Forums > Beginner Poi Moves > Butterfly Problems

Posted: 5th Feb 2002
Suggestions? Yes, I have one...if you can't get it with sticks, then don't try it with tennis balls or your be bruisin' your nads and/or face. If you're using "sticks" (as you say above) then you should be able to get a tighter butterfly (that's my theory anyways ).Are you keeping your hands close together?If you're swinging the left one clockwise and the right one counter-clockwise, try switching directing (I find it easier)."Lead with your right hand." I'm not sure exactly what that means...but I got that advice from someone once. I'm no pro...but I hope this helps.Tanzen------------------Ravers don't share glowsticks!

Ravers don't share glowsticks!

Posted: 6th Feb 2002
hey there,i used to hate the BF when i first started for the exact same reason. untill i actually figured out the concept. here it goes i hope this helps.when you are going in to the butterfly dont put your hands side by, instead make sure that one is right on top of the other.now try this really quick, make two fists one on top of the other so that your fingers are facing outwards and towards the opposite side. pretend you have a fishing pole in your hand and that you are fishing, now try and hit your face with the the pole by only moving your wrists.with your wrists cocked like that imagine that you have strings coming out from the tops of your hands, there should be a decent gap in between the 2 strings that will allow them to pass by each other freely. this will be the motion when the 2 poi swing up to the top of their arc.now to get the bottom of the arc, use your wrists only and pretend like you are casting the fishing line, there should now be room for the poi to pass freely at the bottom of the arc.so basically if you hold your hands above and below, and bounce your wrists in that manner you should be able to get the butterfly started.this is for swinging the left poi clock wise and right counter, the forward butterflyi hope that helps, let us know how you do with it...

anyone got a light?

Posted: 5th Feb 2002
My suggestion is to just keep working with it! I used to hate BF too, and never could get it going. One day, it just works, and then you figure out you have to tilt your poi like *this* and to have your hands *that* far apart, and then it works. Practice! Speaking of practicing, I should really practice my BW BF, which just isn't very good, it stinks Good luck! -John

Posted: 7th Feb 2002
What pozee said is a good way to get it down. Thats what worked best for me, and the more you can figure out what feels right for you. I'm getting happy with my butterfly now, working on making my alternate butterfly combination to make it cleaner and more consistant. My only problem is naturally I'm very right side dominant, so what I can do with my right hand doesn't always transfer over to my left, which can get annoying.Oh yeah, the BW BF, that is still one thing I can't get, grrrr, I mean, I can do the thing where you do a bf in the front, than go behind your head and do one in the back and bring it to the front again. But I've seen people who can just keep it behind there head for quite some time. So I want to do that and the one shown on this site, which I can't even start up, so I'll try the behind the head one first. ------------------Ambiguous[This message has been edited by Jello (edited 07 February 2002).]

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Fuzzy Dice.......................................

Posted: 7th Feb 2002
The behind the head BF is EXACTLY the same movement with the hands but in a different place.If you want to alternate front to back and front again just time it so that when you would normally bob your hands up (poi are rising from bottom) bring your arms up and behind your head without moving the wrists in relation to your arms (ie keep them stiff), then when your arms are behind you, make a slight flick of your wrists towards the ground (this is the same movement as the top half of BF in front of you) and bring your arms back to the front to do the bottom half of the butterfly. The slight flick isn't strictly needed but helps maintain momentum.Anyhow, if this description is confusing you, what you should be doing is keeping your wrists together and as the poi rise on the bottom half of the circle move your arms up and over/behind your head where they will do another bottom half of a circle and bring them back in front. This will give you a kind of cross pattern over your head. When you have this working and feel comfortable with it going behind you, just hold it there and bob your hands up and down slightly and you'll have BF behind your head for as long as your arms last. (I think this looks really good to music, ie BF in front or alternating and when music tempo drops just hold it behind the head for a bit, when tempo picks up again bring it forward. Looks best when the music changes to a slow but strong beat)Ohh, the reverse BF is probably easiest to get into from a forward cross, when you move both hands across body at same time and bring them back again (might be being called 'atom'). What you do is when you hands get to the middle infront of you rather than continue, bring them close together with one hand on top of the other and spin the poi in reverse (just as you would had your arms crossed your body as normal) all you then have to do is work on getting the poi nearer to the same plane as each other and you will have reverse BF.If you do an alternate reverse BF (front to back etc) but with your hands slightly apart you will be doing forward crosses/atom above your head and can bring it back down into crosses or the weave.Anyhow, I've already written too much so I'll stop now, hope some of it helps someone,Tom

Posted: 7th Feb 2002
well, think of the strings with and attached glowstick/poi/whatever with this two lines / \ok, now just spin forward, and try to make the pois & string look like this \/ \one poi should be like 1 inch below or above the other one, just image it and easy