RevBRONZE Member
Bastard Newbie Messiah
1,269 posts
Location: Apparently lost in my ego, USA


Posted:
I've posted this othe places and people have reallyliked it.. so I guess I'll post it here for whomever might find it interesting... no promises on grammar...

Wraps are a wonderful way of accenting moves, and changing things up. Although, it is true that wraps can be learned without learning any moves; it is profoundly easier to learn them once you have a solid move base. Wraps are learned at an accelerated rate compared to moves. I think this is why a lot of kids have begun to learn them first. It is important to note that this article is meant to provide a guideline for those wishing to learn wraps and is in no way the –only- way to look at wraps. Although you can do wraps with any length string, some wraps can only be done with shorter strings. The ideal length is slightly past the elbow. As you play with wraps, namely the double bicep wrap, you will get a better approximation of how long your strings should be.

I. The basics (knowledge)- This part is designed to get you familiar and knowledgeable with wraps themselves. Let’s begin with the positions. Keep in mind that these positions apply to both from and back, or top and bottom; meaning top and bottom of the biceps, inside and outside the thighs, the shin and the calf, and front and behind the back. In my opinion, there are 9 basic wrap positions:
1. The forearm 4. Thigh 7. Neck
2. The bicep 5. Calf/shin 8. Torso
3. Wrist/hand 6. foot/ankle 9. Crotch
Now, the last 2 positions will wrap a little differently than the others but nonetheless are fundamental to understanding wrap theory. For now, let us focus on the first 7. Since, wraps are not yet going to become moves in their own right, let us learn wraps by having them incorporated into things we know.
The butterfly forearm wraps- this is the easiest wrap combo to learn. If you know how to thread the needle, then you should pick up on this quick. The motions for this combo are exact opposite the TTN timing. Whereas you dodge your arms with a TTN, this combo involves hitting them. From a forward butterfly, have the right poi hit the left forearm as it moves from the 12:00 to 9:00 position. It should hit around the 9:00 and go back the other way. As it recoils, you should move the right arm out (kinda like the TTN motion) so that the left poi hits the top of the right forearm, as it moves from 12:00 to 3:00. This puts you now in a reverse butterfly. From there, you can have the right poi hit the bottom of the left forearm as it moves from 6:00 to 9:00 and then have the left poi hit the bottom of the right forearm, as it moves from 6:00 to 3:00.. With a little practice you should be able to bounce them alternating like such just as easily as you TTN.. Go ahead and play with the timing. Try one forearm higher, or even try having them hit in four places high right, high left, low right, and low left.
Another basic wrap is the double bicep wrap- This move is best done in the wall plane.. This is also best done with shorter strings, if your strings are too long, then your poi will wrap around the bicep and possibly hit your head/face. This wrap is the best one for determining how long you will need your strings to be. For an example of the wrap, I will use the left side plane of a forward weave. For this wrap you will need to stick your biceps out like a set of parallel bars. As the left poi moves from 9:00->12:00-> 3:00 it should be moving towards the top of the right bicep, while simultaneously, the right poi will be moving 3:00->6:00->9:00 and come to hit the bottom of the left bicep. Now from here it is important to note that your wrists play a more important factor then moving your arms, you can keep your arms in the position they are in and through wrist movement alone finish out this combo. I suggest learning to do it with the wrists, but do not fret if you must move your forearms. Ok. Now that we have the right poi on the bottom of the left bicep and the left poi on top of the right bicep, we are going to have them switch. Basically, you will recoil from that wrap into a motion like a reverse weave. The left poi should come off of the right bicep and make one circle which will end in it wrapping on the bottom of the right bicep.. At the same time the right poi will leave the bottom of the left bicep, make a circle and stop on the top of the left bicep. At this point, I suggest bouncing them back and forth between these 2 positions to give yourself some practice. Also try doing a weave and bouncing it back and forth, and returning to the weave.
The final wrap of this section is a full recoil wrap. The handcuff wrap is versatile in that it can be used from a butterfly, one-handed butterfly, or weave (known as a spiral). Basically the handcuff wrap is easiest learned at the wrists. I will start with the spiral. From a forward weave, stick your hands out in a slight V. this will cause the strings to begin wrapping around your wrist. The V shape helps to prevent the poi from spiraling down your hand. After you have practiced for a while, you will no longer need the V shape, and be able to do it palm to palm (or palm to back of hand for some people), this will vary depending on which form you find easier. When the poi are wrapping around your wrist, they should go until there is no more string and then recoil back out. If for some reason they wrap up and stick, try shaking your hand real quick, this will sometimes help ‘jump’ start them into motion. This same wrap can be done in the butterfly, or even with a one-handed butterfly (on the other hand or leg or wherever)
Congratulations, you now know a weave and butterfly wrap combo, as well as a wrap for both. We will be expanding upon these as the lessons move on.

II. Improved basics (working knowledge)- Up to this point I’ve just been giving general descrips of where you can wrap and a brief example of how to get into them. This section is going to expand your knowledge into a working knowledge. The first order of business is to explain the 3 different types of wraps:
1. The recoil wrap- this is the standard wrap, like the spiral, in which the poi wraps up and then recoils back out. Simple enough.
2. The bounce wrap- These are wraps where the poi hits the desired position, but only wraps a little and thus seems to bounce back the other direction. This is how the double bicep wrap above works, and is fundamental to quick paced wrap combos.
3. The trace wrap- The trace is wraps like a recoil wrap. The change occurs when the poi begins to recoil. After the poi hits and starts to swing back the other way, pull the slack out of the string. This keeps the poi close to the wrapped area, while making it spin revolutions around that area.
Since you already know a recoil and a bounce wrap, let me teach you a simple trace. When doing a spiral or butterfly handcuff, wait for the poi to finish winding up, when they begin to unwind, pull your hands apart. This will cause the poi to make revolutions around your hands, thus making it appear as though you are opening up the wrap, as opposed to recoiling. To get a clearer picture of how this is a trace, take a one-handed butterfly, and handcuff the hand not holding the butterfly. Now pull the slack out when it goes to recoil. The poi should keep spinning circles around the wrist/arm that was handcuffed. These circles stay small and near the arm/wrist as opposed to progressively getting larger, like a normal recoil. Now these examples are just the beginning of traces, we will expand upon them in later sections. Right now its important to move on and start incorporating more wraps into your style.
Let’s go back to our double bicep wrap, notice how we got into the wrap. We took two positions and let them act as bars that we could bounce between. We don’t have to use just our biceps. Let’s take our weave and go into some other combinations. For example, we can use our right thigh and our left bicep. We can use our thigh and neck. And so forth. You will soon find that any (or at least pretty much any) two positions can be used. Do not limit yourself to just opposite sides either, like right bicep and left bicep. There are several places. Try experimenting with any and all combinations that you can think of. I will be giving some examples towards the end of this section to combine what we are learning in this section, but first there are some patterns that you should learn.
I call these pattern Tick-Tock wraps. You will understand when you play with them. Basically you have the poi bounce back and forth between two positions, which gives a stutter effect. For example, in the case of our double bicep wrap. We said that on the left side of a forward weave, the left poi will hit the top of the right bicep and the right poi will hit the bottom of the left bicep. Now freeze. From here we will Tick-Tock this wrap. This means that we will make the right poi go from the bottom of the left bicep to the bottom of the right bicep, while the left poi will go from the top of the right bicep over to the top of the left bicep. Basically, instead of making a full circle like in section 1, we are going to do a half-circle. Do not fret, this motion takes a minute to learn. The best advice I can give is to imagine your hand has a fishing rod.. For example the left hand will be pointing forward to the right bicep, and then flick straight back to make the poi move to the top of the left bicep. Same for the right poi on the bottom. We then will bounce it back to its original position(the left poi on the right bicep and the right poi under the left bicep) making it tick, then tock. Once back at our original position, we will finish our wrap as we learned above by making a full circle putting the left poi on the bottom of the right bicep and the right poi on top of the left bicep. Now we will tick-tock again.. so that we can learn how to make the left hand tick-tock on bottom and the right hand tick-tock on top.
Another version of these tick top wraps can be seen in the butterfly. From a forward butterfly, have both poi come up into the biceps on the up swing, which results in the left poi under the left bicep and the right poi under the right bicep. Now lets Tick-tock so that the left poi is under the right bicep and the right poi is under the left bicep. From here we will pull up which will make it butterfly from the bottom of the bicep to the top of the biceps. This will be a circular arcing motion with the poi.. The right poi should be on the top of the left bicep, and the left poi on top of the right bicep. Now let us tick-tock again. Putting the right on top off the right bicep and the left on top of the left bicep. From there you should return to the forward butterfly, either to start the combo over, or to move on to something else.
So to recap so far, we have learned how to tick-tock our double bicep wraps, but what of the other positions? The tick-tock wraps will help you to learn how to bounce between different positions.. You can tick tock any two positions, so play with the weave and butterfly. Go into a wrap (any two of the positions) and then try to tick tock it. By tick-tocking everywhere, you will pick up on wraps quicker.. Wraps work off bouncing between points more then getting into them from moves, so its getting used to the different points and all the possible places is fundamental to getting a working knowledge that the advanced section will require.
Ok.. So now, lets learn how to crossover a wrap.. If we let our poi make an extra half circle rotation when doing a weave bicep wrap, our wrists should cross.. Lets take our same left side of a forward weave.. Instead of the left poi landing on the top of the right bicep it should go around your wrist and hit the bottom of the left bicep.. The right poi should also go around the wrist and land on the top of the right bicep.. Let us continue from here, to employ a combo that will use the rest of what we learned.. From the cross over position, go back one full circle.. This will uncross the wrists and put the left poi on top of the left bicep and the right poi on bottom of the right bicep. Lets tick tock it to the other side.. This will put the left poi on top of the right bicep and the right poi on the bottom of the left bicep.. Now we add our switch from the first lesson.. Which swings the left poi around a circle to the bottom of the right bicep, and the right poi to the top of the left bicep. Add another tick tock to put the right poi on top of the right bicep, and the left poi on the bottom of the left bicep. And finally let’s crossover the other way, by letting the poi do one circle. This makes the right poi go around the left wrist and land on the bottom right bicep. While the left poi swings from the bottom left around the right wrist on to the top of the left bicep.. whahtata.. Don’t forget that everything we’ve discussed works behind the back. The bicep wraps, the butterfly wraps, etc.

III. Advanced- So you’re ready for some wrap theory. Rev, you say, my wraps are cool, but I’m still not feeling it man. Well, this section is designed to finish dissecting your moves, and unlock some of that wrap potential. By now you’ve probably been bouncing your wraps around. But random doesn’t look promising. Now the first step in finding a pattern is to work with what you know. You know a lot of moves right. And you know a lot of transitions between moves. Well your transitions are affected just as much as your moves for this dissection. Try to go into a wrap from a weave and then from the recoil go into something, a reverse weave whatever., just try not to go for more than a circle before wrapping somewhere else. Try for now to bounce between different corkscrew and weave wraps, and the moves themselves. Try different combinations on timing. Basically your trying to find your flow. This will come with time, but for now that’s just a taste.
Let me discuss new wrap ideas. For instance, things you might not have thought of like a double bicep wrap in a corkscrew. All those neat little wraps you learned will work in a corkscrew.. Same for the butterfly.. And speaking of biceps don’t forget that you have arms and can go from the right poi on the left bicep with arm in front to right poi on the left bicep with arm in back( I.e waist wrapped wraps) These should help you when dissecting your moves. When I say that, I don’t mean actively think about breaking your moves down. I’m wanting you to think when the poi is wrapping, where can I swing this poi, where can it transition, and where can it wrap. Odds are that if you just go into a move you will find another wrap within a circle or two. Which leads me to my next point.
Follow the leader. When you are doing a weave, sometimes you lead left and sometimes you lead right. Well, it’s the same with the wraps. From a weave try and have the right poi hit a wrap, then the left, then the right, then the left.. You can keep leading with your right hand until the timing changes, or the left one makes a loop and continues. At that point, switch to left leading through the wraps. This should help you dissect your moves a little easier. The tick tock wraps are pretty much semi-circle wraps. These will adjust the timing, thus getting you eventually between same time and split time, not to mention in between timing when they are a half beat off.. All of these changes help you to keep flow of your moves (or what’s left of them) while wrapping. Perhaps your still saying to yourself, Rev, they just don’t bounce the way I want them too. Well how about the next section.
advanced tracer techniques. Earlier I touched on these, but I didn’t go fully into what tracers are. Tracers are part of what they call mindgames. These are things specifically designed to screw up the head of those watching you. See the traces don’t stop at your limbs. You can extend the trace by pulling through your moves. This will help (and should come naturally). Basically, lets say we wrap the right poi off the inner right thigh. When you pull off to trace, pull over to the left side, and make a corkscrew motion around behind your shoulders up over the right shoulder and down the right side of your body into a forward weave motion. The poi should spiral off the thigh around your left side/arm over your right shoulder, and down into a forward weave, which you can then hit the bottom of the right bicep (and it wrap over). Now pull your right arm next to your body and pull and it will trace, disappear and pop out the arm pit, into a move or more tracers if you wish. The point being that tracers aren’t just on wraps, but can be extended.. They come from you naturally doing moves with your hands, while having the poi wrap and trace against the body.. This is what is meant by pulling through some wraps.. Now you don’t have to do this all the time, but it will definitely help you to get the flow of spinning your moves, and wrapping/tracing at the same time.
Now, since they were brought up, I see no better place to end this then to add in ideas for more of these mindgames and few other general ideas.
1. Remember that stalls are just as important as wraps. Sometimes you can’t find a wrap that you need, well just stall it. You get the same effect and can leave some pretty eerie tracers. Like dropping the poi, and making it spin in horizontally right before it runs out of chain so that it does a sudden direction change. A stall works the same way, allowing you to stop mid-circle and go in some other direction, not necessarily always back.
2. Try catching it in a trace, like above in the arm pit, then dropping it btb into your hand dance a minute with it, fling it out, or even toss it to the other hand under the other poi string, catch it and throw it back to the hand that had it. While its on its way to the other hand pull and it will airwrap.
3. Remember that you don’t always have to follow directly.. I can hit my right poi on the right bicep and the left poi on my rib, my right poi left thigh, my left poi left thigh, my right poi right thigh, my left poi neck, my right poi neck, my left poi right shin, weave, etc..
4. Change up your body position. For instance you can have the biceps angled, one high and one low, and wrap on them right poi on right bicep and left poi on left bicep, and do a separated corkscrew, during which they switch and the other bicep is high and so forth and bicep wrap again.. Different angles of the body can allow you to do btb wraps that are visible to the front audience clearly (like a right poi on right bicep to the right ankle) as well as swing around and catch the other bicep (basically waistwrap wraps, and crosser[move] wraps, or even under the leg to forearm and such)…
5. Remember that thru wraps are a blessing to mind games to help throw off things even more, or at least the under the leg ones seem to work nice..
6. Catches are important.. From a reverse butterfly you can catch the poi (right poi in left hand and left poi in right hand) and pull it over your head before letting go.. Catch the string of a separated corkscrew, btb, even some of the forward wraps. You can often grab the string without the crowd noticing. This will give you shorter strings, or if done right let you grab up to the stick.. Always fun thing to know…
There’s all the basics.. I left out a –lot- of little things but I’m sure you can figure it out.. By now you should be developing your own style, and hopefully your moves will have completely been broken down. To me, wraps give you freedom to do things how you want, when you want.. Any way, you have a working knowledge. At least from here, you’ll move on to building your own sick and twisted combos.. G/l..

-Rev


heres something else to remmebr about tracers.. you need soemthing to pull them around, so that they act like a pulley... this is typically any of the wrap positions.. so airwraps/hyperloops have to tangle, tracers have to act like a pulley...

More useless information courtesy of Rev...
Confusing the masses, one post at a time...
"Obviously, you're not a golfer.."- The Dude
"Buy the ticket... Take the ride..." -Raoul Duke
"FEMA has never done catastrophe planning..."-Michael Brown


LurchBRONZE Member
old hand
929 posts
Location: Oregon, USA


Posted:
great post *claps*

paragraph breaks are your friend though wink

#homeofpoi -- irc.newnet.net Come talk to us we're bored frown

Warning: Please Do Not Jump On The Seals


Red_RaveNGOLD Member
Neo - Hippie
358 posts
Location: Sala, Slovakia


Posted:
I'm scared of all that text... Tho I'll have to read through it sometime...

Smile.. It confuses people..:)

Wonders never cease as long as you never cease to wonder.


simian110% MONKEY EVERY TIME ALL THE TIME JUST CANT STOP THE MONKEY
3,149 posts
Location: London


Posted:
indeed, it burns my eyes *the pain the pain*

Looks pretty funky though.

Printing out for later perusal biggrin

"Switching between different kinds of chuu chuu sometimes gives this "urgh wtf?" effect because it's giving people the phi phenomenon."


RevBRONZE Member
Bastard Newbie Messiah
1,269 posts
Location: Apparently lost in my ego, USA


Posted:
I wrote it for an article.. and I don't write well...



and I cut and pasted from the word file so it lost a lot of spacing, and I wasn't editing 6 pages of txt.. sorry guys...



beerchug

let me know what parts are still confusing and such so I can go back and add comments to other sites and such, where this was posted..

More useless information courtesy of Rev...
Confusing the masses, one post at a time...
"Obviously, you're not a golfer.."- The Dude
"Buy the ticket... Take the ride..." -Raoul Duke
"FEMA has never done catastrophe planning..."-Michael Brown


NYCNYC
9,232 posts
Location: NYC, NY, USA


Posted:
I get everything except the part about the wraps.

Naw... just kiddin'. That's an AWESOME article and well written. It seems a bit advanced for the rank newbie but I definitely got some stuff out of it. Thank you! I'll have to print it out and give it another read sometime soon.

It's ALWAYS REALLY NICE to read theory. Thanks for taking the time!

I'd say "Mad Props" or such but then those hooligan Brits will tease me like they do...

Well, shall we go?
Yes, let's go.
[They do not move.]


RevBRONZE Member
Bastard Newbie Messiah
1,269 posts
Location: Apparently lost in my ego, USA


Posted:
well If you find it hard to read.. I'd like to thank Matt for editing it on his site and filling it with lovely colors and such making it INFINITELY easier to read....

so if you have problems jsut go to spherculism and check in the rotation reversal section..

I'm glad people are finding this helpful.. its encouraging me to write on some other topics as well.. like tangles... If I find the time, and find enough interest, I'll do one on ariwrap/hyperloops..

More useless information courtesy of Rev...
Confusing the masses, one post at a time...
"Obviously, you're not a golfer.."- The Dude
"Buy the ticket... Take the ride..." -Raoul Duke
"FEMA has never done catastrophe planning..."-Michael Brown


RevBRONZE Member
Bastard Newbie Messiah
1,269 posts
Location: Apparently lost in my ego, USA


Posted:
ok.. here's two simple ways two look at a trace..
1), hold the glowstick in your left hand, and wrap the string around until the handle is touching. Let go of the glowstick with the left hand, and pll the handle with the right arm away from the body part... there's a trace... as done from a recoil wrap..
2) stand over your chain with the handle in front of youand the glowstick behind.. pull all the slack out of the string so that it is near you.. now pull the handle up your front, letting go of the glowstick with the other hand.. You can pass your arm around the top of your head and pull down the other side... here, the trace will come up from behind, up your chest, around your neck, and back down your chest before moving on.. This example of extending the tracer, helps you see hwo the trace works, it moved it was pulled around the crotch area and the neck.. Think of the wrap points like dots, and you are playing connect the dots.. Every point you have to move around and to another point. pretty much the path made by your hands, will be taken by the glowstick closer to your body..

People tend to think of poi in terms of letting the poi spin.. Centrifugal force keeps them in control and we merely guide them.. a 2bt weave will do itself, if you just move your wrist left and right... but in the case of tracers, the poi will do nothing.. it stops completely if we do not pull around something.. the body part that it is wrapped around is a point that it HAS to go to.. so your hand has to move a LOT... and find points..

go back to the example, we went from crotch (pt 1) to neck (pt 2) we can then add the knee (pt 3).. preferably the one on the side we came up from, so as to make it trace across the chest..

If at anytime you run out of points, then you just need to swing into another wrap combo or move, before picking up the traces later on..

When dealing with tracers its important to remember that you don't have to enter one from a wrap.. stick your left arm straight out.. now bring your right hand under the left bicep.. now the left arm can bend at the elbow 90, and you can bring your right hand up around the top of the left bicep and over to the right side of the body.. after the right hand passes, move the left arm back straght... Another way is to lift a leg, and step over the string, so that when the hand pulls back its wrapped... you'll find all sorts of ways to extend the tracers to make it appear as if you tied yourself all up..

More useless information courtesy of Rev...
Confusing the masses, one post at a time...
"Obviously, you're not a golfer.."- The Dude
"Buy the ticket... Take the ride..." -Raoul Duke
"FEMA has never done catastrophe planning..."-Michael Brown


WintermuteLost in the world but loving it :)
119 posts
Location: Maybe Oxford, maybe Brighton ;)


Posted:
Jesus wept thats a lot of info, tho I did just read it all, and I'm confused lol, have to read it again I suppose spank

If fishes were wishes we'd all cast nets


RevBRONZE Member
Bastard Newbie Messiah
1,269 posts
Location: Apparently lost in my ego, USA


Posted:
matt did a great jopb of colorizing and spacing it out on his site(spherculism)...I dunno if I mentioned that... makes it easier to read..

More useless information courtesy of Rev...
Confusing the masses, one post at a time...
"Obviously, you're not a golfer.."- The Dude
"Buy the ticket... Take the ride..." -Raoul Duke
"FEMA has never done catastrophe planning..."-Michael Brown


bubblishisFalse Eyelash
346 posts
Location: New York City


Posted:
This is cool. Totally helpful. I generally have a hard time following written descriptions of moves but this one was ok. cool

Nice job. Thanks.


All the freaky people make the beauty of the world.


TheBovrilMonkeySILVER Member
Liquid Cow
2,629 posts
Location: High Wycombe, England


Posted:
Quote:


In my opinion, there are 9 basic wrap positions:
1. The forearm 4. Thigh 7. Neck
2. The bicep 5. Calf/shin 8. Torso
3. Wrist/hand 6. foot/ankle 9. Crotch





You missed out number 10. The Face.
I do them occasionally but I rarely mean to wink

Nice post smile Once I've digested it a bit more I may well go have a play with some of them.

But there's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.


RevBRONZE Member
Bastard Newbie Messiah
1,269 posts
Location: Apparently lost in my ego, USA


Posted:
ok.. let me rephrase that.. there are neck/head wraps.. because you can wrap around the top of the head and waround the bottom of the chin...

BUT

I don't see it being worth it... with the exception of the face trace... lol.. I like to make a funny face when the light traces my face... kinda liek turning on a flashlight... hehe.. otherwise though uneventful.. hehe..

More useless information courtesy of Rev...
Confusing the masses, one post at a time...
"Obviously, you're not a golfer.."- The Dude
"Buy the ticket... Take the ride..." -Raoul Duke
"FEMA has never done catastrophe planning..."-Michael Brown


JayKittyGOLD Member
Mission: Ignition
534 posts
Location: Central New Jersey, USA


Posted:
Awesome article. Great timing too, I was skimming through articles looking for pics. An hour ago I was thinking "hey I should learn wraps." And then BAM! Look! there it all is in black and white(kinda). Thanks a billion ^_^

Don't mind me, just passing through.


volkieSILVER Member
Member
1 post
Location: USA


Posted:
great post

can you wrap with fire poi?

MillenniuMPLATINUM Member
Hyperloops suck
595 posts
Location: USA


Posted:
Absolutely.


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