Poi Lesson: Basic Stall Drill

One of the slickest ways to transition from same direction to split (opposite) direction is to use stalls. For that reason alone, mastering stalls is an invaluable skill for performance artists, allowing the audience to enjoy the patterns through every transition. If you’re one of those artists who is looking to improve you skill with stalls, the basic stall drill is a simple (though not necessarily easy — especially for beginners) pattern to practice. Below is a table and video breaking down the pattern, step by step.

	NAME	DIR.	FACE	FEET
move 1	circles	OH
transition A	left stall
move 2	circles	SSR
transition B	right stall
move 3	circles	UH
transition C	left stall
move 4	circles	SSL
transition D	right stall
move 5	circles	OH
transition E	right stall
move 6	circles	SSL
transition F	left stall
move 7	circles	UH
transition G	right stall
move 8	circles	SSR
transition H	left stall
move 9	circles	OH

Mastery of the basic stall drill assists artists in developing independent hand movements and invaluable for the beginning artist who finds rubbing their head and patting their belly simultaneously challenging.

Editor’s note: the original video has been lost; you can watch it from YouTube instead.

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