Advanced

Welcome to Advanced poi spinning! Mind you, this is not the most advanced portion of instruction on this site. That would be Uber Advanced. But nevertheless, here you are. There are so few of you! And yet, there is so much more to learn.

As you grow more skilled at poi, it becomes more and more of a choose-your-own type of adventure. You’ll find skills that you’re not interested in learning, and some that spark a fire that lead you to original patterns. Maybe you’ll be the next person to explore inversion variations, or explore every permutation of atomic weaves!

Whatever your future, you must know that it’s important to have fun. Keep playing. This may be natural for you, but most of us have a hard time when we get better at something. At this point in the progression of a skill, you are increasingly faced with yourself and your ego. These little pieces of advice really can’t be stated enough, and they’re sure to keep you learning and preserve your happiness and the sanctity of your practice:

Don’t compare your skill to others, and don’t let it affect you if you do. Sure, you may be ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than someone at poi. But what does that really matter. Is that really how people are valued?
Remember, it’s just an object. Don’t get bogged down with conventions. There’s not really a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to spin. If you think of everything too technically, you might be confining yourself. And with that said…
Tech Matters. While conventions and frameworks can be limiting, they can also be hugely beneficial. Good study of tech and breaking down poi movement and technique are essential to growing in skill.

Wow. We could go on and on about principles like that, but let’s leave it there for now. Let’s get started.

In a less essential order than the intermediate and beginner series…here is advanced poi!

Linear Extensions…your intro to wall plane tech

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Feel good about inspin and antispin on the wall plane? How are those transitions? So many shapes…

In case you don’t already know at this point, and you almost certainly do, Drex has about the most extensive collection of original poi content out there. Do yourself a favor and visit his site to fill your brain with poi, or just say thanks.

VTG (Vulcan Tech Gospel) contains the fundamentals of tech poi. Get to know the concepts well. Here are a couple videos to help you on the way:

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There are countless videos of tutorials, tech blogs, etc out there exploring the vast world of tech spinning on the wall plane. Get the VTG App, talk to your friends, explore the transitions between each timing/direction with your hands only and then with poi. Dig deep, my friend. Explore!

‘Hybrids’ is a vast world that basically means creating multiple different shapes at a time with your poi. Here is a good intro:

Poi Hybrids

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Not enough for you?

If you’ve already played a lot with poi tosses and that didn’t whet your whistle. Here I am with a very extensive recap of tossing concepts.

Now let’s touch on another vast world: Tangles. Conventionally, people start with hyperloop transitions. If you don’t already know the standard hyperloop and airwrap, go learn them!

We’re going to build our foundation with the butterflap.

The Butterflap

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Yes, yes, I know. She was calling it the butterfloop. But it’s actually a butterflap. Here is an explanation.

Get the butterflap down! It will help you with all future tangle explorations.

Let’s check out some more concepts of body space spinning. “Negative Space” is a term that simply refers to any hole you create with your poi. Adam Kemis is pretty much the master of negative space techniques. Here is a recap of his brilliant workshop from Pacific Fire Gathering 2014.

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Now that we’ve tried negative spaces, let’s go somewhere difficult by weaving within them:

Inversions by Drex

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Let’s take a moment to go somewhere special. Here is a good example of how poi spinning can be thought of according to many different conventions. Charlie Cushing has developed a really fascinating way of connecting unit circles in tech poi:

9-Square Theory