Forums > Beginner Poi Moves > the best spinner in the world... and the state of spinning today

once upon a time, when my horizons were small, and the total number of members on hop was less than my currrent member number(aaah the good old days when i went by mineiro ), i harboured a secret(hah!) desire and need to be 'the best spinner in the world'

this year, with organising uber events, travelling the world, and being generally reinspired to spin after a year of jugglefever i have come to the following conclusion:

there will never be a best spinner in the world.

i long ago stopped thinking it would be me but now have stopped thinking it could be anyone.

why?
well. theres a few obvious reasons.
spinning is not competitive, its contemplative. this means you will never be able to judge objectively who is 'better' at spinning. and long may it remain that way.

people have entirely different focuses(foci? focal points? crocuses?). how can you compare RHD to meghan? you can't. simple as that. unless meg spends a year on throws, and antti and tommi spend a year on contact(which, quite scarily, i think they have....). or.. glass and oli. eek! what kind of comparison is that?
and, most importantly, people who have different focuses have got soooooooooo good at the individual sections of what they do that in order to catch up you'd have to give up on another section, allowing some other single minded bugger to totally forge off into the future and blow you away when you look back at what you used to do. some good examples being wibblingmatt, rhd again, meenik , devkev, oli... the list is long and there are so many i have not named.

one of the great things about these people, and many of their contemporaries is the new respect that spinning gains within the performing and specifically object manipulation communities. no longer can a snooty juggler(or diabolist, or staff spinner about poi, etcetc) turn round and say 'huh, poi is not worth my time because i could learn everything in a day' (and beleive me, that is an accurate paraphrase from bristol juggling convention three years ago from a top juggler). it takes time and dedication, understanding and insight, openness and a willingness to share to become a top level spinner.

Some kind of conclusion? hmmm. well, er... i don't really have one, and i suppose i'm opening this up for some kind of discussion here. i don't want replies that say 'xxxxxxxxx is the best'. i want to know how people feel spinning is developing and has changed since you started. i want to know what you respect about people that inspire you, and how you feel that inspiration is good for the community at large. i want to know what you don't like about the new spinning community, and how it has been belittled by its incredible growth.

i also recently rebumped an awesome thread of NYCs about 'the london factor' (sorry, no link, cold fingers) i'd like to hear also what you think makes a successful spinning community and why some places deliver one style as opposed to another... er. that'll do for starters. i need a cup of tea.

i one last thing: I consider it an honour that many of the most innovative and exciting spinners in the world are my friends, and choose to spend some of their time sharing their skills and inspiring me to develop mine. thank you all( i think you know who you are).

Rob

Holistic Spinner (I hope)

Definition of poi- A Hawaiian food made from the tuber of the taro that is cooked, pounded to a paste, and fermented.

Ahnold discussing poi - "It is naht a toober!"

This is a post by tom, all spelling is deleberate
-><- Kallisti

 Written by: [Nx?

]

i recon there should be a flexible catogry (chains, whips ect) and a 'stiff' catagory

Definition of poi- A Hawaiian food made from the tuber of the taro that is cooked, pounded to a paste, and fermented.

Ahnold discussing poi - "It is naht a toober!"

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Help! My personality got stuck in this signature machine and I cant get it out!

"They're interdimensional fractal intelligences. That's why they wear funny shoes."

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Definition of poi- A Hawaiian food made from the tuber of the taro that is cooked, pounded to a paste, and fermented.

Ahnold discussing poi - "It is naht a toober!"

 Written by: EpsilonKias


By then it just turns into a form of natural selection. The ones that can make the croud go "oooh" more will contune when the others with more skill quit after being disheartened.

Just my two cents

-EK

Well, shall we go?
Yes, let's go.
[They do not move.]

"God *was* my co-pilot, but then we crashed, and I had to eat him..."

"God *was* my co-pilot, but then we crashed, and I had to eat him..."

"the now legendary" - Kaskade
"the still legendary" - Kaskade

I spunked in my friend's aquarium and the fish ate it. I love all fish. Especially the pink ones. They are my bitches. - Anon.

Holistic Spinner (I hope)

 Written by: tedward



I have a theory about fire performers, in that they go through stages, pretty predictably, though everyone proceeds throuh each stage at a different rate and intensity.

1) the Wonder - You see it for the first time, or take a dare from a friend and you just 'know' you gottat do this

2) the Noob - when you just first start out, most people aren't even thinking about performances, they're out to se IF they can do this.

3) the Sophomore - the state of knowing just enough to admit that you know something, but not enough to have "mastered" things. Most people do the bulk of their teaching here. "Oh, yeah, that was hard for me too, here, do _this"

4) the Pro - a subtle, (sometimes ego based) transition takes place in the sophomore whn they stop feeling like a noob entirely. They may not admit to having mastered the art, but, a switch definitely gets flipped where they lock into their performace style. This will be Very difficult to reverse later if the style needs changing.

5) the Diva/Old Pro - shortly after the performance locks in, the performers attitude towards teaching changes. At the very least, the rabid excitement is gone. In extreme cases, they won't teach at all (they have other things to do). It is at this staage the a lot of people try to formalize teaching and even springboard into a paid teaching gig. Note that there is not particular leap in skill between steps 3 and 5, some people never really progress, others take leaps and bounds. But in all cases this stage marks a shorter temper for excited newbies, and frequently an inflated self veiw.

6) Plateau - hitting your first real performance plateau can be humbling. Some divas take the lesson early and convert to jaded, some stay divas for years, and some use it as an excuse to start a new tool. In that last case, it's usually a switsh over to poi or staff (whichever hasn't been done yet), and of course, steps 1 and 2 are skipped because of a base level of skill.

7) PolyDivary - Having more or less mastered 2 performance skills, really earning them, changes people. Many develop the first signs of Jaded, some get bored, some break through their first performance style into a much stronger style, and some loop back for more and more until they have to invent new tools to keep themselves looping. In any case, people who hit this mark will be quite comfortable with the "front row" positions of performance and more resistant to "back row" positions. This can manifest anywhere from trying to throw some zazz into a supporting role, to full-out tantrums.

8) Jaded. At some point, for no particular reason, people get jaded with performance. For some this means leaving it entirely, or multi-year breaks. For others, it's just a way to get away from the drama, usually that they have created, around them. this is a time for introspections and perspective. Without it, no performer can enjoy the art. Though, it's worth noting that some rare people get locked in this stage, seemingly forever, while still performing. It's sort of an Anti-Diva position.

9) Post Jaded/ Cynic - "been there done that" is this actual old-pro's battle cry. The cynic won't mind being on stage in any position, though their talent and experience will usually earn them prime slots. They're no longer divas, though some have hard lines drawn which must not be crossed (what? no permit? I'm outtahere). Often these lines have a hard, ugly story behind them. The downside to the cynic is that they actually know their own value, so they're harder to keep melded with a troupe than a diva (who knows they can be replaced with a cynic), unless they're in charge.

 Written by: mcp on tribe



this would be my set of stages:



Firstly, decide what sort of person you are: natural born performer, normal spinner, geek spinner.



The natural born performer will either pick up the prop without any training and be able in a few hours / days to make an excellent show with it, or if they have done no manipulation before, a few weeks / months.



At some point they might think, everybody knows all these super advanced tricks that I can't do! I've gotta learn them. The better a performer they are, the quicker they will get over this and become comfortable.



They will still learn a lot of tricks thou and constantly and consistently improve and add to their performance ability.



This will continue until there is some reason for them to stop / dislike performing.







the normal spinner, the normal spinner might follow a course similar to tedwards, having to learn spinning and performing as combined skills and in stops and starts. They'll have gone into it with half a mind toward performing and half towards learning spinning and enjoying it.







The geek spinner will pay absolutely no attention to performing for ages, probably at least two years of intense practise. At some point, people will start telling them or bugging them to perform. Or they might decide that they need to perform in order to support their spinning habit.



They'll probably perform badly, or they might refuse for a while and study performance and how to do it. If they were sane they'd say no and not perform until they were comfortable to do so, or because that's what they felt they wanted to get out of their practise.



After another year or so, they will be a reasonable performer. They'll either continue to improve their performances, learning from natural performers, or decide it's not for them and become comfortable just enjoying fire spinning, rather than performing it.







I personally think, but don't know, that an example of a natural performer would be keith barefoot, an example of a normal spinner (half geek, half performer) would be nick woolsey, and an example of a geek spinner would be rhymo or maybe chris rovo. [it's hard to pick out people that'll be known on tribe, so these names aren't the paragons of the generalisations I would like them to be, apart from keith barefoot.]

"the now legendary" - Kaskade
"the still legendary" - Kaskade

I spunked in my friend's aquarium and the fish ate it. I love all fish. Especially the pink ones. They are my bitches. - Anon.

Holistic Spinner (I hope)

This is a post by tom, all spelling is deleberate
-><- Kallisti

 Written by: [Nx?

]
I like the two systems. they seem a nice model, but I cant really place my self in either.

"the now legendary" - Kaskade
"the still legendary" - Kaskade

I spunked in my friend's aquarium and the fish ate it. I love all fish. Especially the pink ones. They are my bitches. - Anon.

if carrots made u drunk, rabbits would be pretty f***ed up

Buy gerbils cos you can't spin with hamsters

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted - Martin Luther King Jr.

"the now legendary" - Kaskade
"the still legendary" - Kaskade

I spunked in my friend's aquarium and the fish ate it. I love all fish. Especially the pink ones. They are my bitches. - Anon.

Burner of Toast
Spinner of poi
Slacker of enormous magnitude