shizN0Tmember
184 posts
Location: Stroudsburg, PA, USA


Posted:
How thick are the chains you use? I made fire poi out of 18" 2mm dog choker chains.made cathedral heads out of towels. after soaked, they were so heavy... I could not do an alternate butterfly, behind my head they would pull my arm wildly around my back. are my chains too heavy? did I have too much wick? (I used a 3 1/2" strip, the length of a towel) Am I just a candyboy that needs to hit the gym and stop whining about them being heavy?

I smell something burning.


Fire Princessmember
130 posts
Location: London/Brighton, UK


Posted:
I think the weight of your poi is a matter of personal preference. Yours do sound a bit heavy though. I've got some really light cable ones with small wicks and they tire you out too because you have to swing them fast or the cable goes slack. They should be heavy enough to 'carry themselves' a bit, but not so heavy that it's like swinging weights around. I've found a happy medium with cable poi with big wicks. It's always good to have a few sets though then you can use whatever feels right at the time.Have a dabble and see what feels best!

PeleBRONZE Member
the henna lady
6,193 posts
Location: WNY, USA


Posted:
I use the choker collars as well, but I use the 10 and 14 inch ones. Right now I am finding that 2 inch Kevlar wicks are plenty but have gone up to towel wicks that were four inches long by three inches wide...and they were heavier than sin!!!What I did though is work my way up. I started on these tiny wicks. The look of them today actually makes me laugh as if I tried to spin them they would just fly everywhere being so light.Start light and work your way up in wick heaviness. As for the chain, since I use the same as you all I can suggest is try the next shorter one, unless you branch out and try cables and such. I like the dog collars because they are garanteed to 220lbs, and that is important to me.Other than that the more you practice the stronger you will become. Hope I was more helps than I think I was! smile------------------Pele Higher, higher burning fire...making music like a choir...https://www.pyromorph.com

Pele
Higher, higher burning fire...making music like a choir
"Oooh look! A pub!" -exclaimed after recovering from a stupid fall
"And for the decadence of art, nothing beats a roaring fire." -TMK


Twistmember
160 posts

Posted:
my wicks are three inches square by nine inches long... you can see them in the photo section.they burn for over ten minutes and at first i couldn't spin the whole time effectively because i would become exhausted. i actually developed a lot of muscle working up to being able to handle the wicks.candyboy? nah! but i will say that practicing with heavier wicks... just like weight lifting... will make you stronger and eventually more able to handle them... and i'm skinny as hell, so take that for what it's worth.i continue to use the big wicks because they get a bigger fire than any i've seen. interestingly though, i've also developed a really slow, methodical spinning style that feels weird when i practice with light wicks... the weight of your wicks ~will~ affect the development of your style.

pjmember
277 posts
Location: Baltimore, Maryland, USA


Posted:
There really is no such thing as too long or too short, too heavy or too light. When I designed/built my first set of wicks I tried very hard to keep them as light as possible by using aircraft cable and deep-sea fishing tackle. Since then I've made some double, triple and quad wick sets that are just insanely long and heavy. Now I can barely feel my first wicks at all, and have migrated to heavy choke chain for my single-wick poi.However, I really do recomend that you get some light cable poi to learn with, since cable is much less likely to tangle than chain. Once you are comfortable, start playing with heavier wicks and longer chains.-p.


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