Hey gang!
Drex here from DrexFactor.com.
Split-time opposites flowers were the last
type of flower I learned how to do and they
were definitely the hardest.
Today I’m going to share with you my top
3 tips for learning and mastering these flowers
because they look super cool!
Before we dive in, I just want to take a moment
to give a shout out to the friends of the
channel!
Big thanks to Dark Monk, Emazing Lights, Flowtoys,
Spinballs, and Ultra Poi for helping to make
the videos on this channel possible.
You can visit them all on the web by following
the links down in the description of this
video.
Despite how difficult they are and how long
they took me to learn, I still have to say
split-time opposite flowers are probably my
favorite type of poi flower by a wide margin.
The symmetry and visual balance of them is
just so perfect and they can be done in wall
plane without looking super awkward.
But how to learn them and more importantly
how to polish them?
Tip number 1: practice split-opposites
Part of what makes these flowers a challenge
is that it’s not common for people to be
familiar with the pattern your hands move
in for it.
Together same is pretty obvious.
Together opposite is, too.
Split-same is like doing the crawl or backstroke.
But unless you’ve played with double-dutch
jump roping it’s unlikely you’ve already
encountered split-opposites.
There’s a great trick I picked up from Alien
Jon for teaching your hands how to do this
pattern: clap them together on the right side
of your body and then snap your fingers as
you separate your hands top and bottom.
Clap your hands together again to your left
and then flip your hands so you switch which
one is on top.
Separate your hands and snap your fingers
as you go across the center.
Clap your hands to the right, and flip your
hands to switch which hand is on top.
Try just drilling this pattern: clapping and
snapping, clapping and snapping over and over
again.
It really helps to do this up against a wall
so you get a feel for doing it in wall plane
and you’re not reaching too far away from
your body as you do it.
The best thing you can do for yourself is
get this pattern as comfortable for your body
as possible.
Tip number 2: use linear isolations.
I’ve seen a lot of different methods for
teaching these flowers over the years but
without a doubt the best method I’ve seen
is to use linear isolations.
Don’t worry about the jargon for right now--focus
instead on what they actually are.
To demonstrate this, I’m going to start
with my right hand over on the left hand side
of my body with my poi spinning clockwise
relative to me.
You see how there’s a spot where the poi
crosses my centerline?
When that happens I’m going to let the poi
head drop into a stall on my centerline and
pass my hand directly above it over to the
right side of my body.
Over here I’m going to pull the poi out
spinning clockwise once again.
So that’s a drop through my center moving
left to right.
Going back over to the other side, I’m going
to pop the poi head up my centerline and let
my hand sneak underneath it back over to the
left.
So...the full pattern I’m going for here
is drop and pop.
Drop and pop.
When that gets to feel comfortable, try letting
your hand go up as the poi pops and down as
the poi drops.
If you can do this much, you’re actually
doing a 4-petal antispin flower already.
So now you want to learn this same pattern
with your left hand going clockwise.
Start with the left crossed over to the right
side of your body and drop it down your centerline,
then pop up your centerline.
Drop down, pop up.
And again, get your hand up and down with
the poi head.
So now that you can do it with both hands,
start with your hands both off to the same
side of your body and spin them in split opposites
relative to each other.
Really important detail here: make sure the
poi attached to the native hand is in between
your arms in buzzsaw plane.
From here, pop your hands apart across your
centerline and bring them back together to
the other side of your body.
Think that there’s an explosion between
your hands that sends them pushing away from
each other only to get yanked back together
to either side.
Take your time at either side to find your
timing again.
Maybe count 3 beats on each side--thinking
1,2,3 beats and apart.
1,2,3 beats and apart.
As this gets more comfortable, work your way
down to 2 beats, then 1, and then just go
straight back and forth.
Think: apart, together, apart, together, apart,
together.
Each time you move your hands apart, try to
think that the poi are trying to pop and drop
with them.
If you’ve got this, you’ve got the flower!
Tip number 3: watch the center!
I’ve been doing split opposites flowers
for nearly ten years and even then I didn’t
realize until last year that I was doing some
wrong as I performed them.
As I go back and forth, I’ve got a tendency
to have my hands travel across the centerline
of my body at different times.
This in itself isn’t the end of the world,
but when you look at the trails the poi leaves,
you’ll see that the top and bottom petals
don’t line up.
It’s a small thing, but being able to really
nail small moments like this really make your
style look clean and polished.
I discovered as I was doing this that the
culprit was that my top hand was always a
little slower coming from either side than
my bottom hand was, so I started practicing
speeding up my top hand and as you can see
it results in a much cleaner flower.
One way you can practice this is if you have
access to a mirror, take a dry erase marker
and draw a vertical line down the length of
the mirror.
Now as you perform your split opposite flower,
try to make sure that both of your hands are
crossing that line at the same time.
Cool!
I hope this helped out some of you.
Split opposites flowers can be challenging
to learn but look so unbelievably cool!
Let me see your version of these by posting
to Instagram with the hashtag #drexfactorpoi
The poi I used in this video are from Flowtoys.
If you’d like to grab a pair, you can help
out the channel by using the code “drexfact0r”
with a zero instead of an “0” at checkout.
It gets you a discount and helps the channel
out!
Thanks so much for watching.
If you got anything out of this video, please
hit that like and subscribe button to help
my channel grow!
Special thanks to all my awesome supporters
on Patreon--you guys are the ones that make
these videos possible.
If you’re not a current backer and would
like to sign up to support the work that I
do, please go to patreon.com/drexfactorpoi.
Thanks again and peace!
