Forums > Social Discussion > What IS it about the CIRCLES?!

Posted: 18th Feb 2005
Sock poi are the best. Take your hacky sacks, strings and all and put them inside a pair of longish socks. Now spin them.

Poi are awesome, so is staff but unless you use a pencil its not going to fit in your ickl space. socks are easy to shorten length too, saves on globes...

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: 18th Feb 2005
Ahhh.....
I remember that feeling!! It dies off a little but will never really leave you. I've been doing it for years but still get excited when I smell parafin!!

If you want to pick stuff up but don't know anyone then check out one of the gatherings. Everybody is friendly and you wouldn't be left out if you came on your own......

Falmouth III
Notts Juggling Festival....

Any of the alternative festivals will have people willing to teach you:

Glastonbury
Burning Man
Rock & Bike
Strawberry Fair

Check out the events and gatherings forum.
If you get stuck just ask someone on here.

Good luck and happy spinning!
(Fire Nunchuks are also great fun)

"Whats wrong with the cat?" - Mrs Schrödinger

Posted: 18th Feb 2005


brilliant post!

believe me, the addiction does not diminish.... it gets worse!

mwahahaahaa!!!

My mind not only wanders, it sometimes leaves completely

Posted: 18th Feb 2005
Interesting thoughts, Gnarly Keep going with the poi and you'll get the moves soon enough, although movement is fundamental so you'll have to go outside sometime. I think you'll find that you can't spread your wings until you go outside, and when you do you'll progress a lot quicker (so the neighbours won't be laughing for long!)

On your other thoughts, I think you might enjoy [Old link]

Spirituality.. poi (well, any prop, but poi for me) can put you in touch with your body and the silence of the outer walls of your mind. They can take your focus inwards, and that's where your spirit lies. Find your spirit, and you'll find spirituality outside as well as within. That's just my little belief.

Spirit is the most powerful energy in the world. Personally I believe it to be the fundamental energy.

What a wonderful miracle if only we could look through each other's eyes for an instant.
Thoreau

Posted: 18th Feb 2005
yeah, they'll get ya

damn circles

Jo.

Educate yourself in the Hazards of Fire Breathing STAY SAFE!

Posted: 18th Feb 2005
As an afterthought....



circles, kinda obviously, are the only shape whos edge is always equidistant to its centre. Due to this, circles are all over the place in the universe and in you.



Circles unavaidably create a sinewave. Sinewaves are therefore also are all over the place in the universe and in you. It is virtually impossible (and a scientific holy grail achieved only relatively recently) to move any object to another fixed position without making a wee sinewave at the end.



Think about yer atoms.



Hmmm...

Jo.
EDITED_BY: Jo (1108743627)

Educate yourself in the Hazards of Fire Breathing STAY SAFE!

Posted: 18th Feb 2005
Native Americans believe the circle is holy.. don't they? That everything in the universe is a circle, the circle of life, death and rebirth in nature..



I don't know much about this so I'll leave it there!



EDIT - https://www.earthmeasure.com/foundations/circle/fcircle1.html

EDITED_BY: nearly_all_gone (1108832808)

What a wonderful miracle if only we could look through each other's eyes for an instant.
Thoreau

Posted: 18th Feb 2005
just wait till the cravings get you at school and/or work

you start spinning anything and everything..check out the strangest thing ever spun thread...

Jesus saves sinners and redeems them for cash and
prizes

Co-Founder of Keepers of Light

Educate yourself about the Hazards of Fire Breathing STAY SAFE!

Posted: 18th Feb 2005
and then, some day, you'll find the proliferation of 'circles are dead' threads

Holistic Spinner (I hope)

Posted: 19th Feb 2005

Contact without dance is like sex without wiggling.
A) it does feel as good
B) it does not look as good on film

Posted: 19th Feb 2005
Wow Gnarly as a rank beginner, I've got to hand it to you, you've really done your research when it comes to poi. I gather you checked out the free lessons on this site, and have no doubt discovered the other sites out there also with tutorial videos. The butterfly is a pretty straightforward pattern, the videos will show you if that is indeed what you are doing.And keeping it going for 30 seconds, I'd say you got the hang of it,,now try it in reverse.

I'll suggest going outside, get out of that tiny space,,who cares what the neighbors think, you may even want to consider taking your poi out to a park, in hopes that your spinning will attract someone who cane show you a few more tricks.

Dervishly yers is a great video isn't it?? and I can highly recommend Nick as a teacher. Part of the reason I flew to Thailand last year was because Nick was advertising poi lessons over there, too bad it didn't happen. He used to post here under the name of menick,,but not too much lately. His partner in the poi studio, Andy (poibox II ) does.

Given your glowing testimonial, I just can't shake the feeling that maybe you know Nick but then again ,,,,maybe I'm just being cynical.

Cheers,,,,David

Posted: 19th Feb 2005
Fearpig --

I live in Oregon, so the festivals in the UK are kinda out. I'm like 1000 miles from Burning Man and I reeeeeeally doubt I'm ready for THAT one anyway.


nearly_all_gone --

interesting thread! ..and also interesting that nobody seems at all surprised that poi is eating my brain after such little exposure to it. Maybe it [i[was sent by aliens. Hmmmmm, this shall require more thought.


bluecat --

Circles are dead... long live the circles?? ...Wait that just doesn't make any sense.


stout --

I frequent forums on varying topics already-- so I know to research first, since I don't want to be the idiot who comes in saying "Poi? That's like hummus right?? Only from Tahiti!" and gets beaten to a pulp. Plus I did say it's eating my brain-- so yeah, I've been digging up just about anything I can find.

What do you mean by doing the butterfly in reverse? Spinning the other way? I can do that too, though it looks about the same.

I've looked at the sample videos on the Temple of Poi site, but frankly they're wayyyyy too tiny and have too low a framerate to be of much use. That and she's using a dark pair of poi that vanish into the background on every downswing. The animated gifs from the Art of Poi on HoP are a bit more visible but still tough to get much from. I'm thinking bright sock poi would make good video tutorial tools, since the socks would give a visual clue to which hand the balls were attached to instead of just having them out there disembodied-- and it'd be nice if there was a different color in each hand so as to keep track of right and left.

I absolutely do not know Nick-- I just saw that video (the first one actually, though the moves in the Dervishly Yers one are definitely more complex), went 'whoa!', dug around his website, found the excerpt from a book he wrote, went 'neat!' and ordered myself a copy. I did email him a couple questions about the poi lessons last week but by no means does it constitute an actual conversation. I also did come across his posts here though he hasn't really said much. He seems like a really decent fellow.


I got impatient today and made some sock poi with little double loop handles made from this soft crocheting material I got a few years ago-- they're too bouncy but they don't seem to smack into things as much as when they were just on strings. I can almost, almost do the 3 beat weave. I think. Sortof. And my shoulders hurt.

"Ours is not to question The Head; it is enough to revel in the ubiquitous inanity of The Head, the unwanted proximity of The Head, the unrelenting HellPresence of The Head, indeed the very UNYIELDING IRRELEVANCE of The Head!" --Revelation X

Posted: 19th Feb 2005
the gif's on www.domorepoi.com are good, and in great numbers too.

Hij die zijn kind benzine voert moet niet roken als het boert.

Love you MyIng

Posted: 19th Feb 2005
Ohhh that stuff IS good, they used a high speed camera for it! I bookmark-- thanks!!

"Ours is not to question The Head; it is enough to revel in the ubiquitous inanity of The Head, the unwanted proximity of The Head, the unrelenting HellPresence of The Head, indeed the very UNYIELDING IRRELEVANCE of The Head!" --Revelation X

Posted: 19th Feb 2005
Please excuse me for thinking you were some kind of shill, reading your posts I came away with the impression that maybe you knew a little more about poi spinning than you led me to believe. my apologies

And yes, spinning the butterfly in reverse does look the same as spinning it forward but it's important to learn every move in both directions,,,as this will allow you to turn with your poi. Say you're standing there doing your butterfly, and you turn your body around 180 degrees. you'll find yourself facing the other direction, but now your poi will be doing the butterfly in reverse. This applies to weave moves too.

There's a few more sites around with tutorial videos, Mots,,,,Taming Fire and a Polish site that I seem to have lost the link to. but if poi really is eating your brain, I'd get myself up to Nick's for some lessons as fast as possible because I truly believe that having someone show you how to spin is the easiest and least frustrating way to learn.

I have the same problem with my sock poi too,,,,too bouncy,,, the faster I spin them,,, the longer they get, but they sure are nice for indoor spinning on those days where the weather is too nasty to practice outside.

Good luck with the three beat weave,,,and good luck with the lessons

Posted: 19th Feb 2005
Stout is right, learning from someone is incredibly helpfull. I've never had someone to show me how it's done, I've learned everything from tutorials and tips online. But when I taught two of my friends, they had a 3 beat by the end of the night, both directions, and that took me a while to understand and pick up. They learnt all the moves I did, incredibly fast, but they never put the same time into each move that I had to, so my moves are alot more refined than theirs are, and much more visually pleasing.

Educate your self in the Hazards of Fire Breathing <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> STAY SAFE! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/hug.gif" alt="" />

Posted: 21st Feb 2005


A child after my own heart...

Such addiction must not be wasted.. Spin my son SPIN.

By the way, dont ever try heroin, if you get this addicted to poi well then......

Fair luna bright, fair luna moon
it shines at night but fades too soon
fair luna moon, fair luna bright
forever we dance
we dance under starlight

Posted: 21st Feb 2005
One of my friends says I have the bug... however, Poi is annoying me soo much... I cant get enough of seeing people spin, however, I have been trying to teach myself for ages, and it doesnt work... I need someone to teach me, however, the only spinner in my area that I know is really busy....

Although the primary school next to my school has a circus, and some of the kids do poi... but I dont know who to ask, or what to say, or anything like that for help... anyone have any recomendations on who to speak to? and what to say?

Posted: 21st Feb 2005
Maybe at the moment it is good for you to have your brain eaten a little

Posted: 21st Feb 2005
I'm like 1000 miles from Burning Man and I reeeeeeally doubt I'm ready for THAT one anyway.?



You're ready. And you're not. Just GO.



Jo.



Edit - but not without checking out the bm survival guide.
EDITED_BY: Jo (1109025629)

Educate yourself in the Hazards of Fire Breathing STAY SAFE!

Posted: 21st Feb 2005
that is a very very heartening post. I was lying in bed last night having a discussion with Katinca about my devotion to all things spinny, and I reckon I havent lost any of my initial attraction to it.

Be careful to categorise jugglers as heathens tho, there are many true believer jugglers too...and some who cross over (hey Bluecat?)

Circles will never die.

Josh

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

Posted: 22nd Feb 2005
Hey Gnarly:

Welcome to the cult.

taken out of context i must seem so strange
~ ani di franco

Posted: 22nd Feb 2005

Written by: DoktorSkell

---

Such addiction must not be wasted.. Spin my son SPIN.

---

I'm a girl actually-- but thank you, I will!

Written by: Jo

---

You're ready. And you're not. Just GO.

---

In curiosity I went and looked at the survival guide pages-- interesting stuff! ...But still scary, heh. I doubt I'd be able to afford such a trip this year, maybe some other time.

Written by: Josh

---

Be careful to categorise jugglers as heathens tho, there are many true believer jugglers too...and some who cross over (hey Bluecat?)

---

Heathens? Gotcha! *deep breath for righteous ranting* What's with those heathen jugglers anyway?!! Balls belong on strings!! STRINGS!! Only a freak lets his toys roll away! And how do you expect to juggle fire anyway? Don't talk to me about clubs! Yarg!! [/ranting]

You guys are all so nifty! Thanks for the big welcome, I feel all warmnfuzzy in that scary there-are-people-crazy-as-me-soon-we-shall-rule-the-world kind of way.


My stuff from HoP came today! Like a week earlier than I expected!! I leap about in glee!! ...Except the darn fuzzy poi are NASTY BUBBLEGUM PINK!! (I stuck one on the scanner-- see??)

Non-Https Image Link

The photo on the shopping page looks more like neon red-- I have been bamboozled! So now I'm stuck with pink tribbles. I am NOT a pink person! Woe! Injustice! Panic! Ahh well, maybe I can stick some socks on them when I'm in public.

I got the poi spinning book, which seems very cool, about as explanatory as poi explained on paper can be, and the dvd of Art of Poi + COL2. Whee!

I can do the 3 beat weave now-- in BOTH directions, though when I do it in reverse I whack myself 10 times as much as anything else I've yet tried. (it doesn't go swooshswoosh, but more like swooshsmackitysmackity) I can also do a butterfly behind my head, briefly. And boy, do my arms hurt!

"Ours is not to question The Head; it is enough to revel in the ubiquitous inanity of The Head, the unwanted proximity of The Head, the unrelenting HellPresence of The Head, indeed the very UNYIELDING IRRELEVANCE of The Head!" --Revelation X

Posted: 23rd Feb 2005

Written by: Nantheos

---

the gif's on www.domorepoi.com are good, and in great numbers too.

---

damnit Nantheos. you are dutch, yet you keep on supporting this foreign site... what about our (well almost-) local Mot.
Mot is a great spinner and has some great tutorials on great moves here .
support your local scene (or may be you are supporting the local scene by not taking away all his bandwidth...)
hmmm... ok, disregard what I said carry on, nothing to see here

PS btw: I loved the opening story Gnarly Cranium: it's a great advertisement for our little addiction.

eRic.

I'm not normally a religious man, but if you're up there, save me, Superman!

Posted: 23rd Feb 2005
Mot's gifs are so tiny and low-framerate I can hardly tell what he's doing. 7 bt reverse backwards weave, 3/4" square on my screen??? ouch! He's got a few unusual moves in there though, interesting stuff.

I'm fast running out of room here, the ceiling isn't high enough to do anything over my head-- I keep whacking the ceiling fan when I try the Mexican Wave, but I think I can do it. Tonight when I go to my bellydancing class I'll try to get there early to use the auditorium before other people show up.... don't want them seeing my damn pink tribbles. Ugh. Maybe I can find some dye.....

Heh and I'm glad you guys are amused to witness my slide into your madness...

Anyway getting back to the circles--

I've been thinking that maybe the brain-eating factor has something to do with the fact that poi motion is constant.

In the martial arts, and even dance, all of the moves have a stop and a start to them. In the more complex kung fu or thai chi type things, there's a little more flow, but there are still stops and starts, and at any point if your concentration lags, you can hold a certain position almost indefinitely.

With poi, you have to continuously react to and control outside forces that constantly go around and around and around and around-- there's no stopping, unless you mess up and get whacked, or maybe if you stop in a wrap. If you're using fire, even a wrap is just a transition. There's no stopping to think or process it-- even to a viewer, the motion is so constant and hard to track that it's mesmerizing.

This probably has some sort of connection to the lower functions of the brain-- the undercurrent systems that work below thought and conscious awareness. The stuff that lets us walk and chew gum at the same time, or drive a car while having a conversation, or breathing.

Music is another good correlation. In music that has a lot of hard stops and starts-- fast rhythms, harsh noises, there is a lot of jerky energy. Other types of music can similarly induce a hypnotized sort of state-- music with notes that slide smoothly and constantly.

I just remembered, there's even whole RELIGIONS based on spinning. Temple dervishes have been doing it for hundreds of years! Just whirling around and around and around and around like a top. They disconnect from reality and go into a trance state.

I wonder what results might come up if anybody ever did brain activity tests on a spinner. I bet it would be frightfully interesting!

"Ours is not to question The Head; it is enough to revel in the ubiquitous inanity of The Head, the unwanted proximity of The Head, the unrelenting HellPresence of The Head, indeed the very UNYIELDING IRRELEVANCE of The Head!" --Revelation X

Posted: 24th Feb 2005
Sounds like you're too focused on weave moves... well, on moves at all, but that may be getting a bit too far ahead of things.

Try this. Hold a position doing the butterfly. Voila. There's your resting position. Maybe thread the needle. Same idea - your body isn't forced to move anywhere like the weave moves. Now you can mix it up by taking one poi behind your back or over your shoulder. Now practice the other one. Now practice combos of that... try turning around and doing backwards butterfly pointed the other way, then turning back.

Learn lots of transitions, and then forget moves, transitions, and thinking -- just spin.

Posted: 24th Feb 2005
"If you're using fire, even a wrap is just a transition. There's no stopping to think or process it-- even to a viewer, the motion is so constant and hard to track that it's mesmerizing." Those don't sound like the words of a "rank newbie",,,,you're an experienced spinner,,,come on,,,,,'fess up.

Truth is, once you get any of these moves into muscle memory you can in fact stop, only you're stopping while you're still moving. I personally use the three beat weave or the butterfly as a base move if you will, something I can do while I'm trying to think of what to do next.

Scene...me spinning fire on a beach.....Thump,,,,something hits the back of my neck,,and stays there. I go into the three beat weave while I think about my neck ( stopping,,but not really stopping ) The thing on my neck starts to move...OMG,,, I think ,, still doing the weave,,,, it's a bug,,,and a big one by the feel of it,,I hope it doesn't bite. Bicep wrap to transition into the butterfly.....switch to one handed butterfly (stopping again) and reach behind to brush the bug of the back of my head.

Turns out it was a big cockroach that fell out of a tree.but I did manage to "stop"

Posted: 24th Feb 2005
Orbit --

Too many weaves? Hmmm... I've only been practicing for like two or three weeks-- I'm just going down the typical lists of beginning moves.... and believe me, every time I try to do do anything WITHOUT thinking of actual moves, something goes horribly wrong within 5 seconds as I randomly wave my arms, since I don't know yet where the poi can and can't go, or what stuff will make them tangle-- I need a little vocabulary to get moving. I don't really know how I should start or how to go from there since there's nobody here to teach me. Weaves at least are getting me used to working on both sides, in both directions. The butterfly stuff is coming slower, but doing one or the other behind the head is the Mexican Wave I mentioned last post. I haven't got thread the needle yet.





stout --



I just got my first actual pair of poi two days ago-- and I only made sock poi last week! Honestly! Before that I just had the hacky sacks on strings, which were so crappy I didn't manage anything with them but the butterfly and had to give up in a couple days. The thing is, this weird brain-eating quality of poi is something I noticed right off just in watching it...



I did take thai kickboxing for 6 years and I've been bellydancing for about 6 months, plus I'm an aspiring CG animator, and I've been thinking about this heavily for a month, if that helps...



Mmm you gotta point with the bug incident. I guess once you get really experienced, the process becomes more automatic and requires less focus-- but it's still taking up some processing power, and it takes active concentration to think about anything else. You didn't entirely stop though, just sortof. You were still in the poi sphere, still reacting to its stimuli. You just diverted some attention to think about a bug for a minute. (god I think I would've leaped a foot in the air and let the poi go flying and ran around yelling 'gedditoff!! GEDDITOFF!!) And I would imagine that the Dervishes aren't consciously thinking about their twirling either, considering that they totally forget where they are. So I guess there's a couple potential states of mind to a spinner-- aware autopilot, like walking or driving and able to swat bugs, which still can't be considered a normal state of mind, you can't do math or watch tv and drive or spin at the same time even if you can swat bugs... and then there's the totally immersed hypnosis. Doing just one easy move, or switching from one to the other for convenience, is an aware autopilot sort of task, whereas actively and creatively dancing and harder moves would tend to pull you more into the hypnotic state. So I guess there's a gradient of immersion. HMmMMMMmmm..!. heh now I wish I was a neurophysicist with little sticky electrodes to paste on spinners to compare these things.







I don't know what posessed me to try it, but after 20 minutes or so of repeatedly smacking myself in the ankles and chest, I actually managed to do a 3-bt backwards btb weave yesterday! Um... for about 5 seconds. I've also learned carry turns, though I'm not real good with em yet. I can almost turn with a weave but the transition between forwards and backwards along the way is weird. I've tried what the Poi Spinning book refers to as 'reels', but it ALWAYS gets tangled immediately and I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.



In trying to do a horizontal butterfly over my head I managed to give myself a slight bloody nose-- with the evil pink fuzzy tribble poi of bubblegummy doom of all things! I read somewhere around here that some guy uses tennis balls with billiard balls inside... god you could KILL someone, swinging around crap like that.



After 45 solid minutes of spinning last night, my fingers were tingling from the handles for hours. I may try to get myself to give it a rest for today, my left elbow hurts in a joint/tendon complaining sort of way and that btb stuff put an odd kink in my lower back (though bellydanciing class for 2 hours immediately after really loosened it up........ god I'm still sooo tired...)



Next I'll see if I can do the btb weave the other direction, and then move on to picking up some other things. Not going to try weaves with any more beats for a long while.

"Ours is not to question The Head; it is enough to revel in the ubiquitous inanity of The Head, the unwanted proximity of The Head, the unrelenting HellPresence of The Head, indeed the very UNYIELDING IRRELEVANCE of The Head!" --Revelation X

Posted: 24th Feb 2005
Good Lord Sweet Jesus Holy Mary Mother of God! I can't believe after a couple of weeks you're already doing a btb weave. I've been struggling with that one for a couple of months now and can only do half.

Given your insights into poi and your apparently rapidly accumulating skill-set, I'd say the force is strong with you, young padawan.

taken out of context i must seem so strange
~ ani di franco

Posted: 24th Feb 2005
Gnarly, where in Oregon are you? I know there are spinners in Portland and Ashland for sure... we may be able to track down someone in your area... are you on tribe.net?