Something a little different: I've been trying to come up with some bite-sized chunks of how my work in modern dance has been informing my poi spinning these past few months and here's a small but easy to learn bit that involves teaching your body core to move around in a circle in a way that interacts with your arms in very interesting ways.

techblog236.mp4

This week we go through the basic hip reel turn with our poi in same time, same direction. This teaches a very important concept in poi: when we turn, it appears the direction of poi rotation changes relative to us. Next week we'll go through hip reels in other timing and direction combinations.

turnspt2.mp4

I've been playing some more with the same time same direction patterns Yuta was showing off at Firedrums and trying to apply the concept to stacking patterns. While technically none of these are true stacks, they share some similarities in concept in how the hands change orientation in relation to each other. Going a bit down the rabbit-hole, here is a pattern that essentially amounts to performing a stack in all four directions and alternating between an antispin and extension transition to do it.

techblog93.mp4