Greetings, Flow Artists!
Welcome to another exciting edition of Tutsday, the tutorial series brought to you by the Flow Arts Institute.
This week’s clip features one of my doppelgangers, my little brother, Chris Von Stickerson, I mean Stopherson, and was shot at Kinetic Fire 2016 by the amazing Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Emily Bradley. Chris lives near Philly, PA but can largely be found spinning at many Mid-Atlantic and East Coast flow arts events. Chris was recently one of the workshop coordinators for the Philadelphia-based FAI festival, Fahrenheit.
In the video, Stopherson breaks down a useful hand switching Poi hybrid called a Pendulum vs Antispin in Diamond Mode.
Let’s get started.
The prerequisites for learning this combination are Split/Opp 4 Petal Diamond Mode Antispins and Pendulums.
Once you are comfortable with those concepts, the real fun begins.
For the first part of this, swing your Pendulums in the Together/Same timing. As you move through the Pendulum, make sure to pay attention to where each hand falls on each side of the pattern. Your hand should be in the front on it’s non-native side and in the back on the native side. (It is useful to use 2 different colored Poi heads to help differentiate which is which)
Antispin the poi in your front hand (non-native side) upwards and back to it’s native side. This should put you in the Split/Opp timing.
Then, Pendulum downwards back to the non-native side.
Chris mentions that you can effectively drill this pattern by practicing with one hand at a time.
Simply make an upwards facing Antispin petal, followed by a downward swinging Pendulum back to your starting side with each hand until you are comfortable moving through the pattern.
Another drill for this pattern is to go back and forth with the same hand hitting the top petal, while the other hand keeps performing the Pendulum portion on the bottom half.
When you have these comfortably, try to switch which hand is performing either the Antispin or Pendulum portion of the trick when your hands cross on your sides. (Remember, this is Split/Opp)
Chris mentions a way to remember this technique is to keep in mind that you will constantly be switching hands. Every time that your hands meet, they will switch between front and back, left and right, top and bottom, and Antispin and Pendulum.
How neat is that?
If you would like to follow Chris, you can do so on Instagram and on his FB Fanpage!
Special thanks to SizzleBird for the awesome music and to Jason Fields and Emily Bradley on the FAI media team for putting the video together!
Much love for reading this. Have a great whatever you’re having! <3
-Sticky