Forums > Social Chat > dance with your poi, before its too late!

Posted: 8th Dec 2003
ya i was one of those that tried to learn to dance with my poi, and thus i still have yet to learn many tricks (that and i've been insanely busy the past few years and haven't had a whole lot of time to practice). so i end up feeling really frustrated when i can't do the tricks cause i feel like i'm just doing the same lame ones over and over again just varied with the dance (and yet i still get other spinners who tell me i'm good, i just think they're trying to be nice ). so in response, i think there's a balance between the two sides.



i also recalled a conversation we had some time ago and looked it up for you. you might find some of the things posted on there helpful.



[Old link]



hope that helps!

I was always scared with my mother's obsession with the good scissors. It made me wonder if there were evil scissors lurking in the house somewhere.

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.

**giggles**

Posted: 8th Dec 2003
I totally agree with you. I remember when I started a few years ago, I could do my tricks, but I also stood stick straight. I started with staff and my problem stemmed from me being a part of the flag corps while in high school. Sure, I instantly knew all sorts of cool tricks to do with the staff, but I was used to doing those tricks while only moving my arms and keeping the rest of my body very straight - I had to fit in somehow with the marching band.

All my friends said I needed to move more, but for me it just wasn't happening. Then, one day someone gave me a smoky treat and had me practice with my staff (unlit of course!). I instantly knew how to move and dance. From that day on, I could dance with my staff (and then poi when I finally learned that too) sober.

Posted: 8th Dec 2003

Quote:

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Then, one day someone gave me a smoky treat and had me practice with my staff (unlit of course!). I instantly knew how to move and dance. From that day on, I could dance with my staff (and then poi when I finally learned that too) sober.

---

HAHA! i totally know what you mean. except that's when i learn my best tricks. i swear i've learned most of my tricks while being un-sober

I was always scared with my mother's obsession with the good scissors. It made me wonder if there were evil scissors lurking in the house somewhere.

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.

**giggles**

Posted: 8th Dec 2003
Yeh, thanks Pounce , very considerate of you. i know its just a case of working on a different side of it. Unfortunatly i usually learn things obsessively (stayed up untill about 6am recently working on double weave stuff, windmill etc) and it is a bit harder when you arn't working on something quantitive. Four flatmates encouraging from second story windows also doesn't help motivate. Thinking a couple of solo twirls on the beach with diskman cranking will save me from the monotany of tricks. Also expanding into staff and that is helping to rekindle the obsessiveness that robs me of my slumber. Thanks again.

... simplify ...

Posted: 8th Dec 2003
Hiya

This is where I get to throw my two cents worth in,and I'm gonna defend the "tricks". I've put more time and effort into spinning poi over the past ten months than I care to admit and I am just starting to get the hang of dancing with them.

I believe one should put the effort into learning how the poi behave,and how to control one's planes. Speaking as someone who has no dance experience whatsoever I am comming to realise that the dance aspect has alot to do with confidence and control. Once you have mastered the hand motions of ,say, the windmill, then it's time to start experimenting with different body positions, getting down low for example.

Another thing to conside is your motivation for spinning poi. If this is somthing you do for personal satisfaction like me the fluidity will slowly develop with your experience. If you are more interested in putting on a show for people who know nothing about fire spinning,,,well that's easy,,I speak from experience. After only three lessons I was doing shows on the beach in Thailand,,cameras clicking, kudos from the audience,,the whole works, and now when I think back on it it's kind of embarassing,,,I only knew six or seven tricks but it seemed to be enough to please the bar patrons.

Don't be hard on yourself for the approach you took, I still think this is the best way to learn,(tricks first) and keep in mind alot of the performers you see in the videos on this site have quite a bit of experience.

I've been watching Spinning in Paris 1&2 five or six times a day, and that has really had an impact on my style over the past week,,,which is interesting,,seeing as how I'm a guy .
anyways,,I'm rambling,,better go practice.

Oh,,and pounce, your spinning isn't lame,,just watched your vid. again everyone is always their own worst critic

Good Luck

Posted: 8th Dec 2003
thanks!

**blushes**

feels all self-conscious now

I was always scared with my mother's obsession with the good scissors. It made me wonder if there were evil scissors lurking in the house somewhere.

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.

**giggles**

Posted: 8th Dec 2003
I just met this guy from Zimbadwe that hadnt spun with ppl before but had developed his own style from this site and his own head and he is awesome. Very fluid.
He reckons there is nothing esle to do at home. I think he has leanrt tricks but integrated them into a very visually pleasing style with little repetition.

He was blown away by the chance to meet others and spin with them too.

And he found us through HoP.....very fab

Is it the Truth?
Is it Fair to all concerned?
Will it build Goodwill and Better Friendships?
Will it be Beneficial to all concerned?

Im in a lonely battle with the world with a fish to match the chip on my shoulder. Gnu in Binnu in a cnu

Posted: 8th Dec 2003
Lots of points I could make, but it's 3am so I'll type randomly instead.

First: Relax. You've only been spinning 5 months, that is not a long time. From what I've seen it takes most people at least 6 months to begin to adopt a definite hint of 'style' into their spinning.

Development of style and dance is an ongoing thing. I've been spinning 2.5 years and I'm still learning, still developing my style, and hopefully I'll never stop.

Focusing on the moves is important. If you can't do a move confidently then you've not going to be able to pull it off cleanly in a dance. More importantly in a dance the flow of moves needs to be spontaneous so you should focus on subconsciously understanding moves in order to be able to manipulate them into a flow with your dance powering them. Not enough understanding will lead to a limited and rough dance.

I'm at the stage where I don't even think about what 'move' I'm currently doing or about to do. The poi are in positions, and without even thinking I guide them somewhere else. By having a deep understanding of my poi's physics and what is possible I can react instantly and improvise as second nature. This also means that a mistake is often turned into something interesting.

So you learning a lot of moves is an essential step to your goal of dancing. You've just got to learn to put that move obsession to one side for a while, or transfer that drive to dance as well. Personally I've actually stopped spinning staff as it was pulling drive away from my poi development.

Spinning in groups of people is great for learning and developing, but also spend time alone and with the music you love to dance to. My more open style developed a year ago when I started going to antipodean beaches at sunset with a CD player and fun, happy music that made me want to dance. Now adays I've discovered that 70's soul & funk and it's hip hop derivitive drive a lot of my movement and creativity.

Ask me a year ago and I'd have said that drugs played a part in my poi creativity. These days I know that that's not the case - I just happened to be on drugs when I was listening to music that made me want to dance. All my recent, most pleasing, dynamic and hopefully most appealing creativity has come sober, driven by moving meditation through the music, it's associated dance styles and sober input from other disciplines - such as my learning ball juggling.

Which leads me to influence. Without exception what you see, your daily surrounding, the people you mix with, etc... affect who you are and what energy you radiate. So work to make that positive and full of influence. Look into other arts. I looked in to the B-Boy dancing stlye and thought that although a 6 foot 6 skinny white B-Boy would look stupid I knew I could take their ideas and energy and use it to influence my stlye.

However, regardless of all this there is one magic ingredient you need: humble confidence.

Be confident in your body. Discover your body. Be confident in your moves. But do not be too confident. If you think you're great - you're not. The aim of your spinning and dancing is to be happy, to make others happy, and to feel yourself improved. The energy from this achievement will fuel further developments.

The key, as with all things in life, is to be happy and find your way through balance in all things.

Happy dancing

Posted: 8th Dec 2003
yay!

go Dom!

couldn't have put it better myself...


R

Holistic Spinner (I hope)

Posted: 8th Dec 2003
focus on your transitions between moves and combinations, especially moves that involve rotating your body. after a while you stop thinking about what move you are doing, and just spin impulsively.

best of luck

"Here kitty kitty...." - Schroedinger.

Posted: 8th Dec 2003
Dom pretty much said it all, and said it in a much more eloquent manner than I could have pulled off. Read and re-read his post.

And since it's so late, and my cat decided to sit on my hands as I type, I think I'll leave it at that and call it a night.

Solitude sometimes speaks to you, and you should listen.

Posted: 8th Dec 2003
Shucks, thanks Gnor, and thanks for the poi last night, was fantastic!

Having learnt poi without ever seeing anybody else doing it, as a result of living in an isolated little place and having such a poor internet connection that videos can't be dowloaded definitely gives weird results - I reckon Dom summed it up perfectly when he said balance is the way forward. A mixture of learning tricks and moving with them should come together, rather than looking at them as separate things... Who knows, really?

Don't worry, be happy...

Posted: 9th Dec 2003
someone may have said this already in here, my eyes went all wibbly when i was reading, i know its been said in other threads .. but try closing your eyes .. after i read it iin another post, i tried it and its makes it easier (for me nehoo) to feel the poi ... thus makingit eariers to dance with them

she who sees from up high smiles

Patrick badger king: *they better hope there's never a jihad on stupidity*

Posted: 9th Dec 2003
Hey If I had of known you would see the post I would have said more......
...so are you on for next Monday as well. Wonder if you can get someine to take you to Tuesday night at Cormacs. Tues is right out for me.

Is it the Truth?
Is it Fair to all concerned?
Will it build Goodwill and Better Friendships?
Will it be Beneficial to all concerned?

Im in a lonely battle with the world with a fish to match the chip on my shoulder. Gnu in Binnu in a cnu

Posted: 9th Dec 2003
Ok here is what works for me. For some reason i have a hard time learning new moves. What i do is try really hard until i learn one new move.. Then i dance with that new move in the most craziest way possible( hopefully with no one around). I just go nutZ. kneeling, running, on one foot etc. anything untill the move feels very comfortable to me. I've been spinning on and off for about a year and a half and i still don't consider myself very good but that doesn't really bother me. I just never put a time limit on my learning and only do it when i feel like it, be it dancing or moves. One day i figure it will just all click together and I will be deadly.

-Beeaaatch please, I'm the macaroni with the cheese.
-This message will self destruct in 10 seconds.

Posted: 9th Dec 2003
Hey Stebbins..I ilke that idea but I am so unco I would fall over....
..leaves me with nice image of your practice sections...do you leap around like your avatar

Is it the Truth?
Is it Fair to all concerned?
Will it build Goodwill and Better Friendships?
Will it be Beneficial to all concerned?

Im in a lonely battle with the world with a fish to match the chip on my shoulder. Gnu in Binnu in a cnu

Posted: 9th Dec 2003
ya actually. When i first saw it I said that is SO me.

-Beeaaatch please, I'm the macaroni with the cheese.
-This message will self destruct in 10 seconds.

Posted: 9th Dec 2003

Love to see that some time....

Is it the Truth?
Is it Fair to all concerned?
Will it build Goodwill and Better Friendships?
Will it be Beneficial to all concerned?

Im in a lonely battle with the world with a fish to match the chip on my shoulder. Gnu in Binnu in a cnu

Posted: 10th Dec 2003
'you must unlearn what you have learnt' spoke a wise character from teh Bible.







..no, wait a sec, it was Yoda...

Laugh Often, Smile Much, Post lolcats Always

Posted: 10th Dec 2003
yup, i agree with stebbins, just go mad like some sort of crazy man, i have found a combination of technical and dance learningworks well, generally im outside in the garden, with my minidisc on dancing my little heart out using the technical moves i have learnt to just throw in wherever i like.
i only did technical practice for the first two months, then one day took a whole load of magic mushrooms and used music, since then my practice consist of just music and dance. the more room the better. basically cos its more fun, that and the fact that the next move on my list is the waist wrap and i just cant get it!!
has anyone else tried poi on shrooms, circles make more sense and the whole thing becomes so automatic it gets hard to make mitakes cos your arms dont let you.

my original signature was tooo long.
this one is shorter

Posted: 10th Dec 2003
yes i know i mis-spelt mistake

my original signature was tooo long.
this one is shorter

Posted: 10th Dec 2003
was that on purpose or did you just not realize there's an edit button?

I was always scared with my mother's obsession with the good scissors. It made me wonder if there were evil scissors lurking in the house somewhere.

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.

**giggles**

Posted: 10th Dec 2003
oh!
an edit button!
how useful.
at least i can amuse you in my humble little way

my original signature was tooo long.
this one is shorter

Posted: 10th Dec 2003
as usual, I totally agree with Dom.

the thing I want to add in is that once the moves get ingrained in your subconcious, start experimenting with way you can move your body with those moves - where you can place legs, how you can twist your torso, or how you can spin through a move and still avoid whacking yourself. After bashing about with that for many months, these things will start to become part of your subconscious as well and your body will begin to know instinctively where it can place things and where it cannot. Once you begin to get to that point, you can begin to truely let loose with the dancing.

I'm not the most technical poister ever. I've got a host of moves and combinations that look fairly original, but where I go off is in the movement. When I finish a spin, I am exhausted (especially when using parafin at 3000 meters like I have been for the last year!). Once the wicks light up or the LED poi get turned on, I am all over the place . Most other poi types tell me that they can't tell what moves I'm doing, as I rarely keep any move in pattern for more than a couple beats before moving on to something else. Most the time I don't even have any clue as to what I'm doing, and I'm just leting my body react to the enviroment - the music, the crowd, my mood, etc. Sometimes I'm even like "whoa, how'd I do that?!?" and I'll get flustered mid spin because I didn't expect what I just did to have worked out and find that I had no plan as to where to go next. I just don't know anymore. I am not capable of keeping up with myself. In someways this makes me feel like I am stagnating, as my concious mind has very little to do with my spinning anymore. I find myself trying to put complicated moves/transitions/combinatons into sub-routines so that I can find my way in and out of them without getting lost. My point is that my brain is totally out of the loop these days, but that is what you need to really dance with your poi. get the basics down to 2nd nature. Worry about dancing, but don't obsess over it. It'll come in its own time if you want it to.

As someone said earlier, you are your own worst critic. Get someone to video your performance. watch it many times. In the video, you will find what you want to improve and how you would like to see yourself move. work on what you get out of the vid for a while. then have someone viddy you again a few months later and go thru the same process. I find I look nothing like I thought I did when I see myself on video. It is a really good tool for developing your spinning.

-v-

Wiederstand ist Zwecklos!

Posted: 10th Dec 2003

Quote:

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but try closing your eyes .. after i read it iin another post, i tried it and its makes it easier (for me nehoo) to feel the poi ... thus makingit eariers to dance with them

---

That might have been me *blush* And it's totally true, I first found it helped while trying the learn BTB and just couldn't make it work, then closed my eyes and it just happened without even trying. The brain seems to know where the poi are and you spend less time trying to concentrate on their exact position. It's totally the best advice I've ever given anyone trying to learn, and although it doesn't suit everyone 9 times out of 10 it helps. But make sure they're not lit just incase!!

As for the dancing, once you can spin just start to walk around and maybe add the odd twirl. Then (familiar?!) close your eyes and let yourself go. move about, try 2 sit down or crouch and turn as you stand up. Twirl backwards and forwards, just do anything except standing in the same place wearing out the grass (or concrete!) beneath your feet. The more you move about the easier it'll get and you'll be dancin before you even realise.

Enjoy

Let's relight this forum

Posted: 11th Dec 2003
I agree vith Vanize agreeing with Dom,,,Dom gives good posting

Usually I divide my daily practice sessions into two parts,,the first is working on somthing technical that more often than not,,I've swiped off a video or grabbed from a text posting,,like on the thread concerning trinity. The second session I try to work on my dance technique. A quick inhale, pop a disc into the discman and go.

Lately, I've being trying to rush through the technical part,,maybe I'm giving up to easily ,but it is cold outside and I tend to notice the numbness in my hands more, and maybe the dance threads on this site have shifted my focus.Or,,more likely,,I just enjoy dancing more.

I'm glad to see it's not just me who experiences the brain shutdown and gives over to second nature,more that a few times I've caught myself thinking,,Hey,,I just danced that whole 7 minute song with only the butterfly family of moves, and vow to mix it up a little more,,this doesn't seem to bother me much. It's just when I start thinking I am being judged by experienced spinners that it does,,a little.

I've also made up a few custom CDs based on the two songs fast,one song slow format my idea being that if I can pull off my moves and transitions way to fast,,then when spinning slowly with or without music, I'll be able to devote more time to my style,,,that's my theory of the month anyway. I practice in the dark alot,,no fire this time of year ,rather than closing my eyes, as I find this lessens my chances of tripping over somthing, or dancing into the side of the house. One last thing,,,I'm scared of what I may see if I videoed myself,,,the neighbours say I've become alot more "animated" in the past two months,,and I''ve taken the liberty of assuming this is a good thing. I know cant avoid the camera forever,,curiosity forbids it,,but at least I can postpone it