Another fishtail-based move from Kate's video a few months ago. This one incorporates a fishtail with a tic-tac on the other hand to create a weave with one hand performing the afore-mentioned contact move. Watch out--this one is even harder than learning the original fishtail was!

techblog269.mp4

I've demonstrated the unicursal hexagram on this blog before, but it's only been recently that I've been able to perform a more regular hexagram--the type that looks like a Star of David with a pair of overlapping triangles. Here are two approaches to making it. One has one point up and one down and the other has the points out to the side.

techblog268.mp4

This was an interesting discovery based upon messing up a trick I was trying to do: there's a great way to take horizontal body tracers and use them as an entry point for negative space combos and contact rolls.

techblog267.mp4

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.

techblog266.mp4

This past week at Spin Summit, I noticed Kyle Ford from Chicago doing a really cool toroid-inspired move that struck me as a great use of the technique that was simple and eloquent and would jump out to an audience quite easily. Here's an adaptation of the technique, slightly techie-fied, of course ;)

techblog265.mp4

Sorry about the crap audio--my mic decided to go on the fritz today, I'm afraid :-P Here's a couple interesting ideas that came out of a brain decompression with Alien Jon at Spin Summit this past week in Colorado. I've been trying to sort out the difference between inversions, introversions, and their various brethren, but Jon suggested I instead focus on the cross points generated by different combinations of moving the poi between the arms. It resulted in some pretty nifty shapes, so give this one a whirl.

techblog264.mp4

Yeah, so I totally missed a step with last week's video on inverting the introversion. There's a bit that feels quite a bit like a barrel roll that comes after performing the introverted weave that adds a whole other layer of complexity to the movement. Here is the full move demoed. Good luck to those of you who opt to take this one on--it's a bear :-P

techblog263.mp4

At the close of Spring Wildfire, Christian and Baz cooked up this little gem that utilizes some in between spaces. What's curious about it to me is the way it takes atomics and allows you to flatten them into two very different timing and direction combinations depending upon what angle you approach them from.

techblog261.mp4

Following up on a great suggestion from TZ Rogers, Charlie Cushing and I spent the last couple fire festivals working on coming up with a way to use Lanternsmith's handles for fire poi. The benefits are that the silicone handles feel great in the hand and because they glow in the dark they're difficult if not impossible to lose. To achieve the weight I prefer for my handles, we wound up cutting a handle in half but it's worked out well enough Charlie is going to start molding handles to that form factor.

techblog260.mp4

This move is a funky idea Charlie had at a spin jam at Koi Pound after Kinetic Fire Festival: use some body tracing hybrids in such a way that they stack together to produce a fountain-like motion.

techblog259.mp4