locking the poi (and then releasing them)
for the last few days ive been playing with ways to lock the poi heads together so that (with fire) you go from spinning pretty circles to stopping the the two heads (bits on fire) dead together by entering into a knot tangle from a buttefly (hyperloop). its a nice way to break the flow and make the audience go 'eh?'. ive been practicing with socks, but ive found the tricks easier to do with chain poi. of course practice everything with unlit fire poi if thats what youre going to use.
first off
from outwards butterfly. the left hand is above the right.
if you think about the poi spinning round a clock, as the left poi comes up from 6'o clock, stall it. ie: just after the poi head moves past the bottom of the circle. move your hands slightly apart, about half a standard computer keyboards width. as the left poi looses momentum and begins to fall, the strings of the poi will make contact, as the other poi, the one in your right hand is still goin at normal speed.
make sure that at the point the strings collide, your right hand is held above your left
heres the tricky bit. the plane of the right poi will change as its chain collides with the chain of the left poi, and it will start to swing round in the direction of your body. a second later, and the left poi will follow it.
now...
remember you moved you hands apart earlier? the right hand is above the left.
as soon as you see the left poi move towards you, move your left hand so that it is directly below your right. if you time it right, you should have jsut made a knot in your poi. this is because the left poi passes over your left arm.
if you leave your hands where they are the right poi will hit your left wrist. however if you move your left hand hack to where it was as soon as the knot if formed (below and to the left of the right hand) you will stop the poi dead. now its just a matter of practice to get that knot as close as possible to the poi heads as you can.
next
ok, so the next one is harder to explain and harder to do because you need to use the momentum of the poi to create the swing. this time, inwards butterfly. the left hand is on top
as the poi move from the top (12 o'clock) of their circles to the bottom (6 o'clock), place your left hand to the right of your right wrist, slightly down your arm, towards your body. let the left poi string wrap round the right wrist. now youre not going to let that happen to do the move, but get used to moving your hand to that position and letting the poi swing round
the next stage is harder to break down.
if you were facing a clock the left poi would be moving in the same direction as the hands on that clock. at six o clock, (the bottom of the circle), your hand is already in the position practiced above. the right hand hasnt moved, and wont move for the whole trick.
when the left poi, moving clockwise, hits quarter to, the other poi (in right hand) will be a quater past (albeit that its moving anticloclwise). to be clear, when you see the poi at this postion, YOU start moving. the time it takes you to react will ensure that at the moment you move tHe poi are both slightly past the quarter to/quarter past position
so, we see the poi at quarter to/past, and then move the left hand to the left by about a half keyboard,and away from your body away from you right hand by a few inches. also make sure that youmove it down so that it is slighty below the right hand. the first two stages of the motion of your left hand cause the chains of the poi to meet and the direction of the poi heads to change. the right poi head, is the one that makes the knot. after the chains meet it will swing to the left. by moving your left hand away from the right and out away from your body, you allow the right poi head to fall between your arms.
once you can make the knots, all you have to do is move your hands progressively further apart until you can make the knot right next to the heads of the poi. this will stop the heads dead together. the closer your hands are when you make the knot, the closer the knot will be to your hands. this means that when you link the chains together, the poi will keep spinning in the direction they did when the chains met and they will consequently wrap round each other. the effect can also been cool, but not quite as jarring as a dead stop
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locking the poi (and then releasing them)
so, once you have practiced the inevitable multiple ways of doing the trick (from inwards/outwards butterfly, right hand on top/left hand on top), start putting the trick in different places. this next stage combines the dead stop with a release under the leg. a releaseis basically when you release the handle of one poi, then catch it again (i think.....).
so off we go.....
first of all practice this move:
do a thread the needle from outwards butterfly. now, when the 'threading hand' (moving down your arm towards your other hand) gets to your elbow, stop the hand underneath the arm and let it wrap round your elbow joint. just like last time, youre not going to let this happen, but get used to letting the poi move in this way.
so, now you are going to move both hands. the left poi here is moving anti clockwise. at the moment that you see the poi get to the 12 o'clock position, you are going to start moving. this means the poi strings will collide at about ten past and ten to.
so at 12 o'clock, move the right hand back in a straight line and the left hand forward in a straight line. this should cause a knot to form inthe poi. if its not working, try moving the left hand forward and to the left a bit
its all all matter of timing, and if youve got the previous two moves down, this third should be ok. once youve got it, practice it on the other side
locking the poi (and then releasing them)
so now, you are going to do that exact same move but one hand goes under the leg. we are working with the outwards butterfly right hand on top.
so this describes how to do a dead stop and a suicide release on the right side, under the right leg. start with you legs shoulder width apart. start off the old butterfly, r-h on top. think about how last time, using the tread the needle, we used the elbow as a reference point. do the same here.
depending on your level of flexibility, you might need to arch your back forward. now as the poi in the left hand reaches just past 12 o'clock you need to do two things.
first extend your right hand so that it is as far from your body as possible
next lift your leg so that your thigh is as 90 degrees and to your body (if your body was upright and not hunched over a bit), and your calf is hanging vertically down. practicing this move will hurt if you dont stretch before hand, and even if you do, so make sure you are warmed up
now pass the left poi under the leg. your left hand should be in a verticle line with your right elbow. now as the left poi comes up , past 6'o'clock, then (remembering its goiong anticlockwise) to quarter past and then to 12'oclock, you will nitice that its doing exactly the same thing as it was with the dead stop from thread the needle. the only thing thats changed is that your leg in in the way, and the poistion you are in is loads more awkward. all you have to do now is wait till the poi are both just past 12'o'clock, and move your hands in exactly the same way you did before. pull the right one in, and the left one, extend out and to the left a bit. this ones quite hard to get because of the awkward position, but stick at it and think that its exactly the same as what you practiced before, but with your leg in the way.
so, once you can make the knot on both sides, youre ready for the suicide part of the move.
locking the poi (and then releasing them)
so youve made a knot, and the poi heads are together. the closer the poi heads are the better because when you releas one of the handles you dont want a lit wick getting in the way. this bit of the trick doesent work well with sock poi because of the elasticness, so ive been practicing with unlit (obviously) fire poi.
so standing with your leg in the air, your poi together, and your hands roughly opposit, you release the poi in the right hand, and as you do, pull your left poi into an inwards circle. the poi should remain attached, and the handle of the right poi will swing in a large arc over to your right. you just need to catch the handle. so, you release the handle as you pull the poi into and inwards circle, straighten up your body as you put your leg down on the floor, and while doing that lief your right hand up to be level with your left. you should find than handle sails right into your hand.
then unlock the poi and carry on spinning
locking the poi (and then releasing them)
This is something I'm going to need to read at home when I can actually practise it at the same time - cheers for putting it all down though!
locking the poi (and then releasing them)
so ive now got the release down with socks about 70 percent of the time. the trick in all these locks is to make the poi lock with the two heads next to each other. making a knot is (relatively) easy, but making it precisely is damn hard. i just cant get enough of the under the leg release at the moment tho. how you findin it spiralx?
peace
locking the poi (and then releasing them)
Spiralx- is this similar to what BovrilMonkey was doing at Spitz a few weeks back, with a tangled/ stalled airwrap? He then spun the whole thing about like a solid piece, though technically its a suicide.
locking the poi (and then releasing them)
that sounds like another way of entering into the same thing for the suicides or the knots. you can get into the knot more easily from a loop coz you just pull the chains apart till the heads are apart. what limits this a bit is that there is only one 'knot' and it comes apart quite easily. if you went in from a hyperloop you should be able to secure the poi toether a bit more and spin the two poi like a unit for an extended time. with this you have to maintain the knot. havent playd with this much tho.
locking the poi (and then releasing them)
Not sure... still haven't had time to read all of this - it's been a busy week!
locking the poi (and then releasing them)
got the knoting buisness down well enough to do it with fire confidently. moved on to playing with throwing both handles in the air from a knot, catching them both with one hand, spinning it round, throwing it about, and then untangling back out into two separate poi. since ive been getting into wibbles, ive also been trying to wibble the two poi, chains together but it hurts a tad at the moment.
locking the poi (and then releasing them)
Just a quick note, can we please not refer to moves as suicides and genocides like diablists do. For starters throwing a poi or releasing the hand stick of a diablo is not very difficult and secondly there are people in the world who have had close experiences with suicide and i'm sure to them it seems a little rediculous to compare a juggling trick with death. As for the name genocide in diablo, just unnecessary.
(btw i've never known anyone commit suicide)
but all the moves above sound great
m
locking the poi (and then releasing them)
fair play there man.
peace
locking the poi (and then releasing them)
Matt- points taken though I would ask what you propose instead. Plus, speaking as someone who has had prety close proximity to suicide, I can't say I ever aligned the two.
Not trying to nitpick- but I don't really see the issue and as much as anything else, getting a word out of use is extremely hard to do.
locking the poi (and then releasing them)
Yep i hear ya chut. In diablo a suicide is equivalent to a release in poi. Genocide in diabolo is continuous (rather complex) suicides.
I've only had time to skim this thread. Are you using the term suicide to describe a specific thing or are you talking about a 'Tangle Release' and a 'Tangle Toss'. If it's specific then maybe it's useful, if it's either of the later 2 options then i think they are much better cos they describe what it is.
Also a diablo suicide has nothing to do with hyperloops, you literally just let go of 1 handle, spin it 360 and catch it again. In poi this is an outwards release.
The thing that gets me about suicides in diablo is they are rediculously easy but sound very difficult.
m
locking the poi (and then releasing them)
I think the thing here is realising we're talking about the poi bcoming knotted together at the headsby stalling an airwrap or something similar.
This leaves you with the handles in hand and the heads permanently together until you spin them in such a way that they untangle. From hear, should you release one handle, you can swing the whole lot as one and they recatch or whatever you fancy- this is where the similarity with Diablo comes. I have to say I wasn't aware that genocides where continuous releases- I though suicides were single handle releases, and genocides were both.
Does any of that help?
locking the poi (and then releasing them)
think there might be some confusion here. chut, the original post is not in anyway connected with stalling an airwrap or hyperloop. the effect is to bring the poi from spinning independant circles to come to a dead stop by creating a knot which forms right next to the heads of the poi. you could get to the same thing from stalling a hyperloop or airwrap but the effect wouldnt be the same. the 'knot' isnt a knot as such, its more a way of balancing the heads in such a way that the poi are kind of locked together, but not in a way so as you can throw them about without them unlocking. you have to control the throw (which isnt difficult) so that the heads stay 'locked'. maybe a video would iron things out because we could well be talking about exactly the same thing but understanding the concept differntly. ho hum... anyway, ill try and put something up as soon as i can get my mits on a camera....
peace