DrexFactor Poi

I must have done at least a dozen takes of this video...there are a lot of ideas I wanted to cram in here and kind of sketch out the line of thinking that led me to each of the conclusions outlined here, but it's hard to do that inside of ten minutes. Ultimately if this doesn't make sense, let me know which parts specifically and I'll do my best to clarify in later videos.

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Yesterday I wrote about the many holes that had been poked in the theory of hybrid construction I posted a few weeks ago, among which are its incompatibility with any timings other than split-time or same time and the fact that it can't account for a static spin versus extension hybrid. Thus begs the question of how exactly we can define hybrids in a way that is extensible (ie, that works at any size shape we can image).

A couple weeks ago I posted a video conjecturing a new framework for understanding how poi hybrids are constructed--namely that they are examples of poi motion retaining multiple combinations of timing and direction. I've had a couple holes in this theory pointed out to me and I've come to see additional holes myself, so I'm putting together a breakdown of why my theory was flawed as well as laying the groundwork for a new theory based both upon this feedback and my own explorations.

Over the weekend I made a trip up to Pittsburgh to listen to a good friend spin some sick dubstep and while there I got to catch up with a few of my very favorite fire spinners. Here's Grimm Zimmer doing what he does best on fans--some of the sickest fan tech I've yet seen.

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A couple updates from moves of the past week: a quarter-time float out of the now-familiar stall-switch pattern and learning how to plane-shift in same direction. This leads to an atomic weave performed in diagonal planes, which I demo a variant of the Notcoleman3 in here. Finally, a couple thoughts on "hard" versus "soft" transitions based upon charlicopter's 9-square poi theory videos. There is definitely some potential here and I like the idea of moving between grids as well as adding pendulums into the mix.

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A quick break from the past two weeks' theory-heavy blogs. Here are a couple random moves I've been working on in the interrim that I wanted to show off. First is drilling my way through a type of plane-bending that G is now famous for--switching between inswing linear isolations (they could also be CAPs) and horizontal linear isolations. Next are some exotic pendulum stalls I picked up from watching a recent Ronan video. I'm a huge fan of these types of stalls and keep finding new applications for them.

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Over the past year I've gotten lots of queries into the stage ball poi set I've come to use most frequently in my tech blog the past few months. I've not seen another tutorial out there on how they are made (at least not on YouTube), so here goes. Hopefully if you've been interested in them, this will tell you everything you need to know to make your own set. I think Ronan had the original design, but used the end caps of juggling clubs for his handles. The use of furniture feet is an idea I borrowed from Alien Jon.

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First up, I have a new website that is now hosting all my videos and minutia: please visit me on the web at http://www.drexfactor.com

Next, a quick update to last week's musings on hybrid theory. A possible hole and a fix to it...beyond that, a reply from Alien Jon got my creative juices flowing and here are five results of thinking of CAPs as segments of motion and hybrids as opposing versions of the same types of motion. These are awkward but I can see a lot of possibilities as to where thinking of motion this way could lead.

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Thanks to Insignia's excellent post on hybrids, I've spent the past week reexamining the concept and working through some of the logical conundrums it presents. I find the idea of a hybrid being "a combination of two driving styles" problematic because I can't find a definition for driving style that isn't loose enough that potentially any type of movement could be considered a driving style. I think there is a simpler way to define them and it is presented here. Please please send me feedback on this one--let me know if this definition makes sense.

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This past week, Insignia posted a note to Facebook trying to map out all hybrids by matching up all the driving styles he knew of: isolation, extension, cateye, antispin, pendulum, and CAP and going through them one-by-one till he'd identified all the combinations possible between them. Here is a demo of all the hybrids he listed (though I just realized I forgot cateye vs. CAP--whoops). Some of these have an interesting aesthetic value to them while some are just an utter pain in the ass.

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