DrexFactor Poi

Nick’s influence on poi spinning and the flow arts is so incalculably huge it almost seems like a disservice to him to try and summarize it, but I’ll give it a chance anyhow.

Nick was a pioneer of flowers--introducing the techniques of inspin and antispin flowers to an entire generation of poi spinners and revolutionizing the art. His video “Dervishly Yers” embedded his techniques so deeply into poi culture that many people who learn those techniques now have no idea there was a time when they weren’t commonplace.

One of the greatest tech poi spinners active today, Liz has been a powerful force in innovation for cutting edge tricks, organizing the community, and building a super successful flow business.

For years there’s been a campaign within the Flow Arts community (and let’s face it throughout the artistic world) to stop accepting exposure as a form of compensation. It places negative pressure on the value of performance and the wider community and I think it’s a good and necessary step to helping more businesses grow and allow people to do what they love for a living.

But I think it also doesn’t go far enough.

This is the 8th year for the Poi Top 10 list!

Once again, manipulation, contact, and poi juggling were heavily represented in the people who made the list with a surprising return to the world of 2-poi now definitely trending.

Sometimes I think we all want to be it, whether privately or publicly. Some of us carry a scar from not being it when we were younger. Some of us got a taste of it at some point and want to drink deeply of it.

But what is "cool?"

The first time I remember being aware of it was in elementary school. The kids who were cool seemed to be free of worry and care. No anxieties, no cares, they were above it all. The topic came up once when the teacher had stepped out of class and I said something that brought the class to a sudden silence.

I've long been a proponent of the idea that talent is either overrated or non-existent but I'm finding it makes for a convenient way to frame something that I've been having a difficult time putting into words for a while now.

Frequently when people tell me I'm a talented poi spinner I balk at the idea. I worked my ass off to be able to spin the way I do. Recently I've gone through this process again by working to integrate dance into my spinning and it's a tremendously difficult process with many dead ends and plateaus.

Discipline

Tell me if this sounds familiar: ever since my early teen years I had a bit of a pattern in how I tackled different skills. I would dedicate myself night and day to learning a thing until I could do it competently. And inevitably I'd crash and burn out. Then I read a book that changed my life.

What’s the longest you’ve ever worked on a single trick?

Not tricks that you toy with--working on them and then dropping them as attention spans and practice time waxes and wanes.

I’m asking what’s the longest amount of time you’ve ever spent focused on learning something new?

First a little bit of context:

Want to be a creator and have something holding you back? What if I told you that what’s holding you back is almost certainly not a dealbreaker?

It’s been nearly 10 years since I began posting my content to YouTube and in that time I’ve learned quite a lot about how content creation. I had no idea what I was doing when I first started out but through trial and error I managed to correct a lot of my own misconceptions and came to realize that the biggest thing holding me back was my own doubts.

We all have a poi story--where we encountered poi and why it became a part of our lives. This is mine:

I first saw poi spinning when I went to my first Burning Man back in 2006.

My first major introduction was at a Wednesday night fire jam at Hookahdome. Sitting in the audience I was enraptured by all the artists spinning fire, regardless of tool or skill level. I remember one woman in particular spinning fire hoop that could do little more than keep it around her waist.

She was my favorite of the night.