Variations of Figure Eights with Doubles

variations of vertical figure 8 with double staves
or
one monkey's arbitrary but useful way of thinking about sticks
or
this was originally a reply to something else, but it mutated horribly, so i'm whacking it in it's own thread. Make of it what you will...

Figure 8s are the first thing people generally learn with doubles.
Its the basic building block of most doubles spinning.
and the setup for most vertical throws/contact.
the resulting heady mixture of subjective & objective musings is below...

The way this monkey thinks of things:
There's 8 flavours of basic figure-eight with doubles.
and they're defined by three variables.

1
Forwards\Backwards
just like those poi things.

2
Relative timing: generally sticks are:
parallel timed (0 degrees offset)
or
split timed (180 degrees offset)
When you split-time poi, they point in opposite directions,
but a staff points both ways, so the 180 offset is less noticeable,
unless you look at the hands (pointing the same way or opposite ways) and not the sticks.

3
Relative rotation:
Follow: sticks rotating same direction.
Cross: sticks rotating opposite directions
Follow is sometimes referred to as 'weave', Cross as 'butterfly', for obvious poi reasons. Please note that in this sense, they DO NOT directly refer to the exact moves of the same name. Only the relative rotation of the sticks.

So the 8 flavours are:

Forwards Split Follow (ready salted)
Backwards Split Follow (salted ready)
Forwards Parallel Follow (prawn cocktail)
Backwards Parallel Follow (cocktail prawn)
Forwards Parallel Cross (salt n vinegar)
Backwards Parallel Cross (vinegar and salt)
Forwards Split Cross (cheese and onion)
Backwards Split Cross (onion and cheese)

It should be noted that Parallel Follow (forward and backward) is extremely awkward and ugly. And i don't like Prawn Cocktail crisps either. urgh.

Some Observations

Split time stay on opposite sides of the body switching side simultanusley at the same time.
Parallel time stay on the same side of the body also switching side simultanusley at the same time.
The above is true of both follow and cross.

The sticks always are always transposed (and therefore parallel) when in follow, and mirrored when in cross.
The mirroring of cross spinning sticks is:
vertical when parallel timed
and horizontal when split timed

So 180 degrees of follow double sticks would look something like this:
Code:

! ! to / / to - - to \ \ to ! !

And the same in (parallel) cross would look something like this:
Code:

! ! to / \ to - - to \ / to ! !

i'll stop short of talking bout quarter-timing or flowers & similar for now...
and i'm not touching extra beats with a barge pole just yet... ooh the complexifications.

but if you reckon that i'm not talking rubbish, and this stuff might even be helpful (shurely not) then say so and i might come back to add stuff smile

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

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