basic

Basic Poi Dancing Tutorial: Crossers (redo)

I uploaded a crosser tutorial several months ago, but both the audio and video quality were quite sub-par. I had a gap in my tutorial shooting schedule, so I decided to do a better quality video and hope it's of more use in the long run than the other one was :)

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Basic Poi Dancing Tutorial: Tuck Turns

If you've got your basic reel turns down, tuck turns are an easy next step that can add an additional level of visual immediacy to your turns. They're also the first example many of us encounter of a type of movement that plays a huge part in later moves called body tracing.

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Basic Poi Dancing Tutorial: The Timing and Direction Game

Here's a fun game I came up with the other day to help solidify one's command of timing and direction: put on your favorite piece of music and alternate 8-counts. On the odd 8-counts, you do whatever moves in that timing and direction suit you and on the even 8-counts you freeze in place and maintain timing and direction no matter where your hands land. Fun challenge!

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Basic Poi Dancing Tutorial: Warmups

 It was requested over a year ago, but here is a video of some good ways to warm up and condition oneself before spinning. A lot of this is full-body intensive but the shoulder exercise at the end really will help develop the ability to perform flowers for long periods without fatigue.

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Basic Poi Dancing Tutorial: Giants

Giants are one of those moves that take you out of keeping your hands still and your poi moving and set you up for extensions and flowers, which are essential to many intermediate moves. Here are a few basic exercises that can help these moves make a little more sense. That and they take up quite a lot of room, so they look really cool :)

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Basic Poi Dancing Tutorial: The Archer Weave

The archer weave is a fun embellishment for the three-beat weave that leads directly into body tracing and a number of other fun techniques. When I first tried to learn it, I was baffled at how it could work. Here is an easy way to break it down so that you can see what makes this move tick.

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Basic Poi Dancing Tutorial: Split-Time Thread the Needle

While on the surface not terribly different from a thread the needle in same time, a thread the needle in split-time (also called split-time opposites) produces a small problem for the performer in that it doesn't present a dominant hand until one hand is crossed over the other. Thus, to perform this move successfully is to switch between positions in which the hands are crossed over each other rather than simply on top of each other as in same time.

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Basic Poi Dancing Tutorial: Wraps

Wraps are a nifty tool for switching directions and all-around looking cool that poi borrows from the glowsticking and nunchukus worlds. Here are some basics as to how they can be performed and what they can be wrapped around to create nifty effects your audience will dig!

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Basic Poi Dancing Tutorial: The stall workout part 2

Part 2 of the stall workout series! This time we'll be going through all the antispin stalls, which wind up being different because the stall goes through your body core rather than around it.

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Basic Poi Dancing Tutorial: The stall workout part 1

Having problems getting your stalls down? Here's the first part of a workout, that if you can master it will give you access to nearly any stall you could possibly want to play with. It bears some resemblance to Yuta's 8 stall theory but applies to every timing and direction combination.

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