Musings on hybrids and soon to move

So I know there's been comparatively few updates recently and this has been especially frustrating given that some updates have disappeared in the past couple days as I've tried to work out why my blogger account has stopped feeding videos to my iTunes feed.

The good news is these issues are nearing their end. The bad news is that it means I'm having to transfer all my content over to my own site. This process should be done by the end of the week, but in the meantime has meant I'm cutting and pasting a year's worth of video and written blogs to a different site. It's extremely time-consuming and annoying, but at least I won't have to worry about the technology failing on me and I can expand the content however I see fit.

That aside, Alien Jon recently posted a message on the Home of Poi forums asking for requests for poi tutorials and he's gotten a lot of good responses--one of which stuck out to me in a way I wasn't anticipating.

While I got down all the isolation vs. extension hybrids of the unit circle model months ago, I've been struggling to find an adequate way to describe a good use for them. Indeed, I rarely find I use them in flow spinning at all, though the unit circle grid hints tantalizingly at the potential for the model to offer easy flow between hybrids.

Admittedly, this is a narrow interpretation of the concept, however. After months of trying to understand Olive's post on "hybrid math", a five-minute conversation with him at Firedrums cleared up my confusion and I suddenly realized that hybrids existed in a far greater depth and scope than I had imagined. And it's based upon this understanding that I throw out an interesting idea: what if hybrids can be thought of as the "transition tools" between timing and direction combinations?

One of the fundamental properties all hybrids seem to possess is that they can be viewed as occupying two different timing and direction combinations simultaneously--the standard hybrid of iso vs. extension with hands together can be viewed as either split-time same direction if one continues the motion of the poi or same-time same direction if one continues the motion of the the hands. Likewise, the triquetra polyrhythm hybrid vs. extension can be viewed as either same-time opposites from the perspective of the poi or same-time same direction from the perspective of the hands.

Viewed in this light, hybrids then become the "missing link" tool that beginner and intermediate spinners constantly ask for to ease their flow. This begs a few interesting questions: are there any hybrids that do not fit this paradigm, ie, cannot be viewed as at least two different timing and direction combinations? Also: is it a given that we go through a hybrid to switch between these timing and direction changes or are there other methods?

More on this to follow...

A double dose of tasty tech, Part 2: featuring Insignia

Two weeks ago at Boom Boat, Insignia showed off some spherical CAP ideas that really sent me back to the drawing board to see what was possible. Here are some of those ideas rendered, plus some more fun stall switching patterns and head orbit play.

Flow Practice 8-8-09

Waiting for an oil change gave me a perfect chance to try out some flow! Not terribly dancey or big in footwork, but there are some cool experiments with pendulums, wraps, and LOTS of plane-changing here. Not all of it works terribly well, but there are some cool transitions in here. Also--some attempts at dropping the spherical CAP pattern into flow. Enjoy!

Tech Video Blog #37: Yuta stalls with floats, hybrids, cateyes, and more footwork

More fun with Yuta stalls! Specifically, it turns out that they work just as well with floats as they do with top and bottom stalls, opening the door to doing them in tandem with isolations, extensions, hybrids and cateyes. Also, some more footwork and danciness inspired by nightanddaydance's excellent response to my last blog. Had to trim a couple tricks out to keep it under 10 minutes, but they should be making an appearance in a later blog.

Fun with Yuta stalls

It's my dirty little secret that I've been working my ass off on my stalls to make those Yuta-style plane shifting stalls cleaner. While I can do them just fine if my right hand is on bottom, when my left hand is on bottom, the horizontal plane wobbles a depressingly wide amount. An interesting exercise I began playing with today was doing a pair of top-stalls, Yuta-stalling behind me, coming out as though in a bottom stall, bottom stall again, Yuta stalling once again, and coming out as though from a top stall, then reversing the whole thing.

I doubt that makes much sense written out--when I video it, that should help clarify. In the meantime this leads to another cool place: if one approaches the zero points in between the plane shifts from the perspective of being the apex of a pendulum stall/float, some fun possibilities start to emerge, such as using Yuta-style stalls to switch between hybrids--no bullshit!

If one is doing the standard extension vs. isolation hybrid poi in same direction/same time motion, you can use the point where the poi are coming up from the bottom of the circle as the point of stall/float and go straight into a Yuta stall around to the other side of your body. Once there, you just have to let your hands drop to go into another hybrid or you can switch spinning same time/same direction static spin or isolations just like you would with a normal Yuta stall. I haven't practiced a lot in front of mirrors, but so far it looks like switching from hybrid to hybrid is slightly problematic because the poi don't have enough momentum behind them to stay horizontal at the end like they would in a standard Yuta stall, so switching between the standard Yuta stalls and hybrids looks to be the more efficient way of doing this.

Needless to say, this also opens up the possibilities of doing the same thing with floats! :)

Fun with stalls and hybrids

Interesting move combo finds me while I finish up a one-pager on Twitter strategy for work: from same-time opposites do simultaneous top-stalls that stop with the hands right next to each other. Continue the movement of one while isolating the other the opposite direction it just came from, in other words switch to the "split-time" iso vs. extension hybrid with hands together. Playing around after I finish the one-pager shows it's possible, though without a mirror I reckon it's quite sloppy.

Playing with this reminds me of a combo Baz demoed at Firedrums: split-time opposites flower spun in antispin stalls out to a top and bottom stall to one side with the hands separated by a poi length. One continues it's original direction all the other reverses, thus leading to the "same-time" hybrid where the hands move split-time. I try it now without the antispin flower. The hand on bottom does a vertical float and comes back down the same direction as the other hand, thus leading to the same hybrid--cool! :)

While I'm playing with these another 3D pattern starts to form in my head. for this I do a top and bottom stall from split-time opposites, Yuta-style and stall it in corkscrew plane around me to emerge on the other side and rather than going straight back into split-time opposites, I reverse my stalls to make the top hand top stall and bottom hand bottom stall, then horizontal stall back to the other side and allow the poi to complete their paths up and down on the opposite side, thus switching into same-time opposites.

That makes absolutely no sense written out :-P

It's beginning to dawn on me that I should warm up with horizontal as well as vertical plane-bending globes at the beginnings of my practice sessions if I continue to play this much in corkscrew plane.