A lesson on plane shifting including basic components, building blocks, and a few examples. In honor of a departed member of the poi community.

tutorialplaneshifting.mp4

At Wildfire, Charlie and Baz came up with an interesting pattern that switches between right angles similar to some stacking patterns Ronan demonstrated earlier this year. I noticed that one side-effect of the pattern was that it forced the poi head to follow the length of the leash when switching positions, and started looking for other patterns that exhibited this same characteristic. Here is the first one that I've found.

techblog119.mp4

I got a lot of emails and comments last week asking me about a trick I had done during my performance at Wildfire's performance class last Sunday, specifically the one I'd done at roughly 2:30 in it. Here is an explanation of the move--it's a variant on Charlie's 8-step CAP pattern used as a transition between same time same direction hybrids and the wall plane antispin flower that's really a pair of triquetras that I tend to overuse frequently in performances. It's not earth-shattering, but I like the effect of it :)

techblog118.mp4

Over the weekend at Wildfire, we played around some more with Mel's top stall vs. pendulum pattern from the "Red Pants" video. Charlie found an interesting inversion of it wherein the leading hand performs a float rather than a topstall, making the internal alignment on each side a hand to poi relationship rather than hand to hand, thus allowing you to drop out of the move into static spin vs extension or a host of other moves. Even better, it's totally easy to switch between both variants.

techblog117.mp4

With only a few days to work on it, I pulled this performance together for Wildfire's Performance Class on Sunday night. There were a couple rough spots, but ultimately I think it was a decent routine for the prep time I had.

drexfallwf2010.mp4

Charlie, Ted, Erik, and I took to the practice field Saturday night to break out a few 4 person patterns. It was a bear and a half to get them synchronized, but when we got them they looked positively amazing.

4compositefallwf2010.mp4

Ted and Charlie play off some awesome tunneling/composite moves at Fall Wildfire 2010.

tedcharliecompositefallwf2010.mp4

This is Charlie busting it out on Saturday night at Fall Wildfire. There's totally some tech here I barely understand (despite his best efforts to teach me ;). Overall a really kickass exploration of poi.

charliefallwf2010.mp4

This is Ted spinning on Saturday night out in the practice field at Fall Wildfire. Some great flow and great tech--I really loved watching him spin this weekend.

tedfallwf2010.mp4

A couple contact tricks from Burning Man that Marvin taught me the last day on the playa. The first is a really cool float throw to cradle and catching the handle on the shoulder before tossing the poi out and catching the handle again. It seems to me like this one is crying out for some uber-cool last step. Anybody have any ideas? The next trick is a Ronan move, catching the head on the shoulder and sending the handle flinging around horizontally to catch it again behind the back.

techblog116.mp4