Forums > Advanced Poi Moves > "Modern/Current" definitons of beg/int/adv...

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DurbsBRONZE Member
Classically British
5,689 posts
Location: Epsom, Surrey, England


Posted:
Just something that came from both the "re-learning the basics" thread, and a couple of workshop proposals I've been writing and have seen written elsewhere...

Over the past year or 3, spinning has exploded with the number of moves available. Some are hard, some are subtle, some are easy, some are counter-intuitive but actually quite effective. As the newer moves become more widespread and better understood, the methods of teaching them develop.

Because of this, something like anti-spin flowers are surprisingly easy to teach nowadays, and I personally think you could teach a newbie anti-spin flowers within an hour... Likewise airwraps (hyperloops are a bit more tricky).

Which raises the interesting (...ish) question of what is "Beginner", "Intermediate" and "Advanced" with regards to poi?

I've offered to run (and have run) workshops at various levels, and the one that always stumps me is when people ask (or I suggest wink ) me to run an "intermediate" poi workshop. I really have no idea what "intermediate" counts as.

As an example, let's take anti-spin chase flowers. All these consist of, is spinning you poi one way, whilst your arms rotate the other way. This really isn't hard, especially if you take the time to work the arms without the poi first.
Yet anti-spin flowers in 2003 were uber-technical.

I ran a workshop for "beginners" - along the theme of "moving the circles". After we'd done giant butterflys and weave/windmill lock-outs, we moved on to flowers. Near the end of the 2-hour class, i reckon about 50% of the group had got anti-spin flowers.

A counter arguement is something like a 5-beat weave - which I've yet to see anyone pick up straight away. I'd say it is categorically an "intermediate" move. Likewise waist-wraps & BTB weaves. No matter how good-a teacher you are, 5bt weaves will always take time to crack.

So it's hard enough defining the difference between beginner and intermediate. So what's the difference between Intermediate and advanced? ubblol

[Side note] This may well be an utterly pointless post of me waffling to myself...[/side note]

To flip it round - What I found most interesting about Nicks' "Scales of Poi" was his ability to take a classic "beginners" move and make it really quite hard. 1-beat windmills in either direction with either hand in front is killer hard for most people.

So my point is (or "was" when I started this...) - "Advanced" moves on the whole are the newer moves. Currently I'd say things like snags & negative space, poly-rhythm and hybrids. There are also stead-fast advanced moves; contact poi and whip catches for example.
So does this mean that "advanced" moves that have been around for more than 2 years drop down a level?
Could there be a point in 3 more years when 7:5-hybrid weaves are intermediate?
(But then-again, polyrhythm isn't actually that hard unless you've spent the last x-years making the poi spin at the same time wink )

So, to throw it open to debate (so I don't look tooooo sad talking to myself...) - what would you define as "beginner" and what as "Advanced"? ("Intermediate" is really too broad a category to definte I reckon...)

Burner of Toast
Spinner of poi
Slacker of enormous magnitude


faith enfireBRONZE Member
wandering thru the woods of WI
3,556 posts
Location: Wisconsin, USA


Posted:
maybe you all could seperate it like they do in ice skating
there is a technical score and an artistic one

Faith
Nay, whatever comes one hour was sunlit and the most high gods may not make boast of any better thing than to have watched that hour as it passed


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