How is this done? I have seen people do things like that with a brown ball on the end of a chain meant to be lit but they were just practicing. Was this also using a chain setup? I’d love any information you guys have on this because it looks like something I would love to do although without the fire. Instructional sites and sites to buy the chain (or whatever was used in the video) and thing to weight the end would be nice.
Poi is a very difficult and advanced juggling skill. It is so difficult that most jugglers refuse to attempt it.
John forgot to include the “tongue in cheek” smiley. He is correct, however, that most jugglers refuse to attempt it.
I’ve heard that Sanofi-Synthelabo uses poi extract as one of the (semi) active ingredients in Ambien.
Here’s the winky smiley that I didn’t include.
The link I gave to Home of Poi will fill you in on what Poi is. Some other required reading is at LAP . 
“You really havn’t seen them in action have you. Its one of those “skills” which is clearly more fun to do than it is to watch. To anyone observing Poi, its two tennis balls going round in circles, to anyone stood near the Poimonger its a health hazard. Youre likely to get a tennis ball in the face as the stinking hippy flailing the damn things about tries to cross their wrists over.”
OK whoever made that didn’t see the same video I saw 
It looks awesome when done correctly in the dark. I’ll admit, when done it the daytime without the fire or other light it is very boring to watch. I’m thinking about buying the beginners poi with the video. I have Christmas money to burn and I already bought my sorely needed new pedals for my uni.
That video you had was pretty impressive Gobd. In the dark and with fire and a difficult enough routine Poit can be pretty cool. I myself have tried poi and don’t find it too exciting or very hard to get good at fast. Maybe to get to the level that the person in the video is at it takes more work. Maybe you’ll be one of the people who loves poi. When you get some fire going, put up a video.
its not too hard to get going. buy some and start playing. don’t start with the fire poi. get some other ones. where’s that poiinthepark guy now?the one bitching about fire blowing/eating safety…he’ll have tons of info
I won’t go the fire path for a while. If I get into it the first thing I see myself doing is buying the cheap LED poi and adding a simple toggle switch to change LED colors although green is by far the most fun color other than fire.
I cut the video from one called rubbish.avi from the University Trials Demo thread in rec.sport.unicycling. I just kept the part that impressed me the most.
Isn’t pk the owner or forum admin of the poi site??? I remeber him complaining about fire and braggin about how cool he is. and giving us a link to some 5 hour long read that he wrote. He should be able to help you out.
yeah. that’s who i was talking about catboy. also i have a set of poi with big ass tails on them from renagade juggling. tey came free with a huge order our juggling club did a few years ago. no one else thought they were worth having so i snagged 'em. linky linky
I was planning on just making a pair of Poi from tennisballs, instead of coughing up bucks for expensive cloth and junk, when I could easily make a similar product for much less.
i’ve made myself some and i’ve bought some
i couldn’t be bothered to try n make them as well as the people who do it for a living
the bought ones are better
i think every juggler should be able to do some of the basic (and some not so basic) poi moves
that way u can diss them from a position of strength
such a diss should then be followed by demonstrating Mills Mess with 5 Clubs and saying something along the lines of “There, u evil poipertrator, do that!”
Poi is almost as easy to do as badly as Skateboarding
but Poi brings more good looking women to juggling conventions
so, lay off
and if anyone here saw the Japanese guy called Dai at last year’s European Juggling Convo, u might know why i’m willing to admit, in public, that i’ve been impressed with some Poi swingers
in the same way that Trent Reznor showed that u can play a computer from your heart, Dai does things with Poi that makes u want to pick up a pair and practise
and he doesn’t even have the decency to make it look difficult
ye, I made poi from dog chains and tennis balls… bicycle break cable is good as welll because chains… hurt. Poi is definetly fun to do (for a while at least) but I think in order for it to look impressive you have to know what your looking at (which most people don’t). otherwise it does just look like balls spinning in circles.
saying that, at BJC2004 a guy did 6 poi at once in the renagade, two on each hand whilst laying down and doing weave with his feet. That was impressive!
well pointed out GUILD, that is definetly true…
I found staff spinning also brings hot women occasionaly.
Swinging poi also gets you lots of personal space cause no one is willing to get too close to you.
The first time I ever saw poi swinging was at the Portland Saturday Market. It’s an outdoor market in Portland Oregon. A hippy girl was swinging poi in a grassy area near to the sidewalk. The people on the sidewalk were taking a wide berth around her even though she couldn’t have hit them from where she was.
I had no idea what she was doing. I’d never seen it before. My first reaction was “That’s stupid”. And she wasn’t doing it very well. My first exposure to poi was not a good one.
When done very well, poi spinning can be interesting but even then it quickly gets monotonous to watch. If I go to a juggling show I don’t want to see poi spinning during the public show unless the act is mercifully short and astoundingly good.
If you get a chance to see Cirque du Soleil’s Varekei there is an excellent trio of Chinese kids who swing water meteors amazingly. Of course, like all good acts of this kind they combine acrobatics and showmanship with the highlighted skill to create a wonderful spectacle.
that reminds me
they’ve also had some Argentinian (?) performers who use something like poi but with metal plates at the end
these, when struck on the wooden floor they worked on, would sound in very much the same way Tap-Shoes would sound
they basically did a Latin-Style Percussion show but the manipulation-skills were essentially the same as Poi
anybody else see this?
I am a member of Spiritus Ignium, a group of performers who perform and theaches things from the new school of circus, things like poi, devilstick, diabolo, staff and so on.
We do performances with fire.
I will get my fire-diabolo in a while, and i’ll post a film or some photos.
However, i think fire does itself better in images than on film.
Some friends of mine in practice: