We all have this moment: we’re working on something new and unfamiliar and WHAM! The poi hits us.

Some days it’s a minor annoyance and some days it makes us what to tear our hair out and throw the poi down, never to pick them up again.

Even after more than 10 years of spinning, I still have the latter days. I still have those moments when something is so frustrating and feels so unattainable that I have trouble imagining it’ll ever make sense to me.

I've been in the poi community long enough that I've seen several waves of tricks come through that become cool, then passe, then rediscovered all over again.

When I first started spinning, behind the back tricks were one of those tricks that were absolutely essential if you wanted to be taken seriously as a tech spinner. They've lost a lot of that sheen in the past several years but I still see people on occasion doing creative things with these tricks.

2017 was definitely the year of string manipulations and continued our community down the road of fusing poi with juggling. I'm also pleased to see that it is the first year we've had three women in top 10 (can't wait till it's half or more!).

Chris Kelly returned to the top spot after being dethroned by Tim Goddard last year. It should be noted that they were separated by only 3 votes so if this keeps up it'll be anybody's game next year.

The flow arts have grown by leaps and bounds partially thanks to a culture of open source sharing--but that culture may have a darker side. I've seen many online debates over ownership of tricks and a recent conversation with a friend prompted me to reexamine my own stance on the issue.