Flowers and mushrooms
Lately I've been trying to perfect my flowers and I've come upon some really interesting ideas. The reason I titled this thread Flowers and Mushrooms is because I think theres two different kinds of flowers and this is just the way I termed them. This is my first technical post in a long time so bare with me.
The difference between flowers and mushrooms.
Most of us know what a basic definition for a flower is. Arms rotating 180 degrees apart while spinning longarm. This can be done forwards, backwards, normal or anti-spun, bf or weave and so on so forth. Of course you have turns in there which adds another fun element in. Now the term mushrooms comes from doing flowers that are not always 180 degrees apart instead they are together then 180 degrees then together again. I'll use the points on the compass to show where the hands are positioned.
In a "regular" flower your right hand is at the top North and your left hand is at South. Then you rotate your hands in whichever direction you choose keeping the 180 degrees in tact to create the basic flower pattern.
In a mushroom both hands would say start at South then your left hand goes to West and your right to East. Then they will both meet again at North and then right hand West left East and then back to South. This pattern looks entirely different then the regualr flower pattern and therefore I beleive it should have a different name. I picked mushroom because of the variation using a butterfly starting at South reminds me of something sprouting up and it looks slighty mushroom shaped when captured on film.
Now whats really got me excited is what the mixing of these two moves allows one to create.
If you spin a forward weave flower rotating normally your right hand is going N, W, S, E, back to N and your left hand is S, E, N, W, S again.
The variation I do involves stopping the left hand after you complete one full cycle and bringing your right down from the top (N, W, S) while keeping the left hand spinning down at your side then going into a basic mushroom pattern. Left hand S, W, N, E back to S and your right hand S, E, N, W, back to south. This is one variation I do alot and it looks wicked.
There are so many variations I can imagine mixing these two different patterns together. I can't wait to explore them all. There so much room for experiementing with turns thrown in at different places it;'s going to be a busy summer for spinning for me.
Anyway I hope what I posted makes sense... it does to me but that doesn't mean shite. 
If this was hard to follow I'll try and clear it up this was my first technical post in ages. Happy Spinning!
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Flowers and mushrooms
rovo, if you haven't seen it yet, check out durbs' new video:
http://www.hugbubble.co.uk/Durbs_Fun_pt2.avi
it has weave flowers, antispin weave flowers, bf flowers, antispin bf flowers and some nice mixes of the two (what i think you have termed mushrooms here?).
something i played with at the weekend was quartertime flowers - not only a bitch to work out the timing but it seriously f*cks with your shoulders!
oobapoi preview: x:y flowers
cole. x
Flowers and mushrooms
Yes that does have some of them in it, thanks for the link, it definatly gives me some new ideas.
By quartetime flowers do you mean instead of say a 180 degree separtation only a 90? I know what you mean by them being a bitch, I just put them away for a rainy day so to speak.
Flowers and mushrooms
What I really want to be able to do is take bits & epices from every different variation of flowers and peice it together to make something that doesnt resemble a flower at all. The patterns you could make with being able to pick each flower apart petal by petal would be amazing. Especially when mixed in with other moves. Once I figure out exactly how to do whats in my head I'll have to make a video.
Flowers and mushrooms
that last suggestion has gone some way to redeeming flowers in my mind from just being a move that i think is far too highly thought of.
Flowers and mushrooms
[quote="Rovo"]By quartetime flowers do you mean instead of say a 180 degree separtation only a 90? I know what you mean by them being a bitch, I just put them away for a rainy day so to speak.
Flowers and mushrooms
Whenever I want to learn something enw I';m just gonna write a post cause I've gotten so many new ideas from just typinhg this out.
Turning antispin forward flowers into normal reverse flowers.
And doin what I call mushrooms but instead of bringing the poi together at the bottom bring them together right in front of you and do the pattern. OMG it looks so sweet. I have to go back outside and play.
Flowers and mushrooms
Have never gotten into doing flowers but this thread has definitely sparked my interest. It's always been the choice of practicing wibbles and throws, tangles, flowers, other stuff. In that order. So i spend about 60% on wibbles, 30% on tangles, 9% on other stuff and 1% on flowers.
Antispin flowers look so much better than regular ones.
Coleman, you're right about flower photos cough *woolsey* cough
Splitting wall and wheel plane must be interesting, ie atomic flowers,
Also i was thinking the other day that if you had say 8 inches of solid club with 8 inches of poi on the end you could do add and extra degree of 'spirograph' to your flowers
ie arms go forwards, clubs go backward, poi go forward etc 
Would be an absolute mind bender.
Also is anyone playing with box plane flowers??? Because you can mix arm spinning in wheel plane with poi spinning in wall plane, and so on.
Anyway,
laters,
m
Flowers and mushrooms
[quote="coleman"]
jon - which suggestion is that?
Flowers and mushrooms
:22 Alternatively: everything turns into flowers when you munch shrooooooooms!!!
Flowers and mushrooms
fww : :19
jon: Yeah i kinda agree with you. Flowers never really sparked any great interest with me either. Especially since the flower bloom of a couple years ago coincided with me getting well into wibbling. For me there's no real contest between the2. Wibbling for me wins my attention hands down. But then of course there must be some 'flower wibbles'
They are remarkably hard to get clean, really confusing and can be made extremely elaborate.
I always saw flowers as a means to greater control, rather than a set of moves to learn. I think learning flowers must really improve everything you do with poi. More so than some other families.
Flowers should really be considered in the same realm as isolations. Afterall both are created by changing the radius of the poi. The difference being that there are 2 circles to think about with flowers. So what do 'isolated flowers' look like?
I guess you could say that a your basic spin by the sides is an isolaated flower, sith the big circle being isolated
Or you could make the big circle spin and the little circle isolate.
I think i'll start playing with flowers a bit. This thread has deinitely sparked an interest in me. I thought they were generally over rated as well. But i spose they are pretty much the only tech move to do with fire that an audience would really notice. Not that i do fire these days, nor spin for an audience
ANyways,
laters
m
Flowers and mushrooms
matt: I lump flowers in with antispin and isolations and longarm and other center of spin goodness.. I don't really use flowers that much, nor really make much of a deal about them because I don't see the big deal either.. but.. I see them like a gateway move that segways into concentric patterns.. once you learn flowers, than you can go back an learn squished flowers.. (whihc is how I refer to patterns like antispin weaves, in whihc one tries to condense the antispin flower down into a smaller radius... ) and concentric patterns rock are the key to stuff like the 3d spinning I posted in future thoughts.. I think araqshi will be showing some of that stuff off at uberpoi... whihc I will not be aoround for
Flowers and mushrooms
but i'll be there with the sphercular camcorder
Which you have about a 2% share in
m
Flowers and mushrooms
no I dont.. it was a donation to a worthy cause..
Flowers and mushrooms
[quote="matt"]fww : :19
I always saw flowers as a means to greater control, rather than a set of moves to learn. I think learning flowers must really improve everything you do with poi. More so than some other families.
Flowers and mushrooms
OK, I guess this is as good a place as any to ask this- My 'standard' flowers, turned same direction 'normal' spin ones' are tight, clean and happy. BF Flowers are also pretty good.
Anti-flowers, however are not. I think its because I'm not exactly sure where the poi should be relative to my body as I turn- I'm comfortable with anti-spin and am pretty sure its not just down to me being ame, I reckon theres something more fundamental I'm missing.
SO- Regular flowers, the poi are both infront of me when I stand square (poi are in front wall plane) then switch to one behind, one infront as I turn 90 degrees, then both infront etc.
When I try to anti them, I seem to want to twist the to somewhere it doesn't want to be- as I'm anti-spinning the flower should the poi be behind me rather than infront during the wall-plane beats?
I dunno- I hope that makes sense, I'de really appreciate some help
Chutney
[/i]
Flowers and mushrooms
[quote="Mr_Chutney"]SO- Regular flowers, the poi are both infront of me when I stand square (poi are in front wall plane) then switch to one behind, one infront as I turn 90 degrees, then both infront etc.
Flowers and mushrooms
Oh Balls, looks like I have more work to do...
Cheers James, that'll probably sort me out
Flowers and mushrooms
After I made this post I really started experimenting with flowers and I found 3 different kind of revolving longarm moves. Theres the basic flower pattern where the arms and poi always stay 180 degrees apart, then theres what I call a mushroom where the poi come together then are 180 degress apart then come together again on the opposite side of the body then come apart again, and the third type of "flower" the poi stay together for all four positions of a flower. Now all 3 variations can be spun normal, antispun, in same direction or butterfly, and can all be turned. Plus you can take the parts of each one and intermix them to create really complex flower patterns. I still haven't mastered moving smoothly between each one in all combinations but I see the potential for some really mindblowing spinning coming out of this when added into a flow.
Their are other variations like quarter time flowers and adding petals but I haven't played with 1/4 time much and havn't tried to change the number of petals in the pattern really at all. I still need to work on turning antispin flowers 360 degrees without smacking myself.I hope this post makes sense to everyone else.
Flowers and mushrooms
I'm not sure I understand your flowers :37
Kind of an odd move but the outcome is: 'One petal' antispun = 0 circles.
This is the way I see it:
Arm movements in these moves are independant (as opposed to things like weaves, ttn etc) so the moves are built of what each arm is doing individually.
If you examine the possible movements of a single arm you have two basic possibilities: normal or antispun.
Normal is when the poi and the arm rotate in the same direction (both clockwise / anticlockwise)
Antispun is when the poi and the arm rotate in opposite directions (one clockwise, the other anticlockwise).
Now one of the interesting things about antispin is the nature of the motion subtracts a beat from the base pattern whereas normal spin adds one.
To illustrate this imagine swinging just a big circle straight armed. you have one big circle, no 'petals'.
Now, if you add a normal spin (same direction) petal you have two circles (2 revolutions of the poi/2 beats/whatever) One petal = 2 beats
If you continue this when you can see that your normal 4 petal flower has 5 beats.
Antispin however works differently. The equivalent of doing the first step above (adding a petal) results in your arm going roun with the poi just hanging down from it and not spinning at all.
The next step might be even stranger but I'm not even sure its possible. 'Two petal' antispin = one circle, but the hand would have to be outside the poi head for the whole motion, kind of a head isolation but moreso. I'd love to see it
The next step (3 petals) is the first time you actually see recognisable petals and at your normal 4 petal antispin you get: 4 petals = 3 beats.
This might seem academic but it does mean that a 4 petal antispin flower returns to it's starting point in 3/5 of the time of a normal 4 petal flower.
Untill now I've been talking about single arm stuff so lets add another arm.
It is possible to combine one arm doing antispin and one doing normal spin but if taken to completion this action causes problems as outlined above (The poi would have to be spinning at different speeds or something) so I'm not going to get into that here.
The three basic flowers, these examples should work for any number of petals-
Same direction split time: Both poi in normal spin, same direction, arms at 180* separation. Simple.
(Fully) In time BF Flower:Both poi in normal spin, opposite direction, arms together at bottom, separate out to sides, come together at top, separate out to sides, come together at bottom again. almost as simple.
(Fully) Split time BF Flower:Both poi in normal spin, opposite direction, arms together in front (preferably buzzsaw), separate to top and bottom, come together other side, separate to top and bottom, return to start. My favorite flower.
I put the (fully) bit in because the arm motions and the poi motions are both split/in time. It is possible to spin the poi split time and rotate arms in time or vice-versa with some interesting effects although I'm not sure how this affects same direction flowers
All of the above flowers can be antispun it just means the poi spins opposite to it's arm rotation.
Of course, as always the fun begins when you start chopping these up and mixing the bits together
Rovo, what you are describing as a flower where the hands stay together all the way round I have always called a fountain.(possibly differentiated because of the weave like motion) And when you think about it, in a BF fountain you will allways have one poi in antispin.
And now my thoughts on flowers are all told.
Flowers and mushrooms
Except this one
:
If you count beats in a polar way (pointing in / out of the flower) rather than the normal bouncy way (pointing up / down) then number of beats = number of petals wether normal or antispun. but assuming the same speed of the poi head the time taken is of course still different.
I'm going to lie down now.