Bad poi karma

Garou · Posted: Thu 07th Feb, 2008 8:42 pm Post subject: Bad poi karma

Hi all

I'm new here, but if you have a peek in the intro section I posted a little something about myself. And I as mentioned within that post, poi has been very unlucky for me...

I started poi a little over a year ago. One day, I decided to do a search on "Hawaiian fireball spinning" after I saw some fire spinning on tv. From there, I fell in love. So I made my first set of poi using ballchain, tennis balls and quick links. Well, soon after I made them, my ex and I separated and soon found ourselves in a custody battle for our two daughters (I won btw :D). Needless to say, I was down and extremely stressed so I soon gave up on poi because it just wasn't the right time in my life to try my patience. But I kept my poi, knowing I would be back.

So a few weeks ago I pick up my poi again. I do a few nights of practicing, trying to get my left arm/hand to cooperate (which it still isn't) while watching some videos from various sources over the internet. Well, two nights ago while standing in front of my computer, doesn't one of the tennis balls fly off and hit my monitor dead center. This wouldn't be a problem if I had a CRT monitor, it probably just would have bounced off. But it was a 22 inch widescreen LCD monitor; it went dead instantly. Thankfully I had two of them attached to my computer, so I at least still have one, but I am still out about $400 Canadian (about £200).

Yesterday, I decided I was going to make a sock poi now that I know my previous design was flawed. I get the socks from sears (giant retail chain in north america) and get a sewing kit and tennis balls from a local discount store. I get home, and open all the packaging. What is the first thing you do when you when you pick up a tennis ball? You squeeze it. Bloody thing was hard as a rock - the rubber had hardened. I bounced one off the floor - it didn't bounce back. Then I stepped on it, and it cracked along one of the seams. As a result, I just took my old tennis balls from my previous set of poi and threw them in the socks. Then I started to practice. Well, one of my poi hits the ceiling (I have a stucco ceiling) and rips. Again, tennis ball goes flying. Thankfully I learned my lesson the previous night and was not facing my computer at the time.

At this point in time I am pretty mad, but I am resolved more than ever. I was suppose to go to a friends, so I decided to stop by a local hardware shop and pick up some new supplies to built yet an other set of poi first. I was in a little bit of a hurry to get out of the store as I had to meet my friend when she finished work, so I grabbed a pack of tennis balls(good ones this time) two eye bolts, a pack of nylon rope, aluminum sleeves and two metal rings. Once I got to my friends house, I realized I forgot to pick up some washers, fishing line (I was planning on cutting the balls open to insert the eyebolts and washers, and sew it back up with fishing line) and nylon straps to make finger straps.

Well, I decided I would just poke a small hole in the tennis balls and force the nut on the eye bolt through the ball, hoping that the rubber would just stretch. It was hard to force it through the ball, but it finally went. I pulled on the eye bolt pretty hard and it just isn't going to come back through. I finished building the rest of the poi. Well, it is bloody brilliant, so I decided to make a walkthrough. I took a bunch of pictures with my phone while making the second one, and was going to post them. I got home pretty late last night, so I was just going to post them today.

This morning, I get to work, plug my blackberry into my computer, and transferred the pictures over to my computer. They were blurry, but salvageable. So I deleted the pictures off my cell phone (I only have 19MB of space on my blackberry). Later, I went to take an other look at the pictures again, and they were all corrupt. I don't think they transfered properly. And since I deleted them off my phone, now I don't have pictures for a walkthrough.

I think some supernatural being doesn't want me to learn poi! I wonder what is going to happen tonight...

Daedra · Posted: Thu 07th Feb, 2008 10:24 pm Post subject:

that is a wacky insane and truly awesome story!! sorry I totally didn't notice your intro thread! Welcome to the forums my friend!!

Well that sucks to hear about the pictures!! Anything in terms of imagery you can provide on a walk through for those, just drawn on paper and scanned in would be greatly beneficial!! We can turn it into an official Poi making tut and stick in with the others :P

Sucks about the monitor tho man!! I'm lucky enough that every time my sock poi bounce onto the monitor it always hits the rim!! You may want to seek alternative weighting for the Poi like rice or shredded rubber packed into a balloon. This in it's self is great because you can adjust the weight to your liking! Also it's more forgiving on household appliances as well as body parts haha!!

Well take care man! Don't give up the Poi! *sends good karma waves* You'll manage. We all get off to rocky starts (^_^) your not human if you haven't smacked something or someone with your Poi!!

Felixwah · Posted: Fri 08th Feb, 2008 9:31 am Post subject:

well man as much as its a bitch to you i enjoyed reading that (sorry if that sounds bad), i can empathise with you about your split with your partner, as i too have recently split from mine and with kids involved it most defo isnt gravy, luckily enough we havent gone to court, n i hope we dont! anyway glad its all sorted for you man!

On the poi front i think you just has a series of unfortunate events, you should make like 3 sets of poi then if one breaks you have another ta-dar! lol yeh man tennis balls are ok but not that forgiving! i would go with rice in balloons as wehen then hit you they just mold to the shape (ish), if you go to the articles section i made a good tut on how to make socks and the next time i make some i will take some pics as well.

but yeh defo sending you some good poi vibes matey!

Garou · Posted: Fri 08th Feb, 2008 4:06 pm Post subject:

Well, I am happy to report no issues occurred last night while practicing other than the fact that my left poi seems to like hitting me in the back of the head while doing hip reels. But that is only because I've been working on my left hand a lot, trying to bring it up to par with my right.

Keep sending me good vibes, seems to be working!

Mythical · Joined: 01 Feb 2008 Posts: 22 Location: Coventry

Garou · Posted: Fri 08th Feb, 2008 7:06 pm Post subject:

If that's the case, I'm doing bloody awesome

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