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Drex's Tech Poi Blog #266: Timing and direction in antibend toroids

I got a nifty challenge at Kinetic Fire Festival to perform a Zan's diamond toroid in same time opposites but to have the poi phased in same time opposites as well. It resulted in a pattern where the verticals remain in opposites but the horizontals switch to split time same direction. Strangely enough, if you try doing the same pattern in split time same direction both with poi and hands, the timing and direction remains consistent throughout the pattern. I'm taking this to mean that a lot of our rules for timing and direction no longer apply in the toroid world.

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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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Drex's Tech Poi Blog #262: Diagonal buzzsaw weave

Taking elements of a plane-bending move frequently performed by Arashi and Alien Jon, I noticed that this diagonal-planed move had some elements of a weave to it and thought to take this type of movement into a more buzzsaw or notcoleman weave place. Essentially this involves taking the vertical part of the movement and switching it from being on the native side to the non-native side.

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Drex's Tech Poi Blog #257: snaking flowers in split-time opposites

H/T to Thomas Johannson for this one, too! Thomas took the snaking fountain I'd worked up a few weeks ago and took it into a split opposites place. Cool as this was, I also realized it bore some strong similarities to a pattern I've seen Alien Jon do on occasion as well.

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Drex's Tech Poi Blog #256: Thomas's BTB 1.5 move

Another in the wrap-up series from IgNight. This is a BTB 1.5-like move that Thomas "Nevisoul" Johannson came up with that had a lot of appreciators. Like Keith's move, this one isn't hugely difficult but has a lovely elegance to it that I appreciate.

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Drex's Tech Poi Blog #255: Keith's split-opposite float move

A fun move Keith Marshall came up with at IgNight--simple and yet quite elegant. The essential elements are to take vertically displaced hands working in split-opposites and use an extension and float to suggest a moment of split-time same direction before dropping the previously top hand via float into a static spin down below. Ronan, Thomas, and I all totally swooned for this when Keith came up with it.

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Basic Poi Dancing Tutorial: Tangles part 3 orbitals

Capping off our series on tangles with the baddest tangle of them all: the orbital! If you haven't already, check out last week's tutorial on hyperloops because it'll be REALLY important this week (http://youtu.be/XB_Jjh70FDs).

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Drex's Tech Poi Blog #254: 3 approaches to polyrhythm hybrids

This comes from a FLAME challenge: Gina McGrath wanted to see a pentagram vs 2-petal inspin hybrid and Mike Parisi was the first to come up with a solution. I at first thought it was cheating because the hands oscillated between split and same time opposites but then realized what was actually happening was that both the patterns were completing simultaneously. Because the pentagram is a 1.5 downbeat move, it forces the pattern into this type of polyrhythm hand use. That set up a whole lot of exploration for different approaches to polyrhythms.

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Drex's Tech Poi Blog #253: quarter-time from triquetra vs pendulum

This is one of those really obvious a ha moments I can't believe I didn't catch onto earlier: most of the transitions out of triquetra vs pendulum I've played with thus far have been at either the top, bottom, or side positions of the move. But if you attempt a transition at 45 degrees off of the top position, the poi heads are in the perfect position for a quarter-time transition! Here are three patterns that make use of this phenomenon.

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Basic Poi Dancing Tutorial: Tangles part 2 hyperloops

Last week we talked about air wraps and this week we're going to take that same idea and apply it to moving across the body. This is a concept known as a hyperloop and while it takes quite a bit of work to get to, it's a great stepping stone to getting to orbitals.

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