Poi Fire Dancing Spinning Performance & Twirling (Hoop Staff Fans Also)

Wow.

What an utterly cool experience walking into Borders (only the one in Bloomingdale’s mall right now) and finding my postcards there. You can see them in this photo.

I’ve been threatening to write this piece for months and I’m finally taking a moment to sit down and do it. After FireDrums and talking to a lot of my students I got really clear that this article might be useful for some folks who assume that because someone is a skilled technician with their tools, they can also teach.

For years we have made jokes with students about teaching saying that if someone shows you a move and says, “All you do is this…” they are not really teaching you anything. They are showing you something. Now I grant you, for highly visual learners, as well as intuitive learners or systems engineers or just really geeky flow peeps, this technique will garner some success. As a matter of fact, I would guess that most of the self taught individuals out there who have a vast repertoire are really people who are coming from the place of being able to look at something and break it down in their head, even if they don’t consciously know they are doing this. This skill, called modeling, is something we all learn from a young age and we have been doing it all our lives. Some people just really are good at modeling. These people, however, are the ones who are most able to learn on their own.

In contrast, there are a lot of students/artists/practitioners out there who are not adept with this ability. And for those people, someone showing them a move and saying, “All you do is this…” isn’t really going to give them the steps necessary to learn a move. A classic example: the behind the back weave. I mean, all you do is do the same thing you did in front of your body behind your body still working with the same basic cross over and the same basic side planes. Yet, if it were that easy, why doesn’t everyone do it right after you explain it? Or at least understand it?

The answer? Because all of our minds work differently.

As someone who has spent the better part of my time learning how to work with all styles of learners since I started the Temple in 2002, I have made a study of different techniques that work with different types of students. Someone having the ability to stand there and have the skill and technique necessary to do a move does not mean they also have the ability to teach the move to other people because teaching and technique are different things completely.

For one thing, some students prefer to see the move and other students prefer to feel the move while still others prefer to hear the rhythm of the move. And even as we each may have a preference, it is also true that we all use each of our senses to some degree to learn.

Essentially, a technician is someone who can perform the move. A good coach can speak to all your senses and actually break down the move in a way you can comprehend. A great coach can speak to each student in the way they can understand it best and does not require the student to meet the teacher where they are at because a great coach meets the student where the student is at.

An amazing coach can do all of this and even teach things they have not mastered themselves — even Tiger Woods has a coach and he’s ranked number one in the world. His 2003 coach Butch Harmon, isn’t a well known golfer. So if he’s not a good golfer, who is he? “In 2003 Harmon was ranked the top golf teacher in the United States in a poll of his peers organized by Golf Digest magazine, and has repeated as winner of this honour each year since.“

Here’s a set from the Bahamas when we were doing an impromptu performance after our real performance got canceled because of weather. I had hurt my knee — you can even see the bandage under my pants on my left leg — so it, sadly, impacted the quality of the set. I like the set, but more because it was fun to be there with my Pyrotechniq friends than because the set was super amazing although I think this was the first set in which I performed front/back CAPS (where one hand stayed in front doing the cap while the other stayed in back, using side planes). It was also fairly early on in my use of the front plane CAP combinations and the behind the head double stall barrel roll combination. And I also think the premier of the 2 petal split direction flower turn around I do in there toward the end. It felt solid on a lot of levels, but I was hurting and limping while performing which really wasn’t the most fun.

Please note, sometimes you have to wait for the video to load to see the video even though you can hear the soundtrack. Also note you can get this on the Temple of Poi PodCast for GlitterGirl’s Practice and Performance videos.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (20.3MB)

In an effort to be even more environmentally friendly and accommodate all types of tools, here’s the new Temple of Poi spin out technique for permitted events (a version based on what I used with Pyrotechniq when we were in the Bahamas) that required no dry wall and meets SFFD regulations (best as I understand them).

The fuel area:
All dipping buckets and catch buckets are placed on top of trays (aluminum trays with a lip on them) so that any excess fuel does not contaminate the surface underneath. All fuel can be recycled to the buckets by pouring them back in; thus, it is ideal to have two trays under each bucket — one to recycle, one to catch recycled fuel. These are then disposed of after the show.

Spin out:
Each tool is placed in a baggie and then spun out. The baggies are ziplocked closed and, in as much as possible, hold only the wick so the fuel does not splatter on the rest of the tool. Large/unusual size tools (like swords) can use garbage bags if necessary, though, generally, squirt bottle application not requiring spin out is best. After the tool is spun out, the excess fuel then gets recycled to the bucket.

Process for each tool:
Fans and hoops get one ziplock baggie for each wick. Best to use sandwich baggies for these. All of these can be applied at once and the tool can then be spun out.

Poi (rope dart and meteor) heads can both be put into a 1 gallon ziplock and spun out at the same time. Some poi ropes might require a 2 gallon ziplock, depending on the size.

Staves should be handled one head at a time, or, if you’re doing double, 1 head of each double at a time. Attach the ziplock bag to the head (1 quart to 1 gallon, depending on the size of the head(s)), close it as much as possible. Then, grabbing the staff from the other *non fueled* end, whip it around like a baseball bat several times to get the excess fuel to spin into the zip lock baggie. Recycle fuel, dip other end, and repeat.

What you’ll need (all of which can acquired at Safeway or Costco or something like that):
- 1 box sandwich baggies
- 1 box 1 quart baggies
- 1 box 1 gallon baggies
- 1 box 2 gallon baggies
- possibly tall kitchen bags, depending on tools. Highly recommended use squirt bottles not dipping method.
- 2 catch trays per dipping bucket (therefore, 5 buckets needs 10 tray)

This is a fabulous groovy iMix that included a few more tracks initially including 3 Banco de Gaia tracks off their “10 Years” double disc — Disc 1: Kincajou and off Disc 2: Shanti (Black Mountain Mix) and Desert Wind (Featuring Ofra Haza); From Sasha’s “Involver” Album there is also On My Own and Burma; The Future Sounds of London come in with Cascade off the “Northern Exposures (Disc 1)” album; K&D bring Original Bedroom Rockers off the “Hackers” soundtrack; The Crystal Method bring “Bound Too Long (Hyper Mix)” off CSII Exclusives - EP; and finally, enjoy Outputmessage bringing you their track, Sommeil.

I’m always looking for interesting mixes to do flow practice to and this play list created by Genius is awesome. Sadly, the iMix won’t include all 25 tracks — which makes no sense since the Genius feature only works with tracks it has knowledge of, so it should allows you to purchase all the tracks.

All the same, I’ll put all the track details here I can for the missing 11 tracks as well.

If I were to categorize the genre of music on this track, it most definitely is Psy influenced — with some heavy leanings toward works including Simon Posford (7) — and a sizeable break beat influence with 5 Bassnectar tracks. That alone accounts for 12 of the 25 tracks. The rest is an interesting mix of lounge style music, up beat and progressive tracks with an underlying theme, overall, of Psy-Trance or Psy-Bient.

The set, first, is based off a really fun live Infected Mushroom track Shakawkaw off the
Streched album. Also off that album is The Beauty & the Beat and also by Infected Mushroom is Elation Station off Converting Vegetarians (CD2).

Bassnectar shows up a few times with Intro and Laughter Crescendo off Diverse Systems of Throb then with 2 tracks off Mesmerizing the Ultra, Bursting and Blow and with Yo off of the same titled album.

Vibrasphere shows up with Erosion and Ensueno both off Exploring the Tributaries and there are two Younger Brother tracks off The Last Days of Gravity called All I Want and Happy Pills. These are all tracks I like but had never really flowed to, so it was great to have Genius pull these out for me.

Single Tracks by artists include:

• Sasha has one track, Boileroom
• Roll Your Own from the Paris - GU30 (Remixes)
• some old school Prodigy from the Hackers One Love
• Beyond the Senses by Astrix from Artcore
• From Aftershock by Aphrodite there is Ganja Man
• Kashmir Day Trip by Enthegenic off Golden Cap
• Off Global Underground 006: Sydney (Disc 2) is some Paul Van Dyk with Words (PvD’s “Four Love” Mix)
• Madras by what is labeled as artist Global Experience off the compilation In Search of Sunrise 6: Ibiza

Hallucinogen has 2 tracks off Hallucinogen The Lone Deranger called Demention and Gamma Goblins Part 2 and finally, Shpongle shows up with 3 tracks. Two are from Nothing Last… But Nothing is Lost: When Shall I be Free? and Outer Shpongolia and then Around the World in a Tea Daze also shows up off Tales of the Inexpressible.

All in all, this is a fun iMix, even if iTunes isn’t showing all 25 tracks. Hope you enjoy!