What are you working on now?

I can't I like Nick's enthusiasm, and some of his tutorials are decent, but for the most part I find his presentation kind of scattered. I'll take any of Derek's videos first. As for that video, all I watched is the fifteen seconds around when he did that move, without sound. I just needed to actually see it done.

(I just have to say this out loud to let other people know that there are others who just don't think Nick is the greatest teacher in the world ever.)

Fair enough: people learn in different ways.

Yeah, I prefer to see more Nick's style learning. But for some things I have used Derek's videos as they are very helpful for learning a single move. I have also gone back and looked at Nick's version afterwards to see its relation to other moves.

I loved Scales of Poi (good fundamentals are always the key to pretty much everything else), and one of his videos is what got me playing with stalls and plane switches. So I'm not saying he's bad by any stretch. I'm kind of theory-driven, so the stuff I find most helpful in the long run is Alien Jon, Drex, Charlie, that sort of thing.

Finally managed to get the 3bt weave this morning, it's still sloppy and not very pretty looking but at least now I get it and know what I'm doing.

Otherwise: Isolation, stalls, and general movement while spinning.

If that's where you are now, stalls and especially isolations will take you a long time. I'd consider it a good thing you're starting those so early on. And as for moving while spinning, whenever you learn something new, also learn to explore you're space with it and learn it in both directions as for me, I didn't always and it's coming back and biting me in the ass with it's frustration of restricting my movement.

I've been playing with stalls for a while and I'm ok at them. I can do them, they just don't seem to have the same flair that I see when other people do them (could just be me though).

I've had some small successes with isolations, but nothing major (and I can't always do them).

Since this morning, I've been able to get the 3bt weave much prettier looking and have definitely gotten used to how it feels.

As for movement, I need to actually watch some videos on turning and just practice those. I can move around, I just can't flow like I would like to.

Don't worry, your stalls will get better over time. And for me isolations took me about a month to really get decent looking, and I think about a month and a half for an isolated buzzsaw which I still could not hold very long and the time and I don't practice it enough so it still doesn't look the best. What I'm finding to be helpful is once you get them, start practicing doing them with glow sticks. That is, if you have them.

trying to get 5bt weave cant get it
and working on 3bt weave bw i really have a problem with bw spins

poi: reverse 3bt, air wraps, spiral wraps
Cj: butterfly, cradle to cradle transfer, forearm rolls
Tj: cleaning up 2 ball, 3 ball cascade

After a bit of a hiatus that literally lit up after the arrival of my fire poi I'm back to working on my forward btb 3 beat weave in preparation of learning waist wraps and meltdowns. Also cleaning up my shabby hyperloops and working on the fountain.

working hard at trying to get the 5bt weave so confusing. watched heaps of videos heaps of times but for one reason or another i get wrapped up when i go to do the extra beats on one side. Learnt fwd btb 3bt the other night just working on plane control atm. Definately agree with the stretching comments on that move too *rubbs sore shoulders*

Yeah. I remember the dreaded nutshot, WAIT, I mean 5bt weave. And the worse smack in the face, i mean reverse 5bt weave.I myself can do a forwards and backwards 7bt and a forwards 9bt weave. I should to a 9bt with fire for a video to show it off

yeah definately SoD i would like to see that sounds complex. I know this isnt that complex either but i played around with a 3bt takeout the other day. they look realy cool and relatively simple to do too

What's a 3bt takeout? I've never heard that term.

I can also do a thing I made up, it's new as far as I know so I'll break down waistwraps and reexplain in hopes that it will make it easier to understand.

Standard 360 waistwrap:
A 360 waistwrap has 3 steps: left, btb, right
360 / 3 = 120 so each step is 120 degrees in terminology
The standard btb waistwrap is in wallplane

My waistwrap:
480 degrees, meaning 4 steps
Mine is on a wheelplane
Let's start in the new position, facing forwards, left arm reaching behind back, right arm reaches over in front like a standard 3bt weave, left hand from btb follows it (needs large amount of flexibility). This means taht it is in a standard 3bt weave position except left hand instead of just being in normal position is reached behind your back, around your right waist, and back to the left side.
Then, it goes back to your right side in a btb weave position
Next, does a btb weave to your left side
Finally, reaches across your front to the new "awkward" weave position on your right side as described in the first position but other side.
All of this while keeping wallplane facing forward, this is important as it makes it different than a waistwrap turn.

Do people get it now? I made a thread about this earlier and no one got it. When I get it on video I'll put it up there. And for reference, your hand will probably just make it about halfway to the other side while going to the "awkward" position, but the poi ends up following anyways. Also, I do it in a 3bt pattern as it's pretty much the easiest.

Not sure if i used the correct terminology there but basically when the right arm is over the left on left side when i bring it back i spin it on the inside of the left arm for one beat then cross left over right and repeat. hope that makes sense.

Gunna start working on isolations next so i can iso that inside beat on each side which should in a 3-5 sec exposure in a photo make it look like a smaller circle spinning inside a larger one

I should do that with a hybrid I haven't done any pictures with isolation hybrids.

I think it could classify as a lock-out. If you're doing what I think you're doing, you're basically transitioning into a buzzsaw for one beat in the middle of your weave. Obviously good for transitioning into buzzsaw moves, and from a weave into something like a hybrid flower.

thanx sis 11 unfortunately havent quite got both poi on the inside plane as i cross but the more i do it the closer i get

I would call a lockout any movement in which the poi are taken out of their usual weaving pattern.

Things I'm going to be doing in the coming weeks:
-Learn waist wrap butterflies
-Smooth passing of split-time butterfly to the sides and behind my head in wall plane
-Clean up 'backwards' meltdown and 'backwards' crosser/jacket (backwards is subjective, it's just the other way)
-After the above is done, clean up meltdown turns, and straightjacket turns (i find turns harder than pirouettes, weird huh)
-Stop sucking at dodging daggers =P

You could use clockwise or anti-clockwise here.

And good selection of stuff.

Taking my sweet, seductive time with UTL, throws, plane-breaking, and beginning to delve into inverted moves. Specifically: trying to get more timings and directions with UTL walking; cleaning up a couple of basic throws, working them into turns more; working on more floor plane work in my plane shifts (there's not a lot of exciting floor plane stuff that I've found, so so far I'm just hopping into a corkscrew or an extension briefly and then back into vertical planes).

Still working on cleaning up BTB weaves

EDIT: Oh, also playing with flowers a lot, and the intersection of flowers with the other things I've been working on. My Provisional Holy Grail is to stall vertically in a same direction antispin flower, and move right back into the same flower turned 90 degrees.

Still working on the reverse three beat... I got frustrated and didn't touch my poi for about a week. I think I have it figured out, just need to get the timing.

Isolations, the bane of my existence. I can iso in floor plane (kinda) but I can't seem to do it in any other plane. It doesn't help that there are no good video tutorials for them, it's all basically theory.

Other than those: air wraps, spiral wraps, hyperloops, cleaning up basic flowers, buzzsaw plane control, and transitions from move to move as well as more body movement/dance.

Getting the hang of half throws, working on continuous in-spin throws and horizontal flick throws. Also working on plane control for utl and throws. I can get about three steps into an utl walk before my planes go all off and I hit myself and tangle them around my legs.

Also working on isolations more. eca, Nick Woolsey has, I think, the only decent tutorial on breaking down isolations. But they're one of those things that's hard to break down into something simpler. Getting them under fine control is even harder than just being able to do them consistently. I think in the end you just have to spend a lot of time brute-forcing them...

3bt weav fwd &rv inversion weaves and inversion fountains. Struggling going right to left which is wierd as being a right hander i thought it would be the other way around

cleaning up my btb weave, not sure if I'm ready to tackle the forwards btb weave but by god I'm going to try this week, haha, with my ultimate goal being waistwraps.
antispin flowers. I can do them fine with each hand, but putting trying to put them together results in my arms pointlessly flopping about and then just resuming the normal forwards flower on their own.
crossers. *hiss* the amount of times my poi have introduced themselves to my face...

Well, aside from turning from a 3bt btb into a reverse 3bt btb weave which is getting annoying... I can't say how many times I've taken my poi upside the back of my head now... heh....

I was trying to glaze over some basic poi terminology to someone who glowsticks, and they asked me what an ANTISPIN flower was.... I promptly tried to show them, and their reaction was to take 3 steps back. I think I need to figure out how to keep everything in the correct plane so as not to scare people.... ^_^

It took me ages just to figure out 3bt btb. I think I'll leave that one for now though and not worry about reverse. I'm trying to move around the planes a bit, my moves are too structured. From Buzzsaw to reverse would be a good tranisition to work out too although I keep hitting my hands on that one.

@Mesh Just tell then it's when you arms are going in a circle the opposite direction that the poi are spinning