DrexFactor Poi

DrexFactor Poi Blog

10 Commandments for Tech Poi Spinners

Sun, 03/04/2012 - 2:03pm by Drex Tags:

I got inspired to write this today...hopefully you all don't think it's too preachy of me. These are the ideas that inform my own approach to spinning and I think they bear sharing:

1. Learn at least a little bit of everything, even if you think it's silly. Especially if you think it's silly. I can just about guarantee that the technique you think looks sloppy and awful today will produce something in a few months that looks like magic to you and you'll have to go back and learn the basics anyway.

Basic Poi Dancing Tutorial: The 3-beat weave

Sun, 03/04/2012 - 12:30am by Drex Tags:

There have to be a million tutorials on how to do this move, but this past weekend in Atlanta I had a breakthrough teaching a student that I wanted to share with you all. I really hate teaching the 3-beat weave because I think that for a "beginner" move it's quite complex and really requires a large amount of physical coordination. Nevertheless, here are two approaches to learning it that I've found to be effective. Incidentally, I'm sorry about the poor focus--I didn't realize there was an issue till I'd gotten the footage home to edit :-P

3beatweave.mp4

Drex's Tech Poi Blog #237: BTB waist-wrap air wraps

Sun, 03/04/2012 - 12:27am by Drex Tags:

Here's a move that came out of a skill exchange I had over the weekend with Charles Hinton in Atlanta. He showed me a nifty pendulum-based move that was designed to teach BTB air wraps. I didn't have a lot of luck with the pattern as he'd laid it out, but I decided to work out a different approach to air wraps behind the back and have had some limited successes.

techblog237.mp4

Basic Poi Dancing Tutorial: Flowers part 5

Sun, 03/04/2012 - 12:24am by Drex Tags:

I'm wrapping up the poi flower series with this vid on antispin. Antispin could really be its own video series entirely, so I'm just giving a couple different approaches to creating antispin petals in this video and letting people take the exercises used in the previous videos in this series to extrapolate the different timing and direction combinations. If you'd like to see a full series on antispin, please let me know!

flowerspt5.mp4

Drex's Tech Poi Blog #236: Under curves and over curves

Sun, 03/04/2012 - 12:18am by Drex Tags:

Something a little different: I've been trying to come up with some bite-sized chunks of how my work in modern dance has been informing my poi spinning these past few months and here's a small but easy to learn bit that involves teaching your body core to move around in a circle in a way that interacts with your arms in very interesting ways.

techblog236.mp4

Drex's Tech Poi Blog #235: More third-order antibrids

Sun, 03/04/2012 - 12:14am by Drex Tags:

A follow-up to last weeks video on the triangle third-order antibrid. I started modeling the shapes that are generated by putting various third-order motions over antispin flowers and came up with some intriguing results. Here are third-order antibrids for cateye, triquetra, 4-petal antispin, and an inspin version of the triquetra one.

techblog235.mp4

Basic Poi Dancing Tutorial: Flowers part 4

Sat, 03/03/2012 - 5:28pm by Drex Tags:

This week we're following on the heels of last week's lesson on split-time same direction flowers with some split-time opposite flowers. The good news is that if you got the split-time same direction flower down, this one is considerably easier.

flowerspt4.mp4

Drex's Tech Poi Blog #234: Third-order antibrids (antispin/antispin)

Sat, 03/03/2012 - 5:26pm by Drex Tags:

This is something I saw Alien Jon demo when I was home in Colorado for the holidays--it combines third order motions (fractal flowers) with traditional flowers to create antibrids that move through space. Damien would call these antispin/antispin movements and I believe Mel, Poiboi, and a few others have demonstrated similar moves.

techblog234.mp4

Drex's Tech Poi Blog #233: Toroid H stalls

Sat, 03/03/2012 - 5:24pm by Drex Tags:

A follow-up from the toroid H concept from a couple weeks ago. This takes the same concept, but makes the toroid a ball instead of planet mode toroid and creates a cool stalling pattern out of it. Short but sweet--it's cold out there!

techblog233.mp4

Basic Poi Dancing Tutorial: Flowers part 3

Sat, 03/03/2012 - 5:22pm by Drex Tags:

This week we're tackling the Mt. Everest of inspin flowers: split time same direction. We'll use a similar approach to building this flower that we have in the other videos, but split-time variants require a bit more kinesthetic difficulty than any of the same time variations, so the road there is likely to be a little bit longer and take a bit more work. Next week: split-time opposites!

flowerspt3.mp4

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