Hi, my name is Ree and I'm starting this blog today to mark the beginning of my practice of Poi.
Despite the seeming popularity of Poi amongst those I hang out with, I have never planned on becoming a practitioner.
However, after an experience at a friend's friend's house, I realized it may be something I could be into. A new acquantaince handed me some poi she was practicing with, and, with trembling hands, I accepted them. She showed me the things I learned in the next ten minutes: twirling in two off beat circles, then in a dual figure eight pattern. I was flattered when those around asked me if I had ever done it before.
Later I shrugged off the event as a fluke, but ran into a very good poi site while looking into juggling. (I have 3 juggling balls and it's been something else I've been trying to learn-though with significantly less success.)
I felt as though I had more flair for poi, but as I looked around, there was no guiding post for beginners online. I mean, there were tutorials, sure, but the only responses to those are either "This trick is too hard for me!" or "This tutorial helped me out a lot-thanks!". So an idea struck me-why not try each of the tutorials on http://www.homeofpoi.com/ (the best site I've found so far) and follow through with my progress? Why not document it? Combine this inspiration with trolling too many "One Recipe A Day" blogs, and something glorious was born!
I don't only want to try to learn one poi trick a day through online tutorials, but I want to document the other things I learn along the way as well. Too many blogs about poi are by those more experienced and, frankly, much better at it. It can be daunting for someone starting out. Though, I can't blame noobies for staying away-whacking yourself a bunch of times with balls on the ends of strings can be downright demeaning.
So here I am-holding nothing back! I may not actually succeed in getting one trick done a day, and, at times, real life may intervene to stop me from practicing. However, every day I practice I promise to document it here. When I can do a trick 10 times in a row without hitting myself, I'll consider it learned and post a video.
I hope this blog creates a realistic picture of starting to learn a performance art equipped with only hope and the internet (and some poi, of course :P ).
