumably be busy spinning poi, i think in terms of rhythm, flow, and body momentum, it would be a weird combination. Irish dance is a lot about precision and tight-ness and while there is a certain precision in the flow of spinning poi (you know, when you get something dead on and it just feels right and then you can start riding out that flow and trying other moves), the precision of irish dancing is pretty different. Hands are kept at your side, because the focus is on your feet, you should always be up on your toes and your leg movements should always be sharp and quick. But! When I get really into spinning poi or hoops, I do find myself inadvertently up on my toes, and how I move across any area I may have is heavily informed by Irish dancing. It would be very awkward to try to incorporate poi into an irish dance, but I think Irish dancing can inform how you move your body while spinning poi, if no more than how ballet would.

Paddington, where do you live? do you have regular spin jams and plain dance jams with music? Try inviting people from one to the other and see what happens after a while.

I went to a party where these Ukrainian girls did a floor routine/tumble with streamers using them like poi. It was awesome!

middlesbrough, UK and not as far as i know. tried looking once. could try again though

paddington bear do you know why irish dancing was invented?