DrexFactor Poi Blog

2010 Christmas Poi video

The tradition lives on! Here's my entry for Noel's Christmas poi video thread on the Facebook Tech Poi Group. This is my first time using iMovie '11 for video editing and I have to say I much prefer the old version :-P Oh, well...merry christmas, everyone!

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Video Tech Blog #135: Reverse forearm rolls

Yet another contact trick from Ted (if you get a chance, definitely take a class from this kid at Wildfire), this one involves a fun reversal on a contact trick I've been playing with for months wherein after trapping the head, one rolls it down the forearm of the arm that catches it rather than across the opposite forearm. This sets you up to be able to do fun reversals where you can flick the poi back using the cradle-to-forearm roll or theoretically roll it across the forearm of the opposite arm to generate a longer contact surface.

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New python program--this one finds transition points

For the past month I've been working on updating my previous Python poi simulator to be able to point out the position at which the poi is either fully extended or withdrawn from the hand path (in other words, the positions at which soft, hard, and mixed transitions are available).

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Video Tech Blog #134: using horizontal cateye vs iso as a transition

In New York I had a funky breakthrough wherein I realized I could stick a horizontal cateye vs iso hybrid on either end of the horizontal stall stacking move Charlie came up with based upon Mel's pattern at Wildfire. Knowing this, I tied together a bunch of threads from the past couple months using moves that all incorporate this hybrid and thus treat it as a transition tool to get between them. Some cool things came out of playing with this.

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Charlie hits his flow (poi)

Spent the weekend hanging out with some of my favorite poi peoples in the New York City area and on Saturday we hung out in Brooklyn right off Myrtle Ave in a small dance space. At one point we took turns grooving to a mix my friend DJ Sequoia put together months ago and Charlie threw out this session. I've known Charlie for a couple years now and without a doubt, this is the most kick-ass flow I've ever seen the kid do.

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Video Tech Blog #132: triquetra/topstall/pendulum pattern

Continuing with the theme of some fun moves that can be done from the back-to-back triquetra move in wallplane that looks something like a split time same direction antispin flower, here is one that incorporates some elements from tricks that Mel and Poiboi have been playing around with lately: namely when the hands are at opposite ends of the flower top and bottom, you pendulum the top hand and top stall the bottom to align the poi, then reverse this same motion and treat the resulting position as a stall before reversing the direction of the wall plane triquetras.

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Video Tech Blog #131: transitions between triquetra moves

I've had a rather productive week playing around with tricks that are based in triquetras--here is the first one of a couple: this move is based upon the idea that performing back-to-back triquetras in wall plane can create a transition point to a triquetra vs pendulum hybrid on either side of the pattern by conserving the rotation of the two poi when they brush past each other in the middle of the figure. Takes a little bit of finessing to make it come together, but a really cool transition!

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Video Tech Blog #130: Iso vs horizontal cateye as a CAP

Sorry I've disappeared! Last week was really intense and I didn't have a chance to do a video blog. This is based upon a trick Ted from New York posted in a video a few weeks ago wherein he was switching to iso vs horizontal cateye at each of the side petals of an opposites split-time antispin flower. Continuing with the antispin flower means that the hands have to exit on the opposite side of the unit circle they enter from, so you have to exit after half a turn, or add a half turn to every complete rotation of the trick.

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Video Tech Blog #129: The S-CAP

Another one of those funky things that's come out of the Facebook Tech Poi Group: a type of CAP based around an S-shaped handpath. You have to slightly change how you approach the antispin section to put the poi head in the right place. Here I demonstrate a couple patterns that utilize this shape with hands going split opposites. The first one is pretty clean but the second one needs work :-P These also mesh really well with a variant of G's floating triquetra pattern.

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Video Tech Blog #128: horizontal cateye 1.5

On Halloween weekend I got to spend some quality time spinning with some of my favorite spinners on the East Coast. One of them, Baz, came up with this funky move, which I recorded and edited into a video of our fun that day. A few people have asked how it's accomplished--it's essentially a 1.5 weave with a horizontal cateye substituted for a static spin. You can perform this either by having the poi head drop below the other poi head midway through the horizontal cateye, or complete the cateye to keep the move within the unit circle.

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