basic

Basic Poi Dancing Tutorial: Behind the Back part 2

Last week we worked out some basic exercises to acclimate the body to behind the back spinning--this week we'll work on the behind the back weave. Fundamentally this weave is identical to the standard three-beat weave but requires a little bit of practice to adapt to a behind the back position. Here are a couple exercises to get you there.

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Basic Poi Dancing Tutorial: Behind the Back part 1

Behind the back tricks are one of those bellwethers that can take you from basic to intermediate spinning, but it can be a huge kinesthetic challenge to get to a point where these types of tricks can feel stable and in control. This week we'll start off with some basic exercises to teach control of behind the back movements before playing with behind the back weaves next week and meltdowns the week after.

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Basic Poi Dancing Tutorial: C-CAPs

CAPs are a great transitional move that can be used to spice up hybrids or even just on their own. They used to be considered pretty technical, but I've seen a lot of people nail them within their first year of spinning. This is the method I've seen most often succeed for teaching beginner or intermediate spinners how to do them and it's inspired by a method for teaching triquetras I saw in an old Alien Jon video.

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Basic Poi Dancing Tutorial: Throws part 2

This week's tutorial covers throws that minimize the rotation of the poi, from float throws to plane-shifted throws, and finally no-beat throws. There's also a bit of inspiration here for how to play around with this type of movement and some of the fun things you can do with it.

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Basic Poi Dancing Tutorial: Throws part 1

Part 1 of a 2 part series on how to do some of the most basic throws/releases with poi. This particular one is on throws where the poi continues to rotate after the release, including isolated throws and what I'd call "flower" throws. Next week we'll cover basic float throws and the like.

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Basic Poi Dancing Tutorial: Contact forearm rolls

Contact rolls are one of my favorite moves. Here is a breakdown of how to do them on both the inner and outer forearm. They take a little bit of work, but they're a great tool to have in your box :)

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Basic Poi Dancing Tutorial: My first hybrid

The very first hybrid I ever learned! Here is a quick tutorial on how to perform static spin vs extension. These lessons will serve you later when you get into more complex hybrids, but I think this is a fairly easy entry into this type of spinning :)

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Basic Poi Dancing Tutorial: Crossers

By request: Nick Woolsey actually did a great tutorial on crossers a couple years ago that I think really did an amazing job of summing up how to get the move down. Here's a breakdown of the move that incorporates his advice plus a couple bits aimed at people who may be more beginners than his video was aimed for.

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Basic Poi Dancing Tutorial: turning with antispin flowers

By request! How to turn with antispin flowers! It's not as hard as you'd think--if you've done my tutorials on basic turns with poi you'll be right at home as you work up to this type of trick. You're basically looking to execute a tic-tac and then perform a petal in between each one. Expand out the size of your hand path and voila! You get turns with antispins :)

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Basic Poi Dancing Tutorial: Top stalls

My tutorial on stalls weeks ago left out one very important option: top stalls. After several requests, I've done a tutorial just on that type of stall. Here are three different approaches to learning the technique.

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