Forums > Social Chat > I comments about poi and the way it's affected your life (if it did)

Posted: 2nd Oct 2001
I'm gonna tell my story hehe well it started in June 9, I went to a party and I saw some twirlers and it looked cool, but nothing did to make me start twirl, and then... I don't remember but I began to look for liquid dance movies and I found a glowstick movie of 30 megs... then I downloaded it and I liked it cuz the guy danced with the music, after that I began to learn to twirl, and I didn't know how to do the weave(i thought that the weave was figure 8 and everyone was laughing with that move) soon I began to meet more masters and I began to learn more about the tricks, the desesperation to be better make me learn the 5 beat weave in one night and after that I began to learn wraps moves, but all in accident and now i control them and then I went to the disco again and the guys were more competitive so I learned the BTB weave in one afternoon with Nightshade and well.. that's the true story... to be cool and to compete, =)

Posted: 2nd Oct 2001
Well i started learning in july(dont remenber the day just the month) i saw the poing in action in a show...(they did easy tricks as well)well now i know they are easy before i though they were difficult.. but i started to like poing since that show wheeeeThen some ppl on my classroom start learning before me... one of those classes i took the pois of one of them and tried the weave and got it really fast...(i guess i noticed i had at least some skillz for this kind of stuff)Then i start learning and learning and i wanted to know more and more that i started to download videos!! and now i twirl more than the guys on my classroom tho it has changed my life a bit cause this shit is really fun!!! and i got more friends now too im meeting other twirlers!now im looking for more moves to do... jeez dude that create this page! add more New movesssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!! (yeah im creating my own move but would be nice if you add more move that i dont know too would be really useful you know)for example the 3tnn weave (working in that move now) And also iam practicing with yashiro for the contest! to win some money! hehehe

Dance like if noone were watching you

Posted: 2nd Oct 2001
https://www.homeofpoi.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000486.html

Posted: 2nd Oct 2001
i had had it with my life just plain done with the life that was created for me(parents) and also by me. i packed my favorite things and my frog Clemintine and i headed across the us to arizona. i arrived halloween week end ready to freak out. This van of really cool cali kidz showed up an hour after me and 2 hours later two goddesses were spinning fire on th efront lawn. i had to do that.my roomies taught me how to make my practise tennis ball set. my first time away from home and learning to spin helped me with building my confidence, with my attitude, with lonely nights, and once you pick them up when ever there not in your hands your picturing the moves you will next conquer which helped me moving forward. It instills a determination with in you for attaining your goals in every aspect of life. There is a spiritualaty with in spinning i can't find the words to describe. maybe its do to with the rythem, the dance, the primalness to them. It lifts you up, moves you forward, gives you focus.I love spinning poi:Pwhen i came back home my family and friends saw a side of me they never saw.the true confident and wowing me. they saw that i ran from a life that wasn't making me happy or fullfilling me. i found myself when i took that trip and i never realised it till this moment. big ups to my west coast family!bored again i embarked on another journey. i began working demoing and teaching poi diabolo and stix on the road through out south east us. oh the road was rough but so learning. i cutt myself off from the life i had been living work family friends and went to find myself again. by teaching all kinds of people young old shy stoopid crippled..... how to play with such toys was very selfless i was working none stop. along the way in different towns i'd pick up riders sell product and best of all i met my # 1 teacher mila what a boy i love him he taught a shit loud of safety and had me named the godess at performances we'd do. it was poi that got me on that journey and poi taught me and brought me to a whole new understanding of reality.now off the road i play with poi to connect with myself and our mother with heady momentous rythem. i do it for sanity, spirituality, entertainment, expressing my true colors, and energy. also spinning is really a great way to pick up the men folk this is going on for ever i could go on and on feel free to contact me if you want more lovelight3x3x3@yahoo.compoi puts you in a trance and in trance we trustboom shiva shankasaraps if its still going you should catch some of the relay for your film can't wait to see it

Better to Burn out than Fade out, Baby!

AnonymousPLATINUM Member

Posted: 2nd Oct 2001
I like spinning poi...but it hasnt changed my life... It kind of came as an expression of the me that emerged from the old me when I started really getting into psychedelic trance. This me has a spiritual awareness, from which my twirling flows - but by no means is twirling the only offshoot of this metamorphosis...its just another effect.I guess I primarily express my connection to music through my twirling tho..I prefer to twirl to beats than to dance un-equipped.twirling and trance have introduced me to a number of really cool ppl tho - infact, of the friends I value highly, twirling would have introduced, or remains the basis for about 1/2 of them...Josh

Posted: 3rd Oct 2001
Hi David!I've been twirling for some six months now, maybe a bit more, and I live in Israel too.I'd love to meet, learn some stuff, and maybe be on the film ICQ me if you're interested, ICQ number 265640.Or just message me here if you don't have ICQ.

Posted: 3rd Oct 2001
I have a cool story about how I started twirling. until about six months ago I had never heard of poi. But last summer I was watching a television show on the Discovery channel about Kung Fu. I was watching this chinese girl dancing around gracefully while the narrator talked about the gentleness and gracefullness of YIN. Then he says something about the power and fierceness of YANG and the dancing girl opened her hands and these chains fell out and she started going nutts with them. I fell in love instantly and I wanted to marry her....but it didn't work out....because she was on TV and I am in the USA....so anyways my friend john and I started making chains with steel weights on the end and we would do 3 beat weaves and turns and stuff....we thought to ourselves "well, looks like we have figured out everything there is to do." we then started doing fire because we couldn't see the chains at night....(john's six year old neffew gave him the idea) then our friend Paul took us to a rave and we saw and learned the butterfly and a couple wraps...after a couple more raves we discovered that we were far better than anybody else we had ever seen. (seriously, and we still are better than anybody we have seen in person) And so we hit another stagnant spot, and started to think that we had learned everything there was to learn. Then one fatefull day I was spinning on campus and a guy walks up to me and says "are you doing POI?". I said "POI? what's that? is that like Kung Fu or something?" . He said "No, look it up on the internet" so I did, and here I am. We now realize that there are infinite possibilities.

we eat and we drink and we smoke and we try!

AnonymousPLATINUM Member

Posted: 4th Oct 2001
Its not the poi, or the fire so much as the dance for me. The movements, its beautiful. To tame your body before you tame the fire. To become one and conquer. You start to no longer dance but to become the dance. There is a fine line between moving and dancing... Its my meditation, my expression, my art." And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once"~Nietsche"The truest expression of a people is in its dances and its music...Bodies never lie"~De Mille

Posted: 5th Oct 2001
I have beng doing poi for about a year as well, but being a student at highschool has made it even more fun to use them........... i have a friend who got poi of his brother who inturn got it of a friend and so on and so on......this friend one night at a party (after about two months of secret training) just whipped them out and began poiing like crazy......at that moment i knew it was the hobbie for me and so did most of my friends......so now i am in a grop of poi and stick artists.........it's great, we bring life to parties and try to teach new people.....it's great fun but every time i teach someone they seem to pick moves up in a week where it took me a month...it's frustraighting but if they are happy with what they are doing than thats great.......ohhh and i live in Australia and thats about as specific as i can get........sorry

Posted: 5th Oct 2001
My life has been forever changed by the world of spinning. I remember, or maybe I dont remember, the first day that I saw my friend spin. I now realize that he wasn't that good, but it didn't matter. I was fascinated with the movements, colors, and the music. I was immediately hooked. I started practicing a couple of days later, and then my friend Rich from CA told me about HOP. I would have never gotten to the stage where I am now without this site. THANK YOU!!!! Currently I'm constructing my first set of fire poi and hope to light up very soon!! Oh, and for all of you who seem frustrated when those who you have taught reach the stage where you are in half the time, it would have taken them a whole lot longer if they didn't have such good teachers!

AnonymousPLATINUM Member

Posted: 6th Oct 2001
I am a teacher and a single mother that doesn't get out all that much. I saw fire performers at a circus in my neighborhood. I was very inspired. It took me a year to finally get it togther and make myself chains. i practiced and practiced mostly by myself but also with two other girls that were pretty much beginners. No one else in my city does fire so we tried to remember everything that we had seen. doing fire inspired me to dance which I had never done before and to quit being such a drunk. fire and alchol don't seem to mix well. After a while we were doing shows and before a performance a friend of mine caught herself on fire while trying to blow before she was ready. I caught on fire while putting her out. I have had surgery along the right hand side of my body. People in my city were scared of fire performers for a while. My family and friends are completly against me performing anymore but it is my passion. I am lighting up again(not with the same person)and feel alive and renewed by doing so. I was so close to death that it has changed me in very small and tremendous ways.

Posted: 6th Oct 2001
The first time i had ever seen it done was when i saw my freind thwapping himself upside the head. I thought it was the stupid shite back then cause he could barely keep a butterfly going without hitting himself so i didn't see a point to it.About a month later he had some cool shite down where he wouldn't hit himself. This is when i started to see the attraction to it. I basically started to spite him in a way so i could be better than him, also the reaction he got when on vacation interested me even more. The fact that women were just drawn to it suprised and intreuged me. But eventually i just liked the flow and the feel of it. Like the way they tug and pull as they swing just became an addiction to me. Now i do it because it relaxs me and keeps me moving. I was spinning the other day trying to learn the 4 beat corkscrew(i can do it now) i closed my eyes and nearly fell down from becoming so relaxed.I has given me and increased sense of pride in myself and more get up and go. Gotta love the poi.

We are defined by the choices we make