Forums > Beginner Poi Moves > another "where to go next" thread

Posted: 23rd Jun 2008
I agree with AlienJons interpretation of the RPG style poi system and even pondered whether or not it'd be possible or worth it to create such a networked diagram.

In the end I decided that it'd defeat the purpose of my own spinning. I love getting lost in the flow, by structuring the learning of it would kill the rush that I get from learning in any damn way I please.

I'd say the best way to learn is think about a move that you like for any reason, look, feel, smell, I dunno. Try it, if you can't do it, start thinking about why you can't do it, what steps you'll need to take in order to get there, essentially ask yourself "Which talent tree does this belong to?" A rigid structure would destroy for me the pleasure in finding out different combinations, different specs. (Sorry, RPG nerd/spinning addict here. ^_^)

Posted: 24th Jun 2008

 Written by :NathanielEverist


A "web" style or "networking" style diagram would be best, but I couldn't be bothered. It's strange, but the diagram I'm picturing in my head resembles Neurons connecting to each other through different moves and reaching outwards through the various families.

Nathaniel: Exactly!!!!!!
The information web for poi is a monumental proposition.... but there are Jedi's working on making it manifest as I type this!.. It will take the input from all of us to populate it though, so get ready to contribute content, and leave the digital DNA relational databasing to the Jedi's!

 Written by :Mother_Natures_Son


I'd say the best way to learn is think about a move that you like for any reason, look, feel, smell, I dunno. Try it, if you can't do it, start thinking about why you can't do it, what steps you'll need to take in order to get there, essentially ask yourself "Which talent tree does this belong to?" A rigid structure would destroy for me the pleasure in finding out different combinations, different specs. (Sorry, RPG nerd/spinning addict here. ^_^)

MNS:
I think we are thinking along the same lines, in actuality.

I'm not thinking about a rigid system, I'm thinking about a web 2.0 relational database that grows "talent trees" or "talent webs" that are all interconnected in a multidimensional data-space. It is populated by the users contributing content and tagging it. This is organic and vast, not rigid and narrow. What I envision is a poi knowledge landscape that ppl can blaze their own trail through, hence the "choose your own adventure" analogy... but this is much more vast than the few choices you get when reading one of those books... it is as vast as you and all the other users who are writing it make it.

I of course have my own personal system of understanding and there are some specific features that arise from poi physics and how our bodies relate to the poi and space around us through proprioception. I tend to teach not in orders of moves, but instead fundemental principles and exercises that integrate understanding of these principles into the kinesthetic intelligence.

Ok, its past my bedtime and the wine is making me saucy.

Let me know if you guys could decipher my ramblings!

-Alien Jon

+Alien Jon

Posted: 24th Jun 2008
Makes sense.

I like learning new things, but there is soo much....

'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Posted: 24th Jun 2008
That adds to the fun.



eta: edited due to wandering esses
EDITED_BY: Jameth (1214305017)

Posted: 24th Jun 2008
Jon, Nathaniel and whoever else cares...

I understood the ramblings, but I've been reading your ramblings on poi physics along with colemans and richee's (Can that guy even really use poi or does he just make it all up on a spirograph?! Where is the video evidence? To me he may well have skill but 0 style as it is constructed in my head.) without being baffled too much, its like a separate language. :P

I get what you're saying and I love the idea, but when a new person gets a grip on an idea, understands it in a slightly different way, often it pushes a new tangent. I'm just feeling the web will mean that people will be reading the ends of the stories and working from there, like being able to flip back etc.

Half the fun is blazing your own trail, finding what works for you and eventually making your own progress, with the web creative thought with poi would be removed, a calculation of the web may well inhibit alternate constructions of the web within the mind of the new spinner.

With different strengths and weaknesses in motor control in general, it will alter the way in which you can move through the web, while you could accommodate for that in the web it would still be wrong to take away those discoveries.

Poi has always been about discovery and searching, whether its searching for relationships between movements as I perceive them or discovery of my own physical boundaries, my own mental boundaries and a lot of that has to do with the constant unraveling of the way I move in relation to my poi, which is a slightly different way to the way in which everyone else moves in relation to their poi.

My point is in there somewhere... its not very well put together, I'm unable to construct a solid contention at this time.

I guess I'll relate it to teaching... I'm sure you've found while teaching that to approach things from the same point every time doesn't yield the same results, there are many different ways to explain things with kinesthetics and no one way is better than any other, it is dependent on the student. This is because the student perceives and connects with the poi in their own way, attempting to map it out may end up confusing some students who the system may not work for, or perhaps it will work for a certain family of moves or a certain number of movements but then stops working, they may well perceive this as a wall that they've hit in their own personal development. You yourself said you had a "personal system" which as I understand it means a use of the basics in order to demonstrate how the building blocks CAN be placed on one another and allowing the student to self construct their own learning to a large degree?


Then again, perhaps its the discovery element that doesn't quite sit right with me, I dunno. The idea does interest me very much, though.

Apologies for the unsystematized rant. Let me know if it doesn't make sense. If you can make head or tails of it, please feel free to pick it apart.


Also, I think if this is to continue, we should shift it to another thread, rather than hijacking this one, I'd have just created a new one myself, but I'm at odds as to where to place it. Expressive movement? Advanced poi moves? But surely if a system were to be constructed with the help of the community, surely we wouldn't limit it to a single toy?

/rant

Posted: 24th Jun 2008

 Written by :Mother_Natures_Son

richee's...To me he may well have skill but 0 style as it is constructed in my head

bit of an assumption

"the geeks have got you" - Gayle

Posted: 24th Jun 2008
What I mean by "as it is constructed in my head" means as I envision him, I can't picture a style because style is so variated, as I've got nothing to base an actual assumption on I can picture only tech with no style, essentially its an outcry for people to take some videos of him. If anyone sees him spin, capture it! He's too often contributing his ramblings to not see him, I think it'd be a worthwhile watch. I did pause after I typed that, considering how it'd be misinterpreted, but my "mush for brains" state didn't allow a better explanation and the one I've just given was too long. I just hoped people would understand what I was stabbing at.

Posted: 24th Jun 2008
I see nothing wrong with a web. Some moves need others to build on.

For example (and very simply) : thread the needle requires knowing how to do a butterfly. Sure, you can try go backwards, but I think that it is an unlikely way to do things.

So starting with a couple basics: the different modes of spinning (that is, split time, same time, opposite, reverse and forwards and all the combinations thereof) and (maybe) both 3bt weaves, the corkscrew/windmill and the butterfly.

From there I see it as possible to go anywhere. There is no reason to learn hyperloops before buzzsaws before btb weaves before flowers. Once you have some basics, the "roadmap" of what you can learn next just expands.

But again, there are some roadblocks: isolations are needed for hybrids, five beat weaves are easier to learn once you have the three beat under your belt (the latter is less cast in stone, but no one I know learned 5 and then 3. I learned 3 before 2 though so maybe there are some...).

Anyway, to wrap this up:
Once you have a few basic skills, there is no "one true path to poi mastery". Some things will be easier to learn for different people than others. Some will flow naturally from having learned one skill. (Forward and reverse butterflies, once I got one, the other took about 20 minutes. Same with TTN.) Others are very different from everything else and are harder to just stumble on. It is up to the individual.

And regarding Richee's stuff: All of it is possible I think. Just very hard in some instances. I would like to see it as a video, but am happy playing with my own stuff at the moment.

'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Posted: 25th Jun 2008
AlienJon: I understood your ramblings... this time. Other times I can't understand a word you're saying, which is very frustrating to me because I know you're a poi genius, and I wish I could understand, because I know it is great stuff, but I don't. But this time I understood, so I'm happy for that.

MNS: I understand what you're saying, but guide-lines can help. Learning things in a roughly ascending order of difficulty (although difficulty is subjective) will make the process faster and more enjoyable for the person learning, but isn't necessary until you get onto moves that have prerequisites. As Aston was saying, some movements require you to know other ones, the examples he gave were good, but for another one, you need to learn to do a buzzsaw before you isolate a buzzsaw. And while you may argue that you don't necessarily need to learn a buzzsaw before an isolated buzzsaw, you would surely agree that it is recommendable and would result in reaching the desired outcome more effectively.

I thought of another analogy for how I visualise such a "web". Imagine the Earth, or any other planet that is capable of sustaining trees. That planet, is your brain. On that planet, giant trees grow forth... each of these trees is a different "family" of moves. At the base of all the trees (layers of soil?) are the requirements for the trees to grow. Spinning, understanding of planes, split-time, same-time, butterfly directions etc. From these foundations the tree families grow. One tree might be weaves, the roots of which would be 2 beats, and as it grows higher, 3 beats, 4 beats, 5 beats, turning, etc. Another tree could be reels, at the bottom, same-time low reels, and growing higher in ascending difficulty (again, this is subjective) to split-time turning 1 low 1 high reels. And each of the trees grows... crossers, under the legs, btb, wraps, stalls. The list goes on. Each of these trees needs to establish roots and grow taller to more difficult movements.

Not only that though, the trees branch out as they start to gain enormity, touching other trees and becoming entwined. For instance, the tangle tree touches the wraps tree, and as a result comes the tangled-spiral, or the airwrap-double hand wrap. Or perhaps the crosser tree touches the under the legs tree, and from that comes crossers where one arm goes under the legs. Multiple trees can touch too, the tangle tree touches the under the legs tree, and there is the under the leg airwrap, but then the wraps tree touches the connection too, and then there is the under the leg tangled spiral.

The examples I can use are near endless, and this may give an idea of what I mean. Eventually, the planet becomes covered in a thick forest of trees, all interconnected. That's what we're all aiming for, at least that's what I'm aiming for. Infinite combinations, infinite possibilities. I want it to get to the point where moves aren't even moves anymore, and while you may be able to recognise traits of certain movement families, you don't think of it in that way, you are simply moving your arms as you please, and the poi follow. Every move you learn is a new word in your vocabulary with which you can write something beautiful. Moves should be thought of as ways of training your body to move with the poi, until you are able to move as freely as if they weren't even there. They "refine" movement, they're not a series of "tricks" each strung together one after another.

I hope you guys got my analogy and found it acceptable. Let me know what you think.

Posted: 25th Jun 2008
Nice analogy, but I think that you might need to mess with the curve of space to get that many trees touching.

'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Posted: 25th Jun 2008
Why?

Posted: 25th Jun 2008
Do we need a web to tell us that its easier to learn an isolated buzzsaw if we already know the buzzsaw? Some of the more complicated relations between the poi movements are what I enjoyed making, having it posted on a forum would remove that joy for anyone who might experience those same joys.

And with games I cannot NOT look at the walkthroughs, its a curse!

Posted: 25th Jun 2008

 Written by :Mother_natures_son

Do we need a web to tell us that its easier to learn an isolated buzzsaw if we already know the buzzsaw?

You'd actually be surprised...

 Written by :Mother_natures_son

Some of the more complicated relations between the poi movements are what I enjoyed making, having it posted on a forum would remove that joy for anyone who might experience those same joys.

That's cool that you wanted to learn it for yourself, but other people may rather just learn as much as they can as quick as they can, in which case learning resources become of great use. And then there are those who have learnt so much already, that it's through interactions with other great spinners that they develop further. If we all just kept information to ourselves to ensure people discovered things for themselves, the art would be nowhere near as advanced as it is today. If you don't want to learn from such resources, simply don't look them up, it's that simple...

Posted: 25th Jun 2008
I agree that it is a good thing. I have developed my own spin on a few things that I learned off here and am glad that I got to see it at least. Some of them would never have occurred to me I think.

'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Posted: 6th Jul 2008
I see a difference between "learning resources" and a roadmap to the interrelation between learning resources.

But then again, this may well all stem from a dislike of rigidity. Detracts from the flow

Posted: 6th Jul 2008
tonnes of good replys, still workiong on the reverse, my new poi form HOP have arrived so ive started working off the DVD as my starting points.

Posted: 8th Jul 2008
I'm super busy with circus touring so I'm just checking quickly. I'd say make another thread to discuss the metaphors and perceptions of an information web, then link to and from this one.

I think a lot of great ideas and valid points are coming up... I think we are all on a similar page, talking about the same thing overall, just seeing slightly different vantage points of the thought object so to speak... (makes me want to read some more of Gödel, Escher, Bach). It feels a tad bit like when you get into an argument with someone, and by the end you determine you were both trying to say the same thing, and end up agreeing.

The point is these types of ideas are germinating in the collective poi unconscious, and something will develop out of it. So make a new thread somewhere and keep it coming, and I'll try to catch up.

+Alien Jon

Posted: 8th Jul 2008
I have done as AlienJon suggested.

[Old link]

'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Posted: 7th Aug 2008
I think it's helped to have somewhat of a "walkthrough". Maybe not to the point where I'm constantly looking for the next step, but enough to know what to do next if I've run out of ideas.

I guess it just nice to know that I've always got a place to look if I need help.