Forums > Beginner Poi Moves > I wish I was flexible >.< Evil Waistwrap!

Posted: 22nd May 2008
Took me a little while to be able to do it properly... got BTB stuff first, then just kept twisting up for waist wraps.

Try doing btb buzzsaw stuff, you can't tangle that kind of stuff up. Clearly use shortened poi. :P If you can't do it make em REAALLY short, then just make them longer as you start to feel more comfortable. Take lots of small steps. Good luck!!!

Posted: 22nd May 2008
As a semi-workaround, if you're BTB-waist-wrapping on on your RH side, take a step back with your left foot, so it takes your body slightly out of pure wall plane, but makes it a lot less bendy.

Also, experiment with hand positions. Without holding a poi, take your LH into the right side BTB WW position and try varying how high up or low down your hand is coming out. For me, i have my hand just about my hip, but as everyone's bodies are different, some people have it higher, others lower.

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Posted: 22nd May 2008
Watch Nicks woolseys video on waistwraps on playpoi.com

He basically says to link btb forward weave with btb backward weave then carry on turning your body less and less until the arms/hands are doing all the turning.

I'm guessing this will be easier because it allows your body to slowly stretch into the move rather than just trying it right out.

Posted: 22nd May 2008
And of course the scales of poi dvd (also by Nick Woolsey) is available in the HOP shop and has helpful exercises to learn to control your planes at all the angles. I haven't gotten far with it myself as I'm still working on a lot of basics, but I did watch it all the way through to see what it was all about and was impressed at how much is really covered!

Posted: 22nd May 2008
Ok, evil waist wraps.

I watched Nick’s video on waist wraps and it has a lot of great information on weaves, plus some good tips on flexibility. But, as Nick says, he mainly deals with 3/5 beat btb weaves, and not the tradition club swinging waist wrap. So, I suppose it depends on whether you want to learn the btb weave and call it a waist wrap, or learn the proper waist wrap.

The waist wrap is a different move to the behind the back weave because it has a carry. So it’s do the three circles behind the back then a carry back to the start, and repeat. The beauty of the carry is that it facilitates seamless transitions between front and back waist wraps.

For more information I’d suggest looking up Anna Jillings book on waist wraps and her next chapter on fountains

It may be easier to learn this move without poi, say wooden spoons of something.

Have fun

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Posted: 11th Aug 2008
I find leaning forward helps the BTB stuff, as well as leaning on one leg (I even put one leg in front of the other so I don't hit myself.)

As far as other flexible moves, try a different plane. Maybe one not so "in front." On the side a little looks about the same, and is tons easier. And practice and stretch, of course.

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Posted: 11th Aug 2008
Just do what I do... Be totally and utterly inflexible, yet somehow fool your body into bending when it needs to anyway.

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Posted: 12th Aug 2008
Waistwraps are a cruicial movements to learn, IMO.
It's not all about flexiblity, you need to be smart about body placement to take advantage of what flexibility you do have.
To me, the key in accomplishing waistwraps is in raising shoulder where the waistwrap is happening. This lowers the opposite shoulder, allowing better reach for your outstretched arm across.
Waistwraps became so much more fluid, intuitive, comfortable after that.

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Posted: 12th Aug 2008
Ease into it... it'll happen, its more about coordination in those areas than real flexibility, I think...



Got a staff? Try waistwrap positioning with that, you can do it nice and slow to build up coordination there easily.. if not a broomstick is just as good!



And I realise you say you've got muscle memory, but control is a very different thing... It FEELS like you're not physically able to do it, but if you're getting one or two off and not feeling actual pain then or the next day you're most likely able to and just dont have the control to keep the repetitions going... but then again, I may be wrong, I'm not a physician. Good luck!



Let me know what ends up working... You could try stretching or exercising beforehand to get your body warm. ^_^
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Posted: 14th Aug 2008
I'm also pretty inflexible & have had trouble with waistwraps, btb and some longarm stuff. Made a point of doing some stretches every day and it's helped, although I am still fairly rigid.

On waistwraps in particular, make sure your planes are tight going into it, I tried a mix of going into it from btb weave, and a 2bt weave by my side in wallplane.

Posted: 14th Aug 2008
I only say that its probably not a matter of inflexibility because if you feel you're inflexible, you're less likely to keep at it, and therefore less likely to improve your control in those areas..

the other piece of evidence I have is that I can do it no worries at all in one direction... I can even do stalls and some sometimes ugly, sometimes clean looking spiral wraps there as well... but if I go in the other direction I feel like I'm not flexible enough, but clearly I am! I really ought to work on that weakness...

Good luck with it! I found the best way to get into it for me was going from btb weave into like a 2bt waistwrap before attempting the waistwrap on either side.

I leant a lot to begin with and eased into doing that less and less, THAT probably took flexibility, but not the initial movement.

And on the full waistwrap could anyone direct me to a link of an example of a full waistwrap, I'm not 100% sure I understand and I cannot work out the text based stuff for the life of me.

Posted: 15th Aug 2008
Nathaniel Everist has a tut on Youtube, not seen it, but his other stuff seems pretty solid, so might be worth a go.

Nick Woolsey also has one up there, including some ways of getting to it.

Am in the labs atm so can not get the actual links, sorry.

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Posted: 25th Aug 2008
Tada! Hope it helps, pardon the hair, haven't had a haircut in a while.

Posted: 15th Sep 2008
There are definitely easier and harder ways to do the waistwrap... if you look at the early bits of Nathaniel's video, for instance, you see that he does it differently on the right and the left. On our left (his right) side, which involves his left arm, he does an easier variation, which is basically to turn your body sideways and do a btb (see Durbs' comment above). Nathaniel just twists his hips, but you can get the same effect by moving the other foot back.

Here's my waistwrap video from ages and ages ago...




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Posted: 18th Sep 2008
^^^ that last video shows the traditional club swinging style WW - most other videos show variations on the wall plane BTB weave. They aren't exactly the same thing.

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