Fountain help needed badly!

Okay, I'd love to do this fountain thing, but alas the videos are over my head. Is it really a 3 beat weave in four positions? I'd have to be weaving really fast to even get it to work with the transitions required to keep it fluid so before anymore bruising an explanation would be great.

This one is really beyond my dyslexic self, so please help!

It's actually just a normal three beat weave turn. The only difference is where your hands are going. So instead of doing a weave turn where your hands are just staying level with your abdomen or chest (or wherever you usually do your weave) you arc your hands up as you turn one way, and you arc them down when you turn back. But your actual wrist action is still just weave turning back and forth.

Oh god, learning the fountain was... painful...

just do a 3bt weave but yeah when moving back to one side, one direction will be at your waist like normal or down if you want, and the way back will be up by your head.

The way I learned it was this:

Start with your feet facing forward, upper body facing either side, start with your 3bt there and as you go to the side drop your arms turn all the way to the other side (you'll now be reverse) and this time lift your arms as you turn.

As sister eleven stated, its just 3 beat weave turns.

Do it nice and slowly and do a high and a low 3 beat weave turn. You can actually do an antispin fountain, but it looks kinda uncoordinate most of the time.

Start out with extra beats at each side, if you like, then learn to cut out all the extras. After that you can start to add more in by moving into a 4 beat windmill at the top.


If you continue to struggle, try learning the buzzsaw flower instead. Its probably a tad simpler in a few ways and it'll help you work out the basic idea of whats going on in the 3 beat weave fountain.

Good luck!

Yeah, sounds like you might overthinking it.

Not that I have much to add, but if you just try it the way eca said, it will probably work.

If you want a slower progression, practice going in and out of a windmill out of a 3bt weave. Then do that with a low turn as well.

I think it's the turning without fully turning (along with how long it takes my forward to become reverse on a turn) there is no room for the awkward period, but alas I will try with something softer!

It's easier to start practicing by actually turning your body 180 degrees with the weave turn. Then with practice you can learn to do it with less and less turning until you pretty much do it only in the wall plane. You can even eventually learn to do it so that most of the weave motion only happens at your wrists, so it looks like you're hardly doing anything but circling your arms around with the poi magically spinning.

^^^Just the hand motion is what I've always worked on. I hate seeing people's arms flailing about, it just goes right to the pain center of my brain. Also my computer seems to be missing most of my spaces and it's pissing the hell out of me because I have to keep fixing it.

well another thing that might help is doing the 3bt into a same direction hip reel and on the other side it turns into a reverse 3bt then bring it up to windmill and out to forwards 3bt on the side you started on hope this helps

As others have said above, it might help to practise without moving your feet.

So for the forward 3bt part you can take a step back with your right foot so your now facing perpendicular the weave - essentially turning you wheel plane into a wall plane.

Low turn your 3bt to reverse so it passes by your waist and turn at the hips so you're now in reverse 3bt, again in wall plane.

To complete, it's a half-windmill/high turn which comes up and over your head, but doesn't stay up for any longer than one beat, it's more of a carry turn, again turning at the hip and you'll be back into forward weave.

You can stop at the top of the high turn and turn it into a windmill, but a "true" fountain doesn't have a windmill in it.

For the sake of practise, after each turn settle yourself back into the fwd/rev 3-beat before turning back.

Once you've got the move down without stopping at each side and with your feet pretty stationary, you can improve the move ten-fold by moving your body to emphasise the circular nature of the move; stretching up/down for the turns as you see fit.

the way I look at it is
Forward 3 beat turn to
Reverse 3 beat to
windmill.
Once you get that just transition at the first chance you get at each side and BAM you got a fountain.

Try forward 3 beat -> lockout -> reverse 3 beat (the low transition) and back. Get comfy with this.

http://www.homeofpoi.com/lessons_all/teach/Beginner-Lockouts-3_93_925

Then forward 3 beat raise your arms until -> windmill -> lower your arms back to forward 3 beat on the same side.

Next reverse 3 beat raise -> windmill -> lower to reverse 3 beat same side.

Now forward 3 beat -> windmill -> reverse 3 beat on the other side. This is your high transition.

Put it all together and work out the extra beats... fountain. When you're comfy with that, check out body tracing next. There's a really sweet move that builds from the fountain.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7FGPcKjVZ0&feature=BFp&list=WLBD3678F1E705712C&index=1

ahh I've seen that move before and I want to learn it. the one he does about a minute into the video that looks like a combination of body tracing and a fountain. gonna have to break that down next time I get a chance and see if I can get it down.

thanks for posting this. i never learned the 4 petal fountain and this helped me learn a cool move for switching between a 8 ptl and a 4ptl one. thank you very much

I still can't get that crosser fountain. but I don't know crossers yet so maybe that's why. on the other hand, I do know the 4x4 fountain now, which is related as I understand it, so hopefully that'll help. plus the 4x4 fountain is just plain effing cool.

oh and I learned the 4x4 from alien jon himself, at a class last weekend - he is an amazing spinner and a great teacher.