So if I've uploaded the right video (the computer I'm currently on won't view mp4 videos, so I'm making a guess at which video on the camera is the right one), you should all be seeing a transition from a cross-shaped plane shift to CAP vs. pendulum utilizing essentially an inverted linear isolation and a isolated pendulum to line the poi up the proper way to go into pendulum vs. CAP and back. Really, though, it was just an excuse to shoot a tech blog my first few days here in Kenya. Enjoy! :)

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Dovetailing both on Noel's interesting take on using isolated pendulums in the pendulum vs CAP hybrid and Ronan's pendulum vs cateye transition using the same pattern, there are patches on either side of this pattern wherein we can enter an iso vs horizontal cateye with minimal effort and the results look damned interesting. One can do this hybrid on each side, but the timing switches to come back to the original pattern are difficult to keep track of.

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This past weekend at the PEX Summer Festival, Noel showed me this bitchin' pattern wherein one uses an isolated pendulum on the end of a pendulum vs. CAP antibrid to switch the orientation of the hand to poi lineup. This opens the door for some switches into hybrids, some point isolation switches, and even an inverted pattern based upon one that Charlie was playing with at Wildfire. There's more patterns to be found in here!

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The last day at Firedrums, Alien Jon, Yuta, and I were playing with a pattern I could not for the life of me get: it's a switch that Ronan does between adjacent pendulum vs. CAP hybrids using a move in the middle I couldn't make out (he does it at 3:09 of his BJC performance video). After a couple weeks of futzing with it, I found the solution quite on accident--the middle move is cateye vs pendulum, a bizarre hybrid Ronan taught in one of his classes at Firedrums.

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My last day at Firedrums I got in a one-on-one geeking session with Yuta and he showed me this lovely number. It's funky because it utilizes a type of spinning that we usually train ourselves out of very early on as poi spinners--same time same direction. Yuta's been playing with using this to create funky hybrid flowers similar to the type that Cyrille does with split-time same direction. This also evidently is where the static spin BTH vs CAP hybrid comes from. Enjoy!

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I'm back from Firedrums and managed to get a lot of footage of the event, though not nearly all the footage that I wanted to capture. One of the classes I really enjoyed was Russ's class on hybrids, though I think the patterns he taught us were actually much closer to being CAPs. Here are the patterns from that class--enjoy! :)

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Before I take off for Firedrums for the week, I wanted to post a little tech bit I got the inspiration for last week. We take G's hybrid stall out of the C-CAP as the root of a plane shift into CAPs behind the back and head. Arms are same-time opposites and poi are split-time same direction. Done cleanly I think this would make for a real eye-popping stunt and it sets up perfectly for returning to the original C-CAP in wheel plane.

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I've spent a bunch of time playing with the CAP vs BTH static spin hybrid this past week and realizing the transitions in and out of it are vastly easier than I thought. In fact, one can make a very cool and clean looking transition from either extension or antispin in the direction of the poi straight into this combo and back out. In particular, I like the way this works with opposites split-time.

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Nick Woolsey and G posted a video today that featured G doing a crazy kind of hybrid stall I'd never seen before. I got to playing with it and here is a fun pattern that came out of it, switching between CAP patterns with a split buzzsaw flower.

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Had an interesting revelation over the weekend: thus far all the work I've done on the concept of transition theory (hard and soft transitions) has been restricted to 2D epi and hypertrochoid shapes. While playing with a mixed transition CAP pattern over the weekend, I suddenly realized I could repeat the pattern without altering its character by switching to the plane behind me. Technically, such a transition means going to an ET relative to wheel plane, but it behaves like an IT due to conservation of angular momentum.

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