Poi spinning

Poi is a skill toy. Poi means both a style of performing art and the equipment used for engaging in poi performance. As a skill toy poi is an object or theatrical prop. Poi started with the Māori people of New Zealand, where it is still practised today.

Traditional poi performance, using short style poi

Poi spinning involves using a set of weights on strings. Many people use beanbags in long socks. These are called a set of poi. People spin the poi around their body drawing shapes in the air. LED lights or fire are sometimes used to make the poi easier to see and more exciting to watch.

imtaevi spin LED podpoi

Useful moves with poi spinning

Walk or jump while spinning poi. Do dance moves. Stay in the same place but move the spin image everywhere and in all directions. Move body with poi or arms. If hands go right, move body to right. Spin slow or fast. Straighten your arms. Add difficulty for example stand on 1 leg. Lie down on the ground and spin.

This can help to make many poi tricks:

• Visualize moves that you need to make.

• Drawing simple geometric shapes in air with 2 arms everywhere including behind back and behind head. This will also help to make tricks that require spinning behind back.

• Film yourself on camera and watch this video or use a mirror.
• Divide the trick into steps.

• Close eyes. Pay attention on how you feel.

• If you try to spin trick in 1 hand, you can make your left hand spin what you need. Right hand do random actions. This will be especially useful in hybrid tricks. Because in this way you detach left hand from right hand. After that left and right hand can do really different moves.

• To make hybrid tricks you can pay 90% attention to what left arm spin and 10% attention to what right arm spin.

Benefits, Health, Similarities with other activities.

Poi can develop rhythm, balance, concentration, coordination, grace, body stretches, grip strength and attention. Some poi tricks like complex atomic tricks can develop skill of solving geometric puzzles.

Besides increasing abilities, poi can be useful like a physical activity. Physical activity increases when the spinner spins heavy poi, spins fast, and adds body moves.

Poi can be used as art of drawing shapes in the air. This can be done by taking photos on exposure when the spinner uses LED or fire poi.

Moves similar to moves that produced by spinning poi are in tai chi, French Electro dance (also known as Tecktonik and Milky Way), contact juggling, gymnastic ribbon.

That’s true for tricks like 2-3 beat weave, wheel, butterfly, split time same direction circles.

Creativity

If you came up with moves by yourself it is very good start. It is creative to make your own moves from your imagination without copying someone else moves. If you will continue to make your own moves even till you get lots of experience that is really good approach to reach your spinning potential and enjoy time. Trying someone else moves and following advices will not spoil all that too much if you still have ideas about your own style, moves and you actually implement those ideas in your real life.

Spinning more than 2 poi

When a spinner has 2 or more poi in one hand he or she can have 3 poi or more poi in 2 hands.

This can be useful in these cases:

• When spinner spin 3 poi this can be useful in 3d tricks when each poi spin in different plane. For example 3 poi can spin in 3 planes when each of 3 planes are parallel to different faces of a cube. These 3 planes are called face plane, wheel plane and helicopter plane.

• When spinner spin 4 poi and has 2 poi in each hand. Each hand can make tricks similar to butterfly trick.

Example of very hard 4 poi tricks: Double Fantastic Four (each hand do meteor Fantastic Four)

Connection between 2 poi trick and more than 2 poi tricks.

Let's answer some question to give you more understanding about that. What is your max number of beats for 3 and more poi? If you spin trick with 3 or more poi. One of your left poi + one of your right poi do trick of N beat weave for 2 poi. What max N did you tried or can do? What is number of poi there? Lets say it in different way. In dark place can you do 3 poi trick where you spin 3 pod poi. Next you turn on 2 of those 3 poi so that they are light up. Next image I stay at distance from you and almost do not see your 3rd poi that is not turned on but I clearly see your 2 turned on L E D poi. Each hand have only 1 poi that is turned on. If I will see that you do 7 beat weave with your 2 visible poi then answer to my question is 7. If I will see that you do 5 beat weave with your 2 visible poi then answer to my question is 5. Answer to my question if this is max number of beat that you can do in this way. Your goal is to do max number of beats. It means that 7 beat weave have more beats that 3 , 4 .. 6 beat weave.

Different types of poi

• Fabric poi. A striped sock poi can stretch more when the speed of spin increases. Striped sock poi prevent tangling of 2 poi.
• LED poi. Can have different modes. Each mode have unique drawing from different colors. podpoi 2 is a type of LED poi where many different poi heads are synchronized via wireless connection so that all they will change mode synchronously in a smart way that will look interesting.
• Pixel poi draw images in air.
• Fire poi. They are usually set on fire after soaking in kerosene. Different types of fire poi are monkey fist, twister, cathedral, block, mura, weka.

Other websites

Media related to Poi at Wikimedia Commons.

Wikibooks section about Poi tricks.