Talk:Poi (juggling)

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see: Talk:Poi_(food) for discussion prior to spliting from Poi (food)

[edit] Wide popularity where?

The last paragraph needs clarification it states: "Today, poi swinging is seeing wide popularity." Is this within Maori culture which is what the first two paragraphs deals with, or within New Zealand culture or globally? Htaccess 01:30, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Globally. adamrice 20:34, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

I can add some corroboration in that fire poi is quite popular at Warwick University in the UK. PeteVerdon 00:28, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Confirmation again. It's fairly popular in Sheffield, UK too. I know aeveral people that do it. --81.174.244.104 00:51, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Definitely globally. There are even people here in Taiwan who do poi and fire poi.--59.121.207.47 06:22, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I know nobody in the southern california area that even remotely knows what this is, or finds it interesting. sorry... really, nobody i know, whether at college, school, parties knows about this. i believe general public is an overexaggeration —Preceding unsigned comment added by Larrygoroundz (talk • contribs)

[edit] revert on 18 oct 2005

I have reverted the latest edits. Although they were clearly well-intentioned, they failed the NPOV ("beautiful" = value judgment, even if I agree) test, were too sweeping (comments not true of all poi spinners, or even a majority), and would better be discussed in the firedancing article, since the comments could equally be applied to staff, fans, etc. I'd suggest something along the lines of "firedancers often infuse their performance with techniques from various martial-arts or dance traditions, including African dance, belly dance, capoeira, tai-chi, etc." adamrice 14:10, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

A lot of recent edits have had NPOV problems or excessively conversational tone. I am trying to clean up. This is not a how-to guide but a general introduction. If you want to write a how-to guide, we've got wikibooks for that adamrice 15:24, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Home of Poi link

I am going to restore the HoP link. Although it is certainly a commercial site, it also has a very lively forum and a lot of non-commercial resources.

I believe the comment above is by adamrice. Adam, in reviewing links from Wikipedia it appeared that every page remotely related to fire spinning, glowstick twirling and the like had a link to Home of Poi. Home of Poi is a commercial website with lots of resources but there are now other active communities that have just as much information and less commercial focus. e.g. Spherculism, Tribe, etc. I'm open to discussion on this point but for now I'm going to remove links to Home of Poi. Fireguy 06:04, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

With all due respect, while Home of Poi may happen to contain a shop, it's more a community oriented website. It's also the largest and (probably) most influential poi community in the world, with members there coining phrases that are now in most poi spinners' vocabulary ('Hyperloop', for instance). The commercial part of the website is more for the convenience of others (being as equipment sold elsewhere can often be flimsy and poorly constructed. Further, it has a comprehensive amount of general information (including fire safety) and seemingly the single largest collection of poi photographs available on the web. No offence, but to exclude it seems slightly foolish. Being based in New Zealand, the community is, to all intents and purposes, the home of poi. --Xanthine 09:38, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Xanthine, I agree that Home of Poi is an excellent resource and that at one point it was the primary source of information about Poi (juggling), but my point is that there are now quite a few other websites that do a great job of providing instructional, historical, or safety information without a commercial focus. As well Poi has become more popular over the years and there are quite a few reputable web based businesses that sell well made poi / twirling toys. Where do we draw the line in providing links to commercial websites? Should links be added to all the commercial vendors of poi products that have some sort of community offering? Or is it only Home of Poi that deserves this because in your opinion it is the biggest? Or because in your opinion the products they sell are better than those sold elsewhere?

I am reviewing the home page of Home of Poi and it is clear that the commercial part of the website is more than just a 'convenience'. The store is well integrated throughout the site, there are 11 links to the store from the home page, it offers coupon codes and affiliate programs, international conversion rates, over a hundred products, 10 payment methods including all major credit cards, it is a limited liability company, and it offers wholesale pricing, I'm fairly sure that if we asked the owner of Home of Poi what the majority of their time was spent on it would be handling the commercial part of the website, not building and developing community. I've left the link for now and I'm quite interested in your thoughts, as well as any other opinions out there Fireguy 04:17, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Rest assured, my friend, I fully understand your concerns. I simply feel that HoP is a noteworthy website even inspite of it's commercial content. Personally, I would draw the line at websites with no community or informational content, or where such content is minimal. Consider the website http://www.firetoys.co.uk - This site is simply an online retailer and any information therein is purely associated with the products they sell. As such, it is an inappropriate link. On the other hand, the website http://www.domorepoi.com is in the process of setting up a small store to help fund the hosting and administration costs of running a forum. What those products are is fairly irrelevant to this discussion. http://www.poipoi.info has a shop (first link in it's navigation bar). It's link is still on the wiki page and a number of people allege that their products are sub-standard.

This is all, of course, opinion. I just feel that HoP is influential enough that we should include it in this instance. Oh, and by the by, you may wish to consider including http://www.soton-firespinning.co.uk on the list. Or not. But I'll leave that one to your discretion. =)

--Xanthine 14:37, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I have to say that I have been spinning fire since 2001 and I have been an active member of the HOP community since that time. Yes, Malcolm Crawshay, who runs the site, does run the HOP store. Yes, there are links to the store from the community site. Malcolm is an honest businessman who does not ever require or solicit business from community members. His main interest is the integrity of the community and the art. His livelihood is selling safe fire gear. In fact, I consider having a link that contains the store to be important for safety reasons. HOP goods are well-constructed and safe. I have never heard of a HOP product failing during proper use. I have had products from other retailers fall apart in mid-spin showering audience and fuel dump alike with embers and sparks. If readers are going to seek to buy goods, then I'd rather they go to HOP, which offers lots of information on safety and proper technique than other sites. No other site, not PIP, Soton, Sphereculism, or any other has quite the collection of information on fire arts that HOP has. The link needs to stay. MikeGinny 05:09, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I relucantly agree with you. HOP has a lot of information in one place, and is the 'starting point' for a large number of people. It has notability in spades. I'll take a little issue with your suggestion that the store should be there specifically for safety reasons, I have seen HOP gear fail under use due to questionable design and assembly choices. I'm not saying HOP gear is dangerous, but there is better to be found out there. Phidauex 14:32, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] An Apology

Sorry for any lack of NPOV on my major edit of this article -- I must confess, I'm not particularly experienced in writing articles, and it's tricky when you're passionate about a subject. My intention was, and still is, to provide a more enlightening entry for Wikipedia. Previously, this acticle actually said nothing of poi in relation to juggling culture and it's place in modern society.

And incidentally, it was never intended to be a "How-to" guide. Simply a discussion of techniques employed by many people in what is generally a do-it-yourself hobby. --Xanthine 15:34, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] safety

Are you sure that the wording on the safety section is right? I would advise anyone to have a go on practice poi first, not encourage any novice to try fire spinning without someone more experienced there, and fire equipment in case.

That section was put in by a crank (User:65.165.130.1) and has slipped under the radar since. Will edit. Thanks for pointing that out. adamrice 17:33, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merger

I think the article Fire poi should be merged into the fire poi section. The fire poi article is about the same size as the section in the poi article. Also much of the background information is relevent to both normal and fire poi, so the fire poi article will either repeat large ammounts of the poi article, or leave users uniformed if they do not then find the poi article. Poobarb 13:23, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. No point in that being a separate article. adamrice 15:35, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. (one place where me too posts are useful!) Htaccess 13:37, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. RomanSpa 01:04, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Raerth 01:16, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Fireguy 05:49, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Quiddity 09:36, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Bam, merged! Don't be afraid to be bold, folks. For something pretty cut and dry like this (merging a stub into a full article), I usually give the merge request about two weeks, and then I do it, we don't need to wait tooo long, unless there is major criticism of the idea. Peace. Phidauex 17:28, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wraps section

Does anyone else think this section is a bit pointless? It describes three different wraps which are all variations of the same basic wrap; it doesn't even mention thru-wraps which are at least different enough to be considered almost a separate move. And the diagram is a bit pointless. If nobody else objects I'll clear it up into a single more generic paragraph... spiralx 12:35, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, I don't think this article should be a how-to at all. I'd prefer seeing that kind of thing placed under the wikibooks project. adamrice 17:06, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the section should be deleated entirely. There are precedents for articles about moves for a discipline e.g Skateboarding tricks, so maybe it would be appropriate to move the poi tricks section to a seperate article, and just leave a general overview in the main article. The "it doesn't even mention thru-wraps" argument is a case for adding this information, not removing what is already there. Also, it would be inappropriate to give attention to other clases of moves such as weaves and butterflies and ignore wraps. (Poobarb 23:53, 24 April 2006 (UTC))

Indeed I think that something on moves is appropriate, but a more generic overview of a range of moves rather than what's currently there which is very over-specific. Whether that's on its own page or not I have less of an opinion on... spiralx 16:28, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

To be perfectly honest, this article is in no way a "how-to guide". To see what one of those would look like, visit the external links. This article does, however, explain enough about the mentioned tricks and moves that someone witnessing a poi performance would have some insight into what moves are what, and as such they may glean a better appreciation of the difficulty of the move and the dexterity required.

I'm not disagreeing with the idea of a moves section, but just saying that the wraps bit is way too over-focused and the section needs to be general spiralx 13:09, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Actually all the moves sections are a tad lengthy... Suggest removing the sub-sections and just giving a summary of the shape of the move and a couple of it's possible variations. Perhaps reels and tangles should be given a mention too?

I've trimmed the wraps and butterfly sections, see what you think... and reels should definitely go in spiralx 21:57, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

A trim? Looks more like a shave :P

But yeah, much better. Nice work man. Now we just have to sort out the weave section and the Further moves section (NPOV-less as it is). --Xanthine 09:16, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Thus-

Butterflies

The butterfly is one of the central moves that a number of poi tricks stem from. These tricks are so named as when viewed from the front, the poi appear to be flapping horizontally like a butterfly's wings. The poi are swung in a forwards direction in phase with each other. The hands are then both moved in front of the swinger so that the poi traverse a circle in front of the spinner, the left poi spinning clockwise, the right poi anti-clockwise. One hand will be above the other one (typically the spinner's better hand) and their angles very slightly offset to prevent the poi from colliding as they cross at the top and bottom of their respective circles. Advanced variations can involve having one or both hands behind the head and hands moving through the planes in which the strings spin ("Threading the Needle").

Does that sound better? =) --Xanthine 22:38, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] flagging link

I have reverted the recent flagging link. While flagging is clearly related to poi and deserves mention somewhere, there's nothing in this article that leads up to it, and it's not clear to me whether the link that was provided is what flaggers would consider a primary resource. adamrice 13:18, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] history

The article leaves me wondering about how long poi have been in use by the Maori, how important/widespread use among them is, and how they spread to rave/juggling/etc culture... -- Akb4 18:31, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Plural

Where is 'poi' the plural of poi? In the UK/ROI we say pois. Njál 14:03, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I've never heard anyone say "pois," nor noticed anyone using it in an online discussion. I'm in the USA. adamrice 16:44, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

poi is the plural of poi in Māori, which uses definite or indefinite articles and context to distinguish plural. Increasingly, when Māori words are used in New Zealand English, no -s is added to the plural. Kahuroa 05:16, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Well then in the UK/ROI you're wrong.--59.121.207.47 06:24, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "(the word poi means "ball" in Māori)"

Since when? It means "to pound or hit" in Hawaiian, and last I was aware, the translation in Maori is "to hit" as well. I suppose it could also refer to poi balls, but I don't think the word in general means a generic ball. I could be wrong, though, and I don't want to remove that unless I have a good reason to, but could someone please verify the truth in that one? —K e akealani 08:04, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Kia ora, Ae (Yes) poi does mean ball in Maori. Patu means to hit or strike. Nga mihi Te Whetumarama 23:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Impartial art?

I've never heard this phrase before, in connection with poi or anything else. Furthermore the note that attempts to define it fails to. Leading off the article with something as puzzling and obscure as this is ill-considered. adamrice 21:31, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Impartial Art

(Paragraph herewith retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:B9_hummingbird_hovering")
Adamrice: I know that your edits are well-intentioned, but they're also very idiosyncratic. I believe that as an introduction to the subject, they're more inclined to raise questions for readers than to answer them. adamrice 15:56, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Beauford's *retort*: Idiosyncratic? Please qualify. Where is it set in stone that Wikipedia is just to be an introduction to a subject? It is my considered opinion that this article requires some scholarly-sexing-up. Do you engage an Impartial Art as discipline? The mind processes and forges new neural connectivity when it is confused which is why Zen Masters use koans amongst other methods. Are you familiar with NLP, hypnotherapy, trance~forms and meditation? Juggling is a study in the resolution of bodymind confusion into an 'Artful Grace'.

I look 4ward to dialogue with view to establish Common ground.

Namaste in agape
Walking my talk in beauty

B9 hummingbird hovering ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:26, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

... I completely failed to understand any of what you just said. Could you please explain what you mean, rather than giving us a bunch of links to research to try and piece together what your actual position might be? I had the same issue with the use of "impartial art" in the basic description of the topic, as well as its description as "clever" in the footnote -- the explanation doesn't sound clever to me at all ("impartial" versus "martial" don't seem like a very reasonable dichotomy to me), and its relative cleverness is totally subjective and doesn't seem to me like it should be included. 71.222.102.73 08:35, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed From "Popular Culture" Section

User 207.31.229.4 tagged this section with a {{fact}} tag, but I'm going to pull it altogether pending some verification:

Among the notable highly skilled poi spinners is Dae (Last name undisclosed), who is 
not only talented at the art, but who wields them also as a weapon through which he 
is capable of channeling electricity for added damage to his enemies^{[citation needed]}.

If this isn't a comic book or gaming reference, then I'm a minor deity. There's nothing wrong with such references being included, but they require a clear context: in which comic book, game, or other medium does this character appear?
*Septegram*Talk*Contributions* 21:44, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comets and Dragon-Poi

What´s about non-fire-Poi? There are only pictures of Firedancers an one traditional Maori-Image. No blacklight-spinning, one glowpoi and almost firepoi in various moves. Please have a look at the german article. Happy spinning...

[edit] "Impartial Art" removed

I have removed the obscure, unhelpful, and indeed duplicated references to something called "impartial art". It is not at all apparent that this term "cleverly associates juggling arts with Martial arts" nor is it clear that its "poignant point-counterpoint contrasts the inherently non-violent aspect of juggling disciplines"

The term may have appeared in a minor book published 15 years ago. But "impartial art" does not appear in this sense anywhere on Google, except of course in the Wikipedia article itself, and other articles derived from this! In other words, the only currency the term has gained has been generated by the unfortunate Wikipedia article itself. Geronimo20 01:36, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Well that was a waste of time. "B9 hummingbird hovering" has reinstalled that stuff and then added even more stuff, with no citations, which characterise Poi as primarily a martial arts discipline. Sigh. I've reverted it - Geronimo20 06:11, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Third opinion

I agree with the reversion. Searching for the term "impartial art" on Google, I can't find any indication that the term is anything but original research on the part of an obscure book author. A bunch of hits do come up, but many refer to this Wikipedia article and the rest don't relate to martial arts or Poi. =Axlq 03:49, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Citations

Please don't add to this article dubious information with uncited analogies to martial arts. Please also consider the feedback on the Talk page here and here- Geronimo20 06:43, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Do some historical investigation into Maori culture and IMPROVE the quality of the article. Comparable disciplines are evident throughout Southeast Asia. Remember, a flower and a fan in the Martial Arts may be employed as a weapon.

Namaste in agape; walking my talk in Beauty: B9 hummingbird hovering ^{(talk • contribs)} 04:07, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Moreover, if this is reverted again I will remove all information in the article that does not contain a citation. How is that for "flowery obscuration"?

Svaha B9 hummingbird hovering ^{(talk • contribs)} 04:10, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

B9 hummingbird hovering: Please read and understand the following Wikipedia guideline before you edit this article again: Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point.

The facts remain:

The material you added is dubious,
The term "impartial art" isn't used anywhere in the context of Poi (that I can verify)
The fact that objects in an art form can be employed as martial weapons doesn't mean that art form is a martial art form,
Your claims about comparable disciplines are simply your claims

Unless you have a solid source to back it up, don't put it in. And if you disagree with any other uncited claim in this article, tag it with {{fact}} which will cause "citation needed" to appear after the sentence. For now, I am reverting your edit again. =Axlq 04:32, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

No it most definitely is not. Read the book - go to the library, not the Internet. I affirm that I will delete everything in this article that does not contain a citation if you persist. I offer a challenge to all those who contend with what I have included, do the research and improve the article. I await a formal apology.

Blessings B9 hummingbird hovering ^{(talk • contribs)} 04:36, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I even provided you with some sources to get you going!

Inciting & incensing ^[1] Beauty! B9 hummingbird hovering ^{(talk • contribs)} 05:04, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

All I can say is, read WP:POINT and WP:3RR. Please do not delete text about Poi, and do not add in extraneous information about "impartial art" that appears to be original research by one non-notable source. Do make contributions that are constructive. At the moment, you are being a tendentious editor. Please stop. =Axlq 05:35, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I offer my edits to the Ophanim! "Wheels within wheels" B9 hummingbird hovering ^{(talk • contribs)} 05:40, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notes

^ From the Latin word "to set on fire." In Jewish worship in the temple, incense symbolized prayer rising before God (Ps. 141:2). The same image is used of the prayers of the saints in heaven (Rev. 8:3—5). ...

[edit] Merge

Hopefully the stub on Poier's Adjustable Knot can be merged here, or else improved. See also comments at Talk:Poier's Adjustable Knot. Thanks, Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 10:18, 23 November 2007 (UTC)