We've wrapped up our third annual Swiss Poi Retreat at the Balmeggberg! It was great fun -- spinning, sauna, and yummy organic food.

Check out our Swiss Poi Retreats album on Flickr for some beautiful photos, and see our vlog from a day of training and play below!

Setting up Poi Headquarters in a lush tropical country can be interesting...

A quick update on the project! Vlog #3 coming soon!

The second blog as we continue to map poi in Bali!

We've fixed up an old house in the rice fields of Bali to serve as poi headquarters while we bring you a bunch of new poi videos and community resources. This is our first vlog of the adventure!

This is a video of G's amazing performance at the SF Decompression Party.

Taal Fiza has recently launched their new album, "Spin Culture," which was produced specifically for the spinning community.

I've had the great pleasure of using Taal Fiza's music in several of my videos, so now it's my great pleasure to tell you to go check out the album! :)

My friend Andrea is again organizing the amazing SPARK Circus project in Thailand. This February a group of 15-20 flow-arts volunteers will bring the awesomeness of flow arts and circus to disadvantaged children in Northern Thailand (especially to the refugees from Burma). This is an opportunity to make the world a happier place while spending time with a group of skilled and loving spinners. To learn more, visit the SPARK Circus website. Note that if you like the project, but can't go to Thailand, you can send them toys or a donation through paypal.

...and I am also happy to bring you the best partner poi video I've seen yet, by Francois, Doro, Tina, and Hannah.

Ronan in one of the best fire spinning videos I've seen in a long time. (Including the amazing video editing and effects!)

..um, the spelling is their spelling, not a typo.

Check out this beautiful video from our recent poi retreat in Bali, produced by the lovely Karen :)

Richee from Czech Republic sent me this video of Mel, a young poi spinner from Russia (where poi has been booming for years). This is definitely the next level of technical spinning! :)

I often mention the Whirling Dervishes as one of my great inspirations. The dervishes are a branch of Sufism, the mystic religion of Persia. They whirl as a form of meditation. Last fall my friend Michael showed me this video of a stylized whirling dervish performance in a popular German talent show. Warning: There are some cheesy commercials at the beginning. The performance is worth the wait though :)

DSDS Videos: alle Castings, Recalls und Mottoshows bei Clipfish.de

I write from a plane to Toronto, exhausted, inspired, and happy.

Alien Jon (contender for world's greatest poi artist), Dan and Teafaerie from flowtemple.org, and Baz just visited me in Costa Rica for 2 weeks. It was great. They were helper elves for the last Costa Rica poi retreat, and then we spent a week shooting photos and videos, playing poi everywhere, and sharing our visions of the future of poi and the flow arts.

I haven't felt this inspired for ages, or so much part of a team. We think the flow arts are currently too scattered between websites, communities, countries, etc. We want to offer tools that allow the community to better share ideas and inspiration, and to better organize events of all kinds. We have some great ideas of how to do this, but I don't want to say much more until we have something to show you.

2 weeks wasn't enough. We will gather again in Europe, at the EJC, to make more inspirational and instructional videos, to get more people involved, and to further plot the resources we want to develop. We'll also make a lot more fun videos of course, and we have some great ideas for leading workshops and events together. Few things would make me happier than having other people to do all this with :)

I encourage everyone to hook up with Alien Jon's workshops and Flowtemple.org if conceivably possible. I can't come to the USA for another 1.5 years, but trust me, these guys have as much to offer as I do, and if you go to their events and classes, that helps them come visit me so we can do cool things for you!

Check out this inspiring video of a chinese dance performance from the opening ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics. It would be mind-blowing even if you didn't know that all the women are deaf (!). Wouldn't it be great to do something on this caliber, except with poi and fire?

Have you heard of TED? It's an annual convention on Technology, Education, and Design, with a focus on making the world healthier and happier. Amazing speakers from many fields are given 18 minutes to make the speech of a lifetime, and they put the videos online.

Elizabeth Gilbert is author of Eat Pray Love, a book about a woman exactly my current age on a spiritual pilgrimage to Italy, India, and Bali. A copy was left in my cabin in Costa Rica, so I finally read it. Last week I watched her talk on TED, and I was touched. Much of my life has been directed by the whims of the creative muse she speaks of, and I found inspiration and refuge in her words.

So, here it is: All ye artists take note!