Meltdowns are a great combination of behind the back (BTB) technique and reel turns that look cool as hell. Here's how you can build up to them piece by piece.

meltdownstutorial.mp4

Behind the head tricks come in a couple flavors: those that are standard tricks with a behind the head flavor and those that are only meant to be behind the head. Here is a series of drills that start to build up this capability and a couple moves to begin practicing once they begin to feel normal. Lots of great stuff that comes out of this!

bthtutorial.mp4

In this installment: planes! What are they, why are we so particular about them, and what do you need to know about them to start spinning? Planes are a concept we borrow from geometry to describe how a poi rotates in relation to our bodies and how closely we adhere to that relationship. For added fun, each plane has two sides, called "plane facing" that you have to keep track of when you turn because every time your body changes the side of the plane its on, the poi will seem to have changed the direction it's rotating in.

wheretostartwithpoipt3.mp4

Never picked up a set of poi before? This is the video for you! This is a video to familiarize you with the hardware and how it can be held. No matter what set of poi you pick up, this tutorial should help you get to know this tool and how you interact with it.

wheretostartwithpoipt1.mp4

Figured out basic turns but still finding they feel awkward? The problem might be in your feet! This is one of those problems that many of us who lack a movement background tend to encounter as we engage with poi spinning--our bodies aren't used to moving at all, let alone in a way that comes off as graceful. Compounding the problem, it feels as though our arms should be leading the way through our turns, but this seldom is good for us either aesthetically or physically.

turnfootworktutorial.mp4

I uploaded a crosser tutorial several months ago, but both the audio and video quality were quite sub-par. I had a gap in my tutorial shooting schedule, so I decided to do a better quality video and hope it's of more use in the long run than the other one was :)

crossertutorialredo.mp4

This week we're going to talk about waistwraps, which are a way of adapting three-beat weaves into a wall plane orientation. They require having your turns in both directions down, but the trick is that you'll always be turning across your body in the same direction so that you stay facing the audience.

waistwrapstutorial.mp4

Here's a fun game I came up with the other day to help solidify one's command of timing and direction: put on your favorite piece of music and alternate 8-counts. On the odd 8-counts, you do whatever moves in that timing and direction suit you and on the even 8-counts you freeze in place and maintain timing and direction no matter where your hands land. Fun challenge!

tanddgametutorial.mp4

Giants are one of those moves that take you out of keeping your hands still and your poi moving and set you up for extensions and flowers, which are essential to many intermediate moves. Here are a few basic exercises that can help these moves make a little more sense. That and they take up quite a lot of room, so they look really cool :)

giantstutorial.mp4

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.

stttntutorial.mp4

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.

stallworkoutpt2.mp4