tech poi

Drex's Tech Poi Blog #248: Kate's antibrid weave

A commenter on my video about the crosser archer weave reminded me of a move Kate had demoed last year at Kinetic and in one of Noel's videos. I dug it back up to see what it had in common with the move I'd just played with. The answer: very little, but it was still a hell of a fun challenge :)

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Drex's Tech Poi Blog #245: Fractional hybrids

A couple years ago when I was traveling through Africa, my host wrote a computer program for me that worked both as a poi simulator as well as a mathematical tool for measuring the distance a poi head travels in each hypo and epitrochoid pattern I could dream up at the time. After comparing a lot of the numbers the program created, it turns out there are some really fascinating harmonic relationships that emerge when you combine moves that normally wouldn't go together as a result of a lack of alignment with either the poi heads or hands.

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Drex's Tech Poi Blog #244: crosser archer weave

Starting with a crosser that unwraps and rewraps via antispin and extension, this trick involves essentially freezing one of the hands on the non-native shoulder to force the other hand to do all the work. In keeping the timing and direction consistent, the result is a body tracer that actually cycles through different positions of an archer weave.

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Drex's Tech Poi Blog #242: shotguns in split-time opposites

A few months ago, I did a video on single-hand wraps (called shotguns) in split-time same direction and same time same direction. I didn't show off split opposites at the time because I didn't know how to make it work, but now I do. The trick is you don't actually complete one of the shotguns! These become more stalls than shotguns, but they still have the intended effect.

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Drex's Tech Poi Blog #241: Integrating horizontal body tracers

Based upon a move in the last Timmehtek video--a nifty switch to quarter time that makes use of a horizontal body tracer. It reminds me a bit of Mel's horizontal SNES move from last week and made me realize that as tech spinners when we tend to plane-break away from the body we have another option open to us. We avoid breaking toward the body for obvious reasons, but integrating this type of transition with a body tracer can have a really cool effect.

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Drex's Tech Poi Blog #240: Mel's horizontal SNES trick

I got a request a few months ago for a tutorial on this trick--it's basically a 4-beat corkscrew with some elements of body tracing thrown in for good measure. Not too terribly difficult when you break it into component bits, but it involves the body in ways that are hella cool to watch.

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Drex's Tech Poi Blog #239: The Fishtail!

When I first saw people doing this, I totally thought this was one of those tricks I'd just let pass me by. Then Kate put out her video of epic awesomeness and I decided I had to add this one to my arsenal. This is an epically difficult move, be forewarned!

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10 Commandments for Tech Poi Spinners

I got inspired to write this today...hopefully you all don't think it's too preachy of me. These are the ideas that inform my own approach to spinning and I think they bear sharing:

1. Learn at least a little bit of everything, even if you think it's silly. Especially if you think it's silly. I can just about guarantee that the technique you think looks sloppy and awful today will produce something in a few months that looks like magic to you and you'll have to go back and learn the basics anyway.

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Drex's Tech Poi Blog #236: Under curves and over curves

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.

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Drex's Tech Poi Blog #235: More third-order antibrids

A follow-up to last weeks video on the triangle third-order antibrid. I started modeling the shapes that are generated by putting various third-order motions over antispin flowers and came up with some intriguing results. Here are third-order antibrids for cateye, triquetra, 4-petal antispin, and an inspin version of the triquetra one.

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