Weird Science :: Drex's Poi Blog

For years there’s been a campaign within the Flow Arts community (and let’s face it throughout the artistic world) to stop accepting exposure as a form of compensation. It places negative pressure on the value of performance and the wider community and I think it’s a good and necessary step to helping more businesses grow and allow people to do what they love for a living.

But I think it also doesn’t go far enough.

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I've long been a proponent of the idea that talent is either overrated or non-existent but I'm finding it makes for a convenient way to frame something that I've been having a difficult time putting into words for a while now.

Frequently when people tell me I'm a talented poi spinner I balk at the idea. I worked my ass off to be able to spin the way I do. Recently I've gone through this process again by working to integrate dance into my spinning and it's a tremendously difficult process with many dead ends and plateaus.

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What’s the longest you’ve ever worked on a single trick?

Not tricks that you toy with--working on them and then dropping them as attention spans and practice time waxes and wanes.

I’m asking what’s the longest amount of time you’ve ever spent focused on learning something new?

First a little bit of context:

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Want to be a creator and have something holding you back? What if I told you that what’s holding you back is almost certainly not a dealbreaker?

It’s been nearly 10 years since I began posting my content to YouTube and in that time I’ve learned quite a lot about how content creation. I had no idea what I was doing when I first started out but through trial and error I managed to correct a lot of my own misconceptions and came to realize that the biggest thing holding me back was my own doubts.

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We all have a poi story--where we encountered poi and why it became a part of our lives. This is mine:

I first saw poi spinning when I went to my first Burning Man back in 2006.

My first major introduction was at a Wednesday night fire jam at Hookahdome. Sitting in the audience I was enraptured by all the artists spinning fire, regardless of tool or skill level. I remember one woman in particular spinning fire hoop that could do little more than keep it around her waist.

She was my favorite of the night.

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A couple years ago I decided I needed a hobby.

I spin poi full time, creating videos and content and while I love getting to do a thing I enjoy full time it also taught me the value of having a thing in your life that you do casually and don’t necessarily need to invest yourself completely into.

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The flow arts have grown by leaps and bounds partially thanks to a culture of open source sharing--but that culture may have a darker side. I've seen many online debates over ownership of tricks and a recent conversation with a friend prompted me to reexamine my own stance on the issue.

About a month ago I was sent a very special package!

A company in Atlanta called Mayday ATL is now making fire safety blankets that they hope will make the venerable duvetyne a thing of the past.

Their new blankets are made of aramid fibers, so they're both naturally fire resistant as well as machine-washable. In addition, they feature a trim of reflective material to make them easy to spot in the dark and embroidered personalization.

I decided to put Mayday ATL's blankets to the test in this review--see what I thought of them!

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I spent most of the year choreographing it and I got a lot of requests for a video that was just my performance of this piece without the tutorial around it. Here it is with some minimal edits--I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed choreographing it!

I remember one of the biggest hurdles when I started spinning poi: there are SO many tricks to learn.

How do I know which ones to focus on?

I didn't have a very structured learning environment, so what I learned was a hodgepodge of what looked cool, what my friends told me I should learn, and what tutorials I could find online.

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