So...roll call, how many of us interested in QFT have ever bothered to watch Charlie's videos on the topic all the way through? The one on notation clocks in at an astounding 45 minutes and I'll confess that even though I've been working on the notation system with him for nearly a year, I've never watched the video all the way through. 45 minutes was just too long a commitment to make for something that didn't showcase any spinning and was all theory and instruction.

Alien Jon spins fire Saturday Firedrums 2011

alienjonfiredrums2011.mp4

Alien Jon spins fire Saturday night Kinetic Fire 2011

alienjonkinetic2011.mp4

This past weekend I got to host Alien Jon and Charlie here in DC as we geeked out for several days. We thought it would be an excellent opportunity to record a teacher information video for the upcoming Kinetic Fire Festival and here are the results. My apologies for the audio--I desperately need a better mic.

Kinetic will be May 12-15 in Earlville, IL. For tickets and more information, visit http://www.kineticfire.org

kineticajcharliedrex.mp4

I've got to confess that as much as partner poi has blown up over the course of the past year, I've yet to really see much of the appeal of it. Like degrees of twist, there comes to be a point where the more intricate the movements involved in it, the less graceful and more unnatural it comes off (and therefore, to my mind, the less entertaining to an uninitiated audience).

I had a lot of footage from Firedrums that I couldn't get into the video I made last week, so I'm going to post a couple of the things that wound up on the editing room floor this week. Here is Alien Jon teaching a crowd of eager onlookers (including myself) how to create 6-petal antispin flowers out of pieces we're familiar with from box and diamond mode antispin flowers.

alienjon6petal.mp4

Times are getting exciting for those of us who love poi blogs: there are two new video blogs in town that I'm all about. First up is an Israeli poi spinner who seems to be taking inspiration in equal parts from both the European school of float/pendulum/contact poi spinning as well as the American unit circle schools of thought to create some of the cleanest technique I've yet seen (read: yes, I'm totally jealous of this guy's form ;). PoiBoi's latest blog can be found below. I highly recommend visiting him on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/poiboi07 and seeing his other vids.

Hopefully this isn't too late to be irrelevant, but here's part of a bitchin' spin Alien Jon did the last night of Firedrums in the main circle. Big fan! :)

alienjonfiredrums.mp4