Here's some quick information about "poi twirling", and other stuff that I do. *Eventually* I'd like to add pictures, video clips, and other cool stuff.
A Brief Discussion of Poi
Simply weights at the end of ropes, poi balls are very similar to bolas. Poi dancing basically involves holding one poi ball in each hand, and spinning them around each other and the body to make intricate patterns. Never themselves used as weapons, poi is believed to have originated with the Maori of New Zealand.
Also known as the purplish, pasty, and high-starch food served in Hawaii, the food poi is made by mashing and pounding the potato-like taro root.
The Polynesian word "poi" has the meaning "to twist or mangle." This definition explains the similarity between the food and the dance; but otherwise one is not related to the other.
Actually quite light-weight, poi was made with flax rope and peat moss as the weight, among other materials. The two common lengths were the short poi, a bit shorter than the forearm, and the long poi, a bit shorter than the entire arm. By Maori tradition it was a woman's dance, but men also learned for the purpose of learning coordination and training as warriors. The longer length matched the spears that the warriors used, and the shorter length was similar to their short paddle-like knife.
Traditional poi twirling techniques were varied, but within limits. Moves consisted mainly of relatively simple weaves and spins, with no under-the-leg movements, and little movement of the feet or torso. The long poi could be held together in one hand, and swung opposite ways in one circle. Perhaps most interesting and unusual, however, is that poi were essentially the only percussion instruments the Maori had. By both twirling their short poi and hitting them against their hands, arms, and other parts of their bodies in unison, dancers provided rhythm and spectacle for the enjoyment of their people.
Poi 'n' Me
Poi dancing is becoming much more wide-spread within juggling and performance groups than ever before. This is certainly a good thing; however, because of the sudden surge of "newbies," and because of biases for or against the original traditions, often the response has been only so-so. Poi dancers are sometimes stereotyped simply as hippies or ravers. Yet, with the same growth of the art, many wonderfully new and creative techniques and styles are emerging, and poi twirlers are continually discovering greater possibilities than realized before.
I learned a few of the basic poi twirling movements nearly seven years ago, while camping with friends and amateur astronomers, and (attempting) to watch the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact with Jupiter in July 1994. This was well before many people outside of New Zealand had heard of poi, and before I had any idea about the history of the Maoris or poi twirling. That said, what I do with poi is certainly not traditional, and most of what I know is self-taught.
I perform with fire poi, glow-sticks, and recently, fluorescent poi illuminated by blacklight, and I have ideas for other materials to use as well. I have a wide range of techniques and movements, from cartwheels, jumps, and under-the-leg moves, to less energetic but equally intricate moves such as wraps and "normal" twirls.
Generally my act has been free-style. When I perform on-stage, I outline the key moves and series of moves that I would like to perform, and then follow that outline as feels fit. This approach can take quick thinking, and often a deep feeling of inspiration, but it also allows for scalability so that I am able to alter my performance on the fly, especially based on audience reaction and my own feel of what I am doing.
When done correctly, this approach allows me to create a new performance outline, go over it a few times, and execute moves faster and more fluently during the performance than I could if the entire act was laid out before-hand and I practiced it the same number of times. This is mainly because the transitions between moves become based on the feel rather than on remembering what the next movement will be. This is not to say that I cannot learn and perform a prescribed form; experience in martial arts has been very helpful to me in this area.
While most of my performances have been alone, I have performed with others, and ultimately have visions of an act with another person, who in a flurry of movement constantly gets entangled and untangled with the strings. I wish to continue learning new possibilities with poi dancing, and to make my performance increasingly more skilled and acrobatic.
Me, My Other Hobbies, and I
I refuse to stop learning. After a long depression in my life, I emerged with a much stronger interest into things not-so-well-known to the general public, including how other people live. Realizing that the world was greater than I could ever imagine, I began training myself to see things from other perspectives, and if not agree with them, at least appreciate their being. In time this has erupted into a great admiration for other cultures and their history, art, music, food, clothing, and all-around lifestyle; not to mention a great many personal hobbies.
The things that I find are like rare gems; treasures that, rather than needing to be hoarded, need to be respected, learned and passed on in some way.
I feel that my hobbies are, at their basic levels, actually art within in a variety of mediums. Just a few of them are woodcarving, writing, 3D modeling, drawing and painting, contact juggling, unicycling, Capoeira and martial arts in general, and building strange science projects. For quite some time my goal was to become a 3D artist. To get myself there, I made my way through the Digital Graphics and Animation program at Bellevue Community College. While working for a local computer software company, seeing people essentially required to work twelve-hour days sitting in front of their computers, and noticing the effects on my own health made me realize that this was not the best career choice for me. Being an artist, however, is still very much my major goal, and I wish to work in a number of different mediums. My art portfolio can be viewed http://www.surrealistic.org/ryan.
This eclecticism is why I have found it difficult to settle into a typical nine-to-five job; but is precisely the source of my creativity and versatility. I wish to work up to a professional level in many of these hobbies.