Tick-tock: it’s the revenge of the pendulums!
For far too long, pendulums have been the
red-headed stepchild of poi transition tools
and now they’re coming for recognition.
Drex here from DrexFactor.com and today I’m
going to show you just how interesting pendulums
can be!
Stalls may get most of the transition glory,
especially for people near the beginning of
their spinning journey, but that doesn’t
mean they’re the only transition game in
town.
Pendulums are a little less popular because
they require a LOT of nuance to get right,
but that also means that the tricks that go
with them tend to look a lot more exotic.
Today, I’m going to share with you my favorite
5 tricks that involve the use of pendulums
and hopefully you’ll see as I do that they’re
one of the greatest tricks you can have in
your toolbox.
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Before we dive in, I just want to take a moment
to give a shout out to the friends of the
channel!
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Spinballs, Spinsconsin, and Ultra Poi for
helping to make the videos on this channel
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When we first get into spinning, stalls are
almost always where we start in working with
transition tools and it’s easy to see why.
They’re dynamic and perfect for accenting
a beat.
By comparison, pendulums seem so lifeless
and inert.
Like isolations, they also require a lot more
fine control over your hand and the movement
of the poi, so the learning curve with them
can be a bit steeper than it is for stalls.
But there’s a lot of gold to be mined here,
including some of my favorite tricks of all
time.
Let’s dive in and take a look at what pendulums
have to offer.
Number 1: 1.5s
I mean...let’s be real here.
Almost all of us first learn pendulums in
order to learn the 1.5 beat weave.
Fun bit of trivia: these were originally called
one and a halfs until people started uploading
videos of them to YouTube.
Because there was no easy way to type out
a character for a one half fraction in the
early days of the platform, the name switched
over to 1.5s because that was the name everybody
read on videos of them.
Whether it’s because you like the effect
of the poi heads coming together or the many
possibilities it offers for transitions between
flowers and weaves, 1.5s are a rite of passage
that all of us learn at a certain point.
And honestly?
I don’t even think the 1.5 beat weave is
the most interesting thing you can do with
1.5s.
I was always a bigger fan of this variation
where the poi split past each other in the
middle rather than moving in the same direction.
This was the topic of one of my first YouTube
videos!
Like the 1.5 beat weave, watch out for opportunities
both to transition into split-same flowers
as well as butterflies with this variation.
Super cool!
Number 2: Horizontal stacking
Yeah, I know.
I put this one in my video on stalls but it’s
also going to go here because pendulums are
every bit as important as stalls for getting
this trick.
In many ways, horizontal stacks are an amazing
microcosm of what makes both types of transitions
special--they have the staccato feel of stalls
along with the drawn out feel of pendulums.
A great combination!
Remember: when you’re doing a stack like
the Mel, you have to alternate those top stalls
with pendulums in order to get the alignment
of the poi right.
I think this is part of where a lot of people
get tripped up with it--it’s not so simple
as just chaining together stalls.
I think the stack that best showcases this
dynamic has got to be the Charlie.
After all, the poi seem to sink together precisely
because of that laid-back feel that pendulums
have.
The stalls are really just punctuation at
either end of this sentence.
Number 3: Vertical stacking
Long before there was horizontal stacking,
there was just stacking.
In the time since horizontal stacking has
become a thing, we’ve kind of retroactively
christened these vertical stacks, but don’t
be fooled: these came first.
The essence of these tricks is what’s called
a pendulum stall--a funny name because it’s
not actually a stall at all.
It’s part of a point isolation.
The basic idea is that at either end of a
pendulum, you can swing your hand up and over
the head and it’ll literally just cancel
out the momentum of the poi.
No fuss.
You can use pendulum stalls like these just
as the granddaddy of stacking, Ronan, once
did.
To build and collapse vertical poi lines punctuated
by antispins, inspins, and of course, pendulum
stalls.
Number 4: Pendulum vs Triquetra
So here’s where the possibilities of pendulums
start getting SUPER interesting.
This trick is both a hybrid as well as a CAP
that has this moment of split-time same direction
floating across the top that I have always
loved.
The secret to nailing this hybrid is really
to realize that the triquetra isn’t actually
a triquetra at all!
It’s a linear isolation and a box-mode 4-petal
antispin that have been cut and pasted together.
It’s antispin and it has 3 petals, but the
similarities end there.
From there, it’s just a matter of getting
the timing down so that you get these beautiful
straight alignments of both poi at either
side and at the very top of this move.
Years ago, I took a class from Ronan that
included this move and the one takeaway I
had from that class that was a game-changer
for me was to find the moments on either side
of this move where the poi create a flat horizontal
line.
Aside from making the move look beautiful,
it also opens up lots more opportunities for
transitions.
Number 5: Pendulum vs CAP
You didn’t really think I’d do a video
on pendulums without including my favorite
antibrid of all time, did you?
I truly believe that this is the foundational
antibrid from which all others follow.
It has so many transition points to it that
lead to other antibrids, plus it is a nice
comfortable base to return to.
There are SO many places you can go to from
this move--from pendulum versus cateye which
very narrowly avoided being included in this
list to transitions with point isolations,
static versus triquetra.
Seriously, the possibilities here are endless.
You want to REALLY nail the look of this move?
Make sure that your CAP had is getting up
to shoulder height at both sides of the trick
and that the hand performing the pendulum
is tucked in as close to the opposite shoulder
as possible.
This will help you keep a super clean line
between the poi head and your hand--the integrity
of that relationship is what makes antibrids
look amazing.
What are your favorite pendulum-based moves.
Did I forget one?
Let me know down in the comments.
If you’d like to learn the basics of pendulums
so you can get all the tricks on this list
down, you should check out my Beyond the Basics
series on my learning site.
It covers pendulums, isolations, hybrids,
and a whole lot more and it’s available
for a limited time at a discounted price.
Check it out at learn.drexfactor.com
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Peace.
