An interesting property of wall plane insides that Alien Jon showed to me while I was in Boulder for Christmas: the arms analog to an airwrap is a 4-beat windmill or watermill and in theory this is just a truncated version of a hyperloop/inversion. Jon pointed out to me, though, that when spinning clockwise with the crosspoint pointed down (as it would be in an airwrap), the only watermill one has access to in wall plane has the left hand leading.

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Performing an introverted weave forces the planes into an atomic configuration, but it got me to wonder if one had the option of choosing what the atomic configuration would be. I went ahead and tried to produce a weave analogous to an introverted weave but in a H vs V  (horizontal versus verticale) arrangement rather than V vs V (vertical versus vertical). The result not only worked wonderfully, but also demonstrated there are two variants on this move: one for each direction the horizontal poi can rotate.

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While on the surface not terribly different from a thread the needle in same time, a thread the needle in split-time (also called split-time opposites) produces a small problem for the performer in that it doesn't present a dominant hand until one hand is crossed over the other. Thus, to perform this move successfully is to switch between positions in which the hands are crossed over each other rather than simply on top of each other as in same time.

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The past few weeks I've played around with a lot of toroids and inversions on this tech blog--here are some ways to work between some of the patterns we've played with. Arashi likes to think of there being harmonics that share specific points within a circle. You can simplify this concept slightly more and just say that there are some vertical planes and horizontal planes and each represent opportunities to bend between each other.

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Charlie had a nifty way of looking at what we do in weaves and inversions in terms of creating a series of three lanes and how they interact with the body. You can see his full breakdown on Poi Theory, but this is my own interpretation inspired by it: namely I think you have to see the body as a static object around which you move the lanes. Here are a couple concrete examples of this idea in action.

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Charlie Cushing's company LanternSmith has really carved itself out a rather unique niche among poi spinners for creating really comfortable and functional handles. The company's latest efforts are similar in form factor to PX3 knobs but are made of silicone and are wonderfully soft and grippy. Here, Ted Petrosky and I review the handles after an afternoon spent playing with them. You can pick them up here: http://www.lanternsmith.com/poi_ropedart_meteor/pom_grip.html

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Wraps are a nifty tool for switching directions and all-around looking cool that poi borrows from the glowsticking and nunchukus worlds. Here are some basics as to how they can be performed and what they can be wrapped around to create nifty effects your audience will dig!

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Graph theory is surprisingly integral to a lot of patterns that we play with--essentially any time you're dealing with a number of points you're trying to hit in a given sequence and repeat them, you're using graph theory to solve the problem. Here's a little bit of history as to how graph theory came to be and some helpful hints that may help you solve those pesky poi patterns. :)

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Part 2 of the stall workout series! This time we'll be going through all the antispin stalls, which wind up being different because the stall goes through your body core rather than around it.

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A couple weeks ago I uploaded a tech blog defining various terms related to a discussion I was having with Alien Jon and Arashi on the Poi Theory group related to inversions and the like. I biffed it a little on defining plane facing, so here is a correction.

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