It’s been a long time since I’ve been fire-twirling.
In all honesty, I’ve never been really good at it, but it was a lot of fun.
Most of the time I just messed around with the staff a bit, and whenever I picked up the poi, it was a recipe for disaster.
Right after the Sydney 2000 Olympics, I found a group of people who were spinning down in Glebe park, and after practising with them on and off, Alex and I started a group in Camperdown Memorial Park, right next to Newtown Cemetery.
This group and Newtown ran for quite some time, but eventually died mid-winter, around five years ago.
Last week, I received an invite to a facebook-organised event. Fire play, and I decided to go, seeing that Alex was the organiser.
When I rocked up, the only person I knew was Seth, he introduced me to a few people, but me being me, I didn’t really talk to them.
One day I really need to figure out why I have issues approaching people.
People came and went through the night, and eventually some people I knew showed up (Alex and Conrad). Things became a lot more comfortable when they showed up.
I met some nice people – Cez, Jez and Silvana.
Cez, Silvana and I practised with poi for a while, and eventually Jez taught me the three-beat weave (I could only ever manage a bad two-beat)
I spent some time practising the three-beat weave, then connecting some stuff. Just swinging the poi in a forwards direction, then in to the three-beat weave, and swinging forwards to swinging backwards.
I don’t really know enough ‘moves’ to start trying to connect them, but what the hell. No time like the present, eh?
Perhaps it’s time that I put the quarter-acre that I live on to good use. I have an absolutely massive backyard, with nothing but a clothesline in it.
About half an hour ago, I tried creating an account on homeofpoi.com, only to find out that I already had one.
Perhaps it’s time to order some things.
The big question is:- I can fire eat. How much do I value the hair on my arms, for the sake of performance?
That said, I never was the performance kind of guy. I more just stand there, instead of dancing, like the others do.
I’d like to fix that, but I seriously believe that I need help/lessons/other people.