DrexFactor Poi

One of those bad habits that nearly all of us develop in our first year of spinning poi is the tendency to focus the poi's movement on the hand and wrist such that when we begin to play with flowers and the like, it becomes difficult to think of the poi being an extension of the hand rather than controlled by it. Here are a series of exercises to being with this type of movement. Most 2D tech poi is highly reliant on the mobility of the arms, so the sooner one trains themselves out of folding the arms against he body, the better!

extensionstutorial.mp4

Triquetra vs pendulum is probably my favorite poi move, but it's kind of a misnomer because the triquetra is really something more like a CAP. With that in mind, I came up with this other CAP and combined it with an extension to create a different move that in some respects inverts elements of triquetra vs pendulum while still including many if not all of the elements of this move.

techblog363.mp4

Meltdowns are a great combination of behind the back (BTB) technique and reel turns that look cool as hell. Here's how you can build up to them piece by piece.

meltdownstutorial.mp4

Man...this video totally started out as something very different indeed ;) I wanted to show off a couple ideas for contact combos I'd been working with, then I wound up with too many of them for a single tech blog...and then Tim Goddard posted his video about tapedeck toroids and it got my creative gears turning. So...here is an interesting hodgepodge of different tech ideas. Enjoy! :)

falltechcomp.mp4

A couple days ago, I posted a message on Facebook asking for suggestions on who I could do a future "Profiles in Poi" video on and Rob "Bluecat" Thorburn replied with a very intriguing breakdown. Rob cited a number of spinners whom he classified as old, middle, and new school poi spinners. I dug the idea, but thought a division into four instead of three groups made more sense.

Atomic weaves have a very intimidating name, but there are ways to perform them that won't break your brain. Here is one such weave that feels midway between a split-time thread the needle and a buzzsaw weave.

atomicweavetutorial.mp4

This is one of those moves that is so epically much more work than is ultimately worth it, but man is it bragging rights! Straight jackets are like crossers, but from a place where you arms are pretzeled around each other so you have almost no mobility. Part of the challenge is that it's nearly impossible to practice them without getting the entrance (from a barrel roll) down first. Not for the faint of heart--use soft poi!

techblog362.mp4

Behind the head tricks come in a couple flavors: those that are standard tricks with a behind the head flavor and those that are only meant to be behind the head. Here is a series of drills that start to build up this capability and a couple moves to begin practicing once they begin to feel normal. Lots of great stuff that comes out of this!

bthtutorial.mp4

Back in the Spring, I had a chance to sit down and talk with Keith Marshall about how he came to be a poi spinner, who his biggest influences were, where he comes up with his ideas from, and what advice he had for up and coming spinners.

pipkeithmarshall.mp4

From my recent video profile of Keith Marshall--here is the complete audio of the interview with no editing aside from some background noise reduction. Includes more information on the Edinburgh spinning scene when Keith first started up.

keithinterview.mp3