DrexFactor Poi Blog

Notes from my class on transitions

If you came to my class on hard, soft, and mixed transitions at Fall Wildfire, I promised I'd put a digital copy of the handout on my website and I'm a man of my word. Here is both the outline in math and in practice of what constitutes these transitions as well as the "cheat sheet" that maps out the transitions between common hand path sizes and their accompanying shapes.

Class outline
Cheat sheet

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Video Tech Blog #116: More contact poi tricks!

A couple contact tricks from Burning Man that Marvin taught me the last day on the playa. The first is a really cool float throw to cradle and catching the handle on the shoulder before tossing the poi out and catching the handle again. It seems to me like this one is crying out for some uber-cool last step. Anybody have any ideas? The next trick is a Ronan move, catching the head on the shoulder and sending the handle flinging around horizontally to catch it again behind the back.

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Video Tech Blog #115: the CAP/extension thing from last week in wallplane

Remember that funky thing I played with last week that combined elements of CAPs, floats, stalls, and extensions? Well I put it into wallplane and found that just like it's wheelplane cousin, it opens up the doors to lots of transitions to wallplane CAPs, antispins, plane-shifts, and more. This pattern is reminding me more and more of Charlie's concept of totipotent patterns that can switch between timing and direction combinations.

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Video Tech Blog #114: contact poi forearm transfers

An idea I was playing with on the long road home from Africa--contact juggling frequently makes use of transfers between points of the body. I tried finding similar transfers with contact poi utilizing the extra variable of the momentum of the tether and this was the simplest example I could find. It's essentially a transfer between forearms and hand cradles accomplished by treating the handle of the poi as if it is a pendulum going back and forth.

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Video Tech Blog #113: CAP/hybrid wheelplane combos

While I was in Africa, I started playing with a funky pattern wherein one makes like they're going to do a CAP after 3/4 of an extension circle only to use the antispin petal as a stall and pull back out of it into a float. Putting it together with both hands results in a pattern that has some CAP-like qualities but ends in each hand and poi head being pointed straight out from center, opening up some interesting possibilities for transitions.

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Video Tech Blog #112: pendulum vs topstall--lots of variants!

In his "Red Pants" video, Mel demonstrated a trick wherein he alternated hands performing pendulum and top stalls to create a cool pattern that switches between the relationship of hands to each other and poi to each other. Erik reminded me of this trick before I left for the playa and we spent a whole afternoon messing with it at Vulcantown during Burning Man. We added floats, isolated pendulums, plane shifts, and more to it. Here are all the variants I can remember.

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Drex spins fire at Hookahdome -- Burning Man 2010

After the temple burn at Burning Man 2010, a bunch of the firespinners on the playa congregated at Hookahdome for one last firejam. Here I am doing what I think was actually my last spin of the week and personally I think the exhaustion is showing a bit. I'm glad I got a spin on video, though--enjoy!

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Adam Herscheid spins fire at Hookahdome -- Burning Man 2010

After the temple burn at Burning Man 2010, a bunch of the firespinners on the playa congregated at Hookahdome for one last firejam. Here is my favorite Aussie spinner, Adam Herscheid, breaking out some poi to wow the crowd.

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Burning Dan spins fire at Hookahdome -- Burning Man 2010

After the temple burn at Burning Man 2010, a bunch of the firespinners on the playa congregated at Hookahdome for one last firejam. Here is Burning Dan wowing the crowd.

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G spins fire at Burning Man 2010

After the temple burn at Burning Man 2010, a couple impromptu spin jams broke out. Here is G spinning near a beautiful sculpture just north of the temple.

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