Video!

Not 2-3 days ago, I took another video! Woohoo! Here's MSTRKRFT-Heartbreaker! Make sure to put it in HD. My flowtoys look awfully bright in this one, so I'm not complaining! My new goal is to put up a new video every 1-3 weeks! So enjoy! HERE

FAQ?

Many times I'll be asked, "What goes on the ends of the strings" or, "What are those cords made of?" and "How long does it take to learn this?" So, in short: the next post will be a FAQ, so! Please comment your questions!

Taking pictures of poi

Want to be taking good pictures of your spinning routine?

Like THIS?

Then you're in the right place.

How many times have you tried photographing a quickly moving (or in this case, spinning) object? How did that work out for you?

 If you were lucky, you got something like this

If you weren't, more than likely something like this. Now you may find yourself asking, "What is the PROPER way to photograph poi, Adam?!"

Well, I'm here to tell you. If you want pictures like THIS, then read on.

The first step is to make sure you have a tripod, without one, you'll get unnecessarily blurry pictures, sure, they'll still look COOL, but not as pretty

Picture taken without a tripod.

Now, the second step is find a way to adjust your shutter speed. Shutter speed is how long the camera allows light into the lens for. I reccomend about a 2.5" shutter speed. 

And before you know it, you'll be taking pictures like this!

Happy spinning!

Math in art

Poi is very mathematical, believe it or not! For this post, I'm going to be using flowers for demonstration.(obviously)

take three circles, smash them together, and what do you get?

this. 

Now, take a look at the middle portion.

look familiar?

that's a triquetra!

now take four (crappily drawn) circles

Highlight the middle portion

does THAT look familiar?

you bet it does!

A flower is just a circle folded in on itself, the amount of petals on a flower shows how much it was folded in on itself! For example, a four petal flower has been folded four times, at the tip of each petal. If you took the outside points of a flower, and reversed them, you'd have a proper (rather large) circle! 

Fuel

Many times I've been asked to do a show for a group of people with fire. Most all spinners have. But people don't realize that we need a special fuel! The best fuel to use is generally paraffin or kerosene, spinning with petroleum or fire starting fluid or something of the like is dangerous! Why is this? The latter have a low burn threshold, that is the fumes can ignite just as easily as the gas! However, the former are generally burned for a long duration, and frequently indoors!

In addition to household fuels, there are also specialized fuels for spinning, most of which involve colored flame. Colored flames are a joy to spin with, but boy, are they expensive! Colored flame packs generall run about $30.00 USD

What is Poi?

Poi is, basically swinging weights on strings. After you get past that, however, you end up incorporating light into the picture.So then we had fire poi. Fire poi was invented FAR before glow poi, simply because of the lack of technology. Even seen those Hawaiian fire spinners? Poi. Glowstringing? Poi. Did you watch the rhythmic gymnastics on the Olympics yesterday? Did you see the clubs? Poi! A Meteor Hammer? More poi. If you've taken physics before, you know that string physics is very different than regular, and THAT is what makes poi so mesmerizing!

Types of poi

There is so much variety to poi!

There's glow poi!

Contact Poi!

Fire Poi!

And Steel Wool poi!

Steel Wool Poi, isn't necessarily a type of poi, as much as it is spinning steel wool drenched in kerosene, but it sure is mind-blowing to watch!