9-square theory

Tech Spinning in the Flow Arts

Last week we talked a bit about the concept of “flow” as it pertains to the Flow Arts. This week we’re going to talk about a concept that is sometimes considered to be the flip side of that coin: tech spinning. This is the place where the geeks and obsessives hang out, so if you’re into math, science, or even just deep rabbit holes, this is the place for you!

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Video Tech Blog #84: Octagonal patterns

In a strange bit of zeitgeist, I ran cross the same idea from two different poi spinners who I'm relatively sure had never spoken of the idea between each other this past weekend while I was in San Francisco. When dealing with 4-sided polygons in spinning, as one tends to with antispin flowers, elliptical CAPs, and any 9-square theory items, you wind up with two similar but difficult to transition between patterns: box and diamond mode. If we expand these out to octagonal figures, however, the issues switching between modes diminishes significantly in complexity.

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Video Tech Blog #62: Mode transitions in 9-square

 After working through trying to do a mode change in same direction with Charlie's 9-square theory, I came up with an interesting solution that involves using soft transitions across a unit circle grid to switch between box and diamond mode. The idea for this is centered on isopops from hooping and more specifically how you can change circle size by treating them as adjacent circles rather than dilations of the same circle. Included is a demo of how this technique can be used to switch between iso vs cateye antibrid to static vs triquetra antibrid to iso vs extension and back again.

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