Jun
29
Summer session poi classes
Submitted by Drex on Tue, 06/29/2010 - 9:29pm
The summer session has begun at Contradiction Dance! If you'd like to hone your skills, get back up to speed, or pick up a set of poi for the first time, come join us at 925 Wayne Ave in Silver Spring, MD on Thursdays from 8-9:30 PM.
Lately I've been pushing exercises to solidify plane control in class as I'm noticing this is a frequent stumbling block for folks trying to get into more advanced technique. We're also playing with the wide, woolly world of 1.5s which for my money are the best way to switch between different combinations of timing and direction.
Jun
29
Video Tech Blog #98: Basic contact poi
Submitted by Drex on Tue, 06/29/2010 - 8:39pm
Another one of those poi avenues that I've either barely touched or just haven't bothered to polish since I started playing with it: contact poi! In this case I've been working on the subtype wherein you're treating the poi head like a contact juggling ball. I'm totally awful at contact juggling (though learning), but I'm still trying to work through this related type of manipulation. Here are four manipulations that Elemensce helped me through at Wildfire and the tips that made them work.
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Jun
29
Video Tech Blog #97: Plane-shift intensive
Submitted by Drex on Tue, 06/29/2010 - 8:33pm
I've spent a big portion of the past week trying to polish my plane shifts from antispin flowers to horizontal plane antispins and I wanted to share a couple of the drills I've been doing to get there. Mostly I've been taking same-time opposites flowers and plane shifting out of the sideways stalls and then executing a 90 degree turn. Being as how there are two directions of same time opposites antispin flowers to work with, the big mind-bender I've been working on this past week is switching between these two types with every turn.
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Jun
29
Video Tech Blog #96: triquetra vs pendulum hand switching
Submitted by Drex on Tue, 06/29/2010 - 8:27pm
This puts together a few threads that came out of Firedrums and Wildfire. It's basically just a couple different approaches to switching which hand is performing pendulum and which is performing triquetra in a hybrid. We can use either 1.5 stacking or a lockout to get us there--or both if we so choose!
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Jun
29
Video Tech Blog #95: hard, soft, and mixed transitions as plane-bends
Submitted by Drex on Tue, 06/29/2010 - 8:18pm
At Wildfire I got a good chance to run my transition theory through the ringer and I got some great feedback from some folks I really respected about it. One of the more fun collaborations was Sunday with Charlie and Justin. Charlie and I essentially hadn't slept and spent most of the day working out the theoretical framework in which hard, soft, and mixed transitions could be applied to plane bending and shifting. We came up with a couple new moves neither of us had ever seen before and laid the foundation for what I hope will be a really nifty expansion of the theory. Thanks, guys! :)
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Jun
25
Video Tech Blog #94: point isolation transitions
Submitted by Drex on Fri, 06/25/2010 - 4:25pm
Another set of ideas that came out of geeking at Wildfire with Noel and Charlie: this time using point isolations matched up with pendulum stalls to create a fascinating isolation effect when switching from side to side with pendulums. We also found the same movement rendered a unit circle apart yields a funky S-curve that could be used for timing and direction changes with the pendulums. Fun! :)
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Jun
25
Video Tech Blog #93: 1.5 stacking
Submitted by Drex on Fri, 06/25/2010 - 4:21pm
This weekend at Wildfire included a whole slew of point-isolating moves from Noel. One of which was an interesting 1.5 pattern that I tried to learn and this is what came out. Charlie thinks it's different than what Noel was doing, but unfortunately I didn't get it on camera so I've no way to be sure. Either way, however, here it is: a reverse 1.5 with unit circle spacing that uses poi head/hand contact to switch into a stacking move on each side.
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Jun
18
Drex and Charlie partner poi Spring Wildfire 2010
Submitted by Drex on Fri, 06/18/2010 - 2:22pm
Charlie and I took a chance to play with some composite patterns on Saturday night and really dug the results. We hope you guys do, too.
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Jun
17
Lucas Boyd spins double staves at Spring Wildfire 2010
Submitted by Drex on Thu, 06/17/2010 - 9:29pm
Lucas cracks out the doubles for some wicked fun on Saturday night at Spring Wildfire 2010.
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Jun
17
Corey White spins fans at Spring Wildfire 2010
Submitted by Drex on Thu, 06/17/2010 - 9:24pm
Corey (whose birthday it was this particular night) sasses up some fans for an enthusiastic audience Saturday night at Spring Wildfire 2010.
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