Teddy brought me this challenge a couple weeks ago in New York City--turning with one-handed 1.5s. It took a lot of work and there's a lot of places where it can tangle terribly, but hopefully the end result is close enough for government work ;)

Drex's Tech Poi Blog #384_ One-handed 1.5 turns(1).mp4

This was one move from Kate and Keith's 3-poi video that I found particularly confusing given that all the poi were the same color, so puzzling out which poi was doing what couldn't happen until I saw someone else doing the same move in real life. That guy was my friend Willow, who showed me the technique you see in the video for putting this move together. It bears a lot of similarities to Nicky Evers' wavy weaves and requires a knowledge of thumb-led reverse meteor 2-beats.

techblog354.mp4

Out in Malcolm X Park, I wanted to practice integrating a couple things I'd been playing with into normal flow to see what would happen. These items include the stall patterns I've been working with lately like 3D stalls (with some Yuta-style patterns), and improving my stance and footwork so my lower body is less wooden when I perform. For reasons I can't explain I seem to be blowing on something very hard every few seconds and for the life of me I can't recall why. Hopefully this vid gets flamed less than the last time I posted a video of myself playing with flow.

flowpractice5-17-09.mp4

Starting off with the horizontal variation on the figure 8 I did last week--which actually turns out to be the easier variant. Also, a couple stabs at combining the vertical and horizontal figures with mixed (read: little) success. Also, based upon a discussion on tribe, some attempts at 1.5 hybrids, which I'm making some progress with, but having a difficult time working out a 1:1 rhythm with pendulums and any other type of motion. Finally, learning to turn with butterfly antispin flowers in wheelplane.

techblog29.mp4

Very short blog this week...DJ pointed out to me last week that the CAP, flower, and isolation patterns I've been playing with constitute a variant on unit circles wherein the direction of the poi change with the direction of the hand, thus creating a grid with extensions and isolations overlapping each other rather than extensions, cateyes, and isos overlapping each other. Also, I've started playing with 1.5 patterns that use cateye rather than static spin patterns. The first one resembles a hybrid I've seen Alien Jon do.

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Whoops! Camera ran out of batteries! Fortunately I think I got everything I wanted to capture before it died. Contained herein is a cool switch from the Mercedes to a CAP pattern, last week's 1.5 mutated into an anti-spin butterfly flower, playing with extensions, and a funky idea for a trifoil 1.5 flower...needs to be cleaned up, however.

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More isolation exercises this week--mostly in wallplane. Also a more in-depth examination of the 1.5 pattern from last week and how to turn it into a turn.

techblog18.mp4

I've officially gotten fed-up with my sloppy isolations and have begun what I'm sure will be a very long process of cleaning them up properly. I've dug up every iso exercise I could find, invented a couple of my own, and have been practicing them daily. Beyond that I've been working on getting both hands to do cateyes in all the different primary motion categories--this one, too, is going to take a while. The one thing I do have that looks pretty is an interesting 1.5 combo Lucas from Richmond cooked up that is inspired by double-staff spinning.

techblog17.mp4

I think I was mistaken on my categorization of the 1.5 pattern from last week--nonetheless here are some interesting patterns that came from it. Plus: more buzzsaw flower patterns--this time with hands going split-time opposites, more hybrid practice, and patterns with both hands doing trifoil flowers.

techblog13.mp4

The 1.5 pattern in Mireneye's video a few weeks ago gave me a devil of a time and now I think I know why--I think it's a different type of circle-pendulum combo. Here's some theory as to what I think the difference is as well as demonstrating the two in a variety of positions and a couple really odd patterns this experimentation led me to. Plus an update on the hybrid practice technique from last week and I start to play with inversions.

techblog12.mp4