COL 2006 Feedback

I received my copy a couple of days ago and I've got to say it's pretty amazing- really high quality of spinning and production from the entries.

Thanks once again to Malcolm and HOP for providing this opportunity to the spinning community. I notice that the price of the DVD is less than £5!- that's a real bargain and I'd recommend that everyone reading this gets themselves a copy.

The case looks a lot better this year, nice simple lilac design showing the idea of the spinning community around the world.

One thing I would like to see on future COLs would be a menu to save cycling through all the entries to get to particular ones, I think that even the most basic DVD writing packages have the ability to create a basic menu.

That aside, I reckon that this is the best COL ever.

The entries fall into two categories- those based on demonstrations of skill and those which are exceptionally well produced (visual quality, editing etc); with several falling into both those categories.

It's interesting to see that there are also two distinct styles of spinning- slow/graceful and very fast indeed- and we seemed to have finally reached a point where the skill level of the fast spinners has reached that of the slow ones

Also a lot of very effective pair, group and syncronised spinning- a look at the excellent 'fire Groove' shows how effective three people doing basic moves in time with each other looks.

My first flick through left me feeling a little negative amount the perponderance of fire in the dark, it seeming that everyone was on fire, with me feeling that it didn't accurately represent the actual proportions of fire to non-fire of our community.

However, having gone through the DVD several times, I do have to admit that, much of the fire is skillful fire.

Nevertheless, some of the skillful, but non-fire, stuff, really does stand out as a result of being surrounded by the rest- hopefully everyone will notice this and be more inclined to send in more daylight videos next year.

IMO it was good that, this year, fire-breathing was not permitted; while it's down to personal choice as to whether anyone practices this health-damaging spectacle, I really do appreciate the fact that I don't have to watch it on COL.

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I'm not going to go through every entry, as there are 30 in total and I've only had the DVD a couple of days- I'm finding that pretty much all the entries have something special when watched more than once.

Circumstantial Evidence- Very polished double staff routine with costume and a couple of fire lamps which seem to improve the lighting a lot.

Elias on Fire - despite the name, Elias was one of the few people not on fire, for which he has my gratitude as it enables us to admire his exceptional level of ability with double staffs, including some very neat contact moves.

Planet Zips - Fire, but skillful fire, with the female of the group having a very nifty dancey style.

The Story of the Lake - starts with graceful lakeside flags and goes onto an interesting combination of fire poi and fire-hands, then onto some scarily-long fire ropes; all skillfully done.

One Wheel Dave - that's me; possibly my last appearance on COL as my mates just bust his camera frown

(Cheers to Tempest for once again doing the filming for this entry)

As always it's difficult to comment on my own stuff- any feedback from others will be appreciated.

The Amazing Rubber Heart Duo - very effective use of Singaporean-news-woman-voice-over talking about their world tour, cut with clips and images of it at the start. Based on one of their street shows, given a interesting look at how spinning can be performedin a live audience context- some truly excellent multi-staff passing. I also loved the background music.

Robert Bruce - another master of the 'slow spinning' style. Difficult moves and combinations made to look easy and relaxed.

Faisca - I'm not normally a fan of fast spinning, but this is good stuff, reminiscient of glowstringing.

Instruments of the Now - interesting because of the group members voice-overs detailing their various philosophies of spinning, much of which seems based on similar principles to the spiritual principals of martial arts: this kind of stuff is easy to pontificate about, but here it's well backed-up by the high levels of skill showing that they clearly have put in thousands of hours of practice in their chosen arts. Nice to see a bit of fire-devil-stick in there.

Fire Groove - Professional is the word that comes to mind- seems to have been shot on various film sets with a variety of effective costumes. Mainly syncronised spinning with beautiful music. If ever a film producer required some atmospheric spinning, this group would surely be the high on the list of possibilities.

Fire Sisters - UV surreality of the highest order (with matching music) smile

it's always good to have something so totally different on the DVD- I especially liked the staff fight.

Infinitos - well thought out and rehearsed duo routine.

Dee D'Caro - very tight poi- the first time I saw this I wasn't really paying attention and so missed the fact that there's some meteors in here, done every bit as smoothly

as the poi.

Pheonix - excellent temple-like location with good use of fire-lamps to boost the light levels; well thought out paired routine and an unusual one-footed staff spin.

Arsn - As always, superb slow graceful sock-spinning, this year with some nifty throws; the final scene of handing over the tools of the art to the next generation was a nice touch smile

~SYNGE~ This is the last one on the DVD and I liked it a lot; with very effective use of good stills cut into the action; I also thought the music was great- unusually for COL it was some kind of Melodic Death Metal

"You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it."

--MAJOR KORGO KORGAR,
"Last of The Lancers"
AFC 32

Educate your self in the Hazards of Fire Breathing STAY SAFE!

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