General help needed

thernonun · Joined: 14 Nov 2007 Posts: 3 Location: Norwich

I'm newish to poi. I've had my original poi (nightburst) for a year now but have had fairly little practice thanks to there being an extremally limited amount of space in and around my house. To add to that my poi broke in April and I only recently managed to fix them.

I can now do most of the staple moves from the tuition videos but I am now facing three problems. The first problem is that whilst I can do most of the moves and can link them together fairly well I am not acheiving anywhere near the fluidity of motion that most other poi spinners seem to have. Everyone else seems to have mastered a certain je ne sais quoi that is more than just doing the moves and linking them together. Could anyone speculate on where I'm going wrong?

The second problem I have is that I am not sure which moves I can actually do. I have seen people do many things with sock poi which I am certain I could not do with the ball and chain variety of poi which I'm used to. Especially hyperloops (although since my poi are still fairly broken this is impossible anyway since they have a tendency to clip together when they clash) Are they any guidelines available as to which moves can be done with certain types of poi and which cannot?

And the third problem I have is that I hear talk all over the forums of other moves which I have no idea how to even begin going about. Since I have generally been teaching myself poi with little outside help until recently I was clueless as to the names of moves. Now when I attempt to learn moves from the descriptions others have given I become baffled at all the terminology. Is there a dictionary of poi anywhere I could use?

I know that probably sounds kinda dumb but moving from my limited knowledge of poi (where as far as I was aware a 3 beat weave was a 5 beat weave and there were no moves more complex than it) to suddenly finding innumerable possibilities each as mind boggling as the next I find it rather daunting :p

Any help or advice anyone can give would be much appreciated

Jonny

sxylou123 · Joined: 27 Mar 2007 Posts: 481 Location: Margate, Kent

In terms of flow, how your body moves whilst spinning it is good to check out other peoples styles. Some people can move and twist about like a typhoon, others stand really still and bolt upright.

I know the standing still part and having very little movement, we have all been there, some find it easier than others and most peoples style takes alot of practice.

The smallest movement like a side step during a rotation can add movement to a performance although concentrating on the movement of other body parts as well as the poi can be baffeling.

Also allowing the poi to slow down for a few seconds and speed up again can add alot of different effects.
Going long arm for a few turns as well gives some variation too. Stalls are a good tool for changing from one move to the next, also tapping them on the top of legs or backs of arms to change the direction also adds to the performance, I practiced this on both the left and the right by just spinning round for hours changing the directions...

At the moment I am practicing getting down on the floor to my knees and back up again while doing different moves, kinda like the dance you would do to "lets twist again" only with a little bit more grace...

Take dance moves that you learnt as a child from different songs and try to apply them to your routine in terms of how your body moves.

Also I found that poi to the music that you like to dance with helps alot.

Hope some of these help...

Louise

she-wolf · Posted: Tue 08th Jan, 2008 8:40 pm Post subject:

problem 1...
a great move to help with fluidity of transitions is the fountain... im sure you'll find a good description on the forums if u cant already do it...
if you can then i find it good to stand on a wall and really exaggerate the high and low spins (cos your on the wall the ground is lower and you dont crash into it!)
the best advice is to stop caring about what anyone will think of you and just make any movement twice the size... if you losen up and dont stress then you will find your own rythm!!

problem 2. anything that involves tangling is best left to the mighty sock poi! wraps, tangles and hyperloops will just mess up chain/string poi!

problem 3. check the tutorials page and some of the forums for any move names your not sure of... you will get links to youtube on the forums and people will say "there was an awesome ...such and such... at 3mins 25"
its a good way to learn moves when you dont get the gobble dee gook! (i know how you feel! believe me!!)
hope i could help!

xxWOLFxxx

she-wolf · Posted: Tue 08th Jan, 2008 8:47 pm Post subject:

check out Nick Woolsey's flower video... this will give you some freedom of movement!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-sCXbZ4slc

xxWOLFxxx

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