It can be fun and powerful to learn to whirl around the space in lines, arcs, and circles. It brings poi spinning into 3 dimensions. Put on your socks and find a nice, smooth floor, but put down your poi. Now's the time for some serious Poi-fu!
PREREQUISITES
DEFINITION AND PURPOSE
It can be fun and powerful to learn to whirl around the space in lines, arcs, and circles. This brings poi spinning into 3 dimensions.
LESSON
This is how I was taught to whirl by the whirling dervishes: Turning in a circle by keeping the ball of your left foot on the ground, and “stepping“ with the right foot heel to toe.
Start with your feet parallel. Heel then toe to make a “T,“ then pivot on the ball of the left foot to return to parallel.
As you get good at this, start stepping further, to put your heel to the other side of your left foot, so you do a complete half-turn. Notice that you are pivoting on the heel of your right foot and the ball of your left foot at the same time.
Now try with a complete pirouette each step!
Circular Stepping (Rolling the Coin):
Once you can whirl in one spot, you can start to move the whirl through all kinds of shapes on the floor.
Lay your poi on the ground like two tracks. Stand at the handles, facing between the “tracks.“
1) Step your right foot across the centre, to face the left poi, then your left foot backwards across the centre to face between your tracks from the opposite side. Then step with the right foot again to face the other poi, then backwards with the left foot again to return to where you started. Practice this until it feels smooth.
2) Now you can open this up into larger shapes:
You can use 8 points or 16 points to help find consistency, or you can just imagine or create a big circle.
You can also imagine circling around the point in the middle of an imaginary circle,
3) To protect your knees, make sure to extend your heel first, or pivot on your heel
Stepping Along Lines with Partners:
Stepping between between, around around
...basically step forwards, step backwards, inspin circle, antispin circle
CHALLENGES
FOLLOWING AND RELATED MOVES
