Forums > Advanced Poi Moves > Drex's hybrid theory

Posted: 3rd Jun 2010
hehehe! geeks...

Tam tam tam cheketitamtam, ketumpantam, ketumpan kete kete kete, tam tam tam ketumpanketey!

Posted: 3rd Jun 2010
That's Drex's older theory, and one he has since rejected (just a few weeks after that video, in fact). His newer one (and as far as I know, still the one he accepts) is here:





EDIT: Which I see you linked to. But I think it merits being out here and ready to go if we're going to seriously discuss Drex's theory.
EDITED_BY: Sister Eleven (1275611303)

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Posted: 3rd Jun 2010
Part 1 (of 3):

I'm doing this in pieces because I don't have the patience to sit down and go through all of this in one go. Everything I say should be construed as tentative, as I may overturn conclusions here in future installments.

So my objection to the "driving style theory" is roughly the same as Drex's. The only difference between isolation, extension, and static spin is where the center of rotation is, so they seem to be part of a continuum instead of distinct driving styles. You can distinguish them a little better if you're willing to admit manual (at the hand), submanual, and supramanual centers of rotation as relevant, but it seems like an awkward feature to base distinctions on since it only helps to differentiate those three driving styles from one another. This property ("manual rotation" lets call it) varies over many-petaled flower patterns (including cat-eyes, and both antispin and in-spin). While it's tempting to suggest that variable manual rotation could be taken to distinguish flower patterns from non-flower patterns, it would not distinguish flowers from a linear motion with the hand while the poi spins. So now we have to distinguish linear motions from flower motions (which some have done).

My objection to this "driving style" notion is not that the theory is inconsistent or that it's too weak. It's that it's ugly. Really ugly and ad hoc. Further, it gives no interesting account of why hybrid patterns look so funky. It's also kind of weak, in that if I'm doing a butterfly (for example) and move one of my hands in an extension, or just extend it out to the side, I'm doing a hybrid apparently. What I want is a more restrictive theory, that tells us more interesting things without using the whole slew of properties we seem to need here (hand/head timing/direction; manual rotation, linearity vs. circularity vs. static), especially when some of these properties may not even be things we want to really use outside of special cases (manual rotation in particular, or linearity if we want to use manual rotation).

Hopefully I made some sense.

TBC...

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Posted: 4th Jun 2010
Murphy's Law of the HoP forums: whenever you disappear for a few weeks when you come back people will be discussing something you've created and you'll suddenly realize you've got some 'splaining to do

So yeah...trying to define any concept is troublesome given that ultimately the community decides which concepts are useful and which aren't. A body can attach any old name they feel like to a given concept, but if a competing name has more adherents it inevitably becomes dogmatic whether the other name was more appropriate or not. Hybrids are especially sticky in this regard because I think to a certain degree whenever any of us experience a new trick, we see it from a unique perspective that may or may not be the same as the source of the trick but results in two movements that are for all intents and purposes identical to an observer.

The reason that I’m putting this out there is so that it’s clear that my perspective is not one of trying to tell everyone what a hybrid is. My perspective is in trying to normalize characteristics of tricks I’ve learned as hybrids, I hope to isolate the variables that make up their construction both to have a convention to categorize them and to hopefully predict as-yet unseen moves. The community is free to use or reject these ideas as they see fit or as is useful to anybody working through the same issues. That said, I’m going to try as best as I can to explain my current thinking on hybrids and how they are defined in written form and hope it patches up some of the holes my vids left open and/or that it’s helpful to other folks.

Disclaimer aside, here’s my spiel (lengthy explanation warning):

A few months ago Alien Jon and I had a very long and rewarding chat over gchat where we talked about hybrid and CAP construction and he posited a concept he referred to as “composite” spinning. The basis for this was a belief we shared that current poi spinning relies too much on “tagging” particular movements and thus labeling them tricks. When a series of movements coalesces into an identifiable pattern that can be cycled through within roughly a second or two, we tend to identify this as a trick and provide a label for it.

The problem with a system like this is we wind up with a lot of redundant labels or labels that identify related movements with unrelated names that can create conceptual hurdles for people learning the movements. For example, to newbies now there’s a debate about triquetras--this is now a “thing” that people must learn in the course of their studies. If you frame this movement as just being a 3-petal antispin flower to them, however, it becomes less a unique concept and more a derivative of another concept, antispin flowers, that they’ve likely already learned. Likewise, cateyes can be considered yet another derivative of this concept we assign a unique tag to.

The definition of hybrids I’d come across most often when I started to ponder the question of what they were was most commonly posted as something to the effect of “each hand doing a different driving style.” This, of course begs the question of what a driving style is, which was alternately described either as a “basic way to spin” or as a succession of different individual tricks such as isolations, extensions, cateyes, etc. Immediately I ran into a conceptual hurdle with the former definition for driving styles given that it was self contradictory. One of my favorite hybrids to play with right now is C-CAP vs. pendulum as Ronan frequently uses in his performances, but it breaks the driving style rule given that C-CAPs are both antispin and extension at different points in their cycles. Thus the proposition that a driving style is a “basic” way to spin is not logically sound given that if a hybrid is the combination of two driving styles and a C-CAP is in and of itself a combination of driving styles a “basic” way to spin cannot be made up of two other “basic” ways to spin. That is, claiming a move is indivisible thus means it cannot be made up of other indivisible moves.

Defining hybrids as each hand doing something different clearly doesn’t work either, given that frequently we see people do throws one hand at a time and I’ve yet to hear anybody refer to these movements as hybrids, so we are definitely restricting our understanding to a specific class of movements which include the afore-mentioned iso, antispin, etc. The common denominator of each such move is that it is a hypo- or epitrochoid derivative—even C-CAPs fall into this classification ([Old link]). So the question then becomes why do we only identify this classification of movement as being a component of hybrids and not others?

If we move our hands symmetrically through any of these moves, ie, perform an iso with both hands as opposed to iso vs. extension we clearly identify one has having different characteristics than the other. I thought at first it was because these shapes were capable of exiting in multiple combinations of timing and direction, but given that some movements such as static spin vs. extension break this pattern being as how they can be exited only in a single timing and direction combination it turned out to be a dead end. Further complicating matters is the issue of CAPs themselves, which I’ve already seen quite a number of people claim to be a type of single-hand hybrid in and of themselves.

I reject this interpretation myself given that ever hybrid I’ve been taught under the hybrid label as required hands to be doing different things at the same point in a given cycle and while some CAP executions possess this characteristic, not all do (executing hands-together CAPs with poi in opposites results in the exact same juxtaposition of movement as executing half of a triquetra vs. extension hybrid) but the fact that they display movement folks want to classify as hybrid-like seems to me to be a good clue as to what we are looking for in hybrid movement.

In this particular case what makes the C-CAP unique is its juxtaposition of antispin and extension components. We can find the same pattern repeated in other hybrids like extension vs. triquetra, extension vs. cateye, etc, but it doesn’t apply to the original hybrids: iso vs extension. Rather than juxtapose two shapes that are completely different, these hybrids combine two similar but incongruent types of shapes. That is, there is an asymmetry in the poi and hand paths depending on which side of the body they’re on.

Defining this juxaposition as being dependent on asymmetry also opens up an issue in that the patterns we are creating aren’t just the product of the completed paths, but also the product of the order in which the points they are made up of are reached. We have a hierarchy of perception for poi spinning wherein we are able to perceive the overall paths of the poi and hands but do so only as a function of the timing and direction of the underlying movements. Otherwise we would perceive no difference at all between 4-petal antispin flowers rendered in either split-time same direction or split-time opposites. Why this is important is because it’s what separates C-CAPs from hybrids.

While C-CAPs juxtapose extension vs antispin, they never do so simultaneously. If we consider each hand individually, we only perceive the clash of antispin vs extension as a function of persistence of vision, that is cataloging the past points the poi and hand have moved through. With all the hybrids I’m familiar with, there is no such issue—that is each individual snapshot of movement displays a clash between two asymmetric patterns. But, there are clearly patterns in which the asymmetry is both spacial AND temporal, such as the “half-mercedes” pattern I mentioned above.

So this takes us back to the idea of “composite” spinning. In the grand scheme of things, hybrid seems to be a tag that we assign when we see two spacially asymmetric patterns contrasted against each other in such a way that they simultaneously complete a single cycle, whereas CAPs seem to display the same characteristics displaced temporally and there are a whole range of patterns that exhibit characteristics of both. In both cases, we define asymmetry as the contrasting of two patterns that are incongruent. The hybrids at Russ’s Firedrums class this past year (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XibkjBrghok) are an excellent example: providing patterns in which the hands and poi move through periods of spacial asymmetry, temporal asymmetry, asymmetry of both, and asymmetry of neither. As we play with patterns that exhibit characteristics of both types of movement, I’m almost inclined to say that the need for a tag to denote the difference between spacial and temporal asymmetry will become less and less important as they’re both demonstrations of the same concept and there are vastly more avenues to explore by combining the elements rather than keeping them segregated, but once again that’s up for debate.

Now clearly I'm glossing over a few threads of thought to make this all more readable, but that’s basically where I’m at with it right now...let me know what you guys think. I'm happy to write up a more thorough explanation of this if anybody's interested, but for now I think it's a good start

Peace,
Drex

Posted: 4th Jun 2010
Originally Posted By: [ Unregistered ps: Insignia's FB post anyone?

Ask and ye shall receive:

I think many of you know what it is im talking about. Some of you probably have it written down somewhere as well. But, here is my take at all the hybrids i've been messing with.

So, here's a written breakdown of the scattered notes I've been scribing at work. This delve into hybrid methodology began when I said to myself "Polyrhythmic CAP / AntiSpin Flowers" I was like, "wait, if you look at the standard CAP, it contains both an extension and an antispin within the parameters of that variation. Thusly, a CAP can be rotated around the face of the clock, each antispin rotation hitting the 4 major clock points 12, 3, 6, and 9." Then looking at the Antispin counter part, I became consciously aware that this was 1 of the many Hybrid Mashups. Not sure why I didn't see it before, but thats how things go with poi, eh?

Anyways, lets start with Driving Styles. We have:
1. Isolation
2. Antispin
3. Atomics* - Atomics is structured plane bending. Essentially its the 45 degree arrangement of poi as to how they relate to each other. I think it originally came about as close body motion mechanics were starting to diversify greatly. But I personally had not really seen much on atomics until very recently. Also, atomics is more like a filter that's applied to other driving styles and unlike the other driving styles, atomics is the only one that requires both poi at the same time to define it.
4. Pendulums
5. Extension - by itself, is not technically a driving style. Its more like the addition to create hybrid pattern arrangements.
6. Cateye - I think spring or fall wildfire of 07 is when these first took fruition. I remember distinctly sitting next to Alienjon at breakfast and him saying "So...I've been playing with these one beat antispin things..." lol
7. 'CAP' - Continuous Assembly Pattern: As stated before, a CAP is half extension and half antispin [ as far as the standard definition is concerned ] but has been defined as a particular movement type.
8. Hybrid - The term hybrid refers to the same time meshing of two driving styles. In this sense, the amount of rotations of each poi would not exceed the motions of the arms performing the actions. However, there is more to this. The definition of a "hybrid" has always been rather dynamic. At first, the hybrid that people were doing was the iso vs ext hybrid, but when the word "Hybrid" was used, that was the most commonly referred to variation. But I have been looking at them in the Polyrhythmic sense. A Polyrhythmic Hybrid would be the meshing of two driving styles in the simultaneous occurrence of sharply contrasting rhythms within any specific pattern arrangements.

Now then, the Hybrid Arrangements thus far: First driving style listed is lead hand, secondary driving style listed is following hand.

First type of Hybrid Arrangements are Isolation Lead.

Isolation vs. Extension
Isolation vs. Antispin
Isolation vs. Pendulum
Isolation vs. Cateye [ unit circle hybrid ]
Isolation vs. 'CAP'

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The Second type of Hybrid Arrangements is Antispin Lead, as in 3 or 4 petal flower variations.

Antispin vs. Pendulum
Antispin vs. Extension
Antispin vs. Cateye
Antispin vs. 'CAP'
Antispin vs. Isolation

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The Third type of Hybrid Arrangement is Pendulum Lead.

Pendulum vs. Isolation
Pendulum vs. Extension
Pendulum vs. Cateye
Pendulum vs. Antispin
Pendulum vs. 'CAP'

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Fourth type of Hybrid Arrangement is Cateye Lead. [ Note: Cateye's can be done either vertically or horizontally in relation to the accompanying driving style. ]

Cateye vs. Extension
Cateye vs. 'CAP'
Cateye vs. Pendulum
Cateye vs. Antispin
Cateye vs. Isolation

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Fifth type of Hybrid Arrangement is 'CAP' Lead. [ Note: CAP's can be done at either 12,3,6 or 9 any any arrangement you see fit. Any of of the hybrid listings, the CAP location can be at any of those spots ]

'CAP' vs. Pendulum
'CAP' vs. Isolation
'CAP' vs. Antispin
'CAP' vs. Isolation
'CAP' vs. Cateye

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sixth type of Hybrid Arrangement is Extension.

Extension vs. Isolation
Extension vs. Antispin
Extension vs. Cateye
Extension vs. Pendulum
Extension vs. 'CAP'

If anyone has something to add, or notices that I messed something up in my breakdown, please let me know. But, I figured that since I had some time to burn, I might as well get this up where other people can critique it. So, any thoughts? questions? extrapolations?

Originally posted by Insignia on Facebook 10/14/09

Peace,
Drex

Posted: 4th Jun 2010
Nice Drex, thanks.

At some point I would like to see the more complete version, but that works for me.

'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Posted: 5th Jun 2010
An interlude on theory:

Originally Posted By: DrexFactorThe reason that I’m putting this out there is so that it’s clear that my perspective is not one of trying to tell everyone what a hybrid is. My perspective is in trying to normalize characteristics of tricks I’ve learned as hybrids, I hope to isolate the variables that make up their construction both to have a convention to categorize them and to hopefully predict as-yet unseen moves.

When the foundations of mathematics were being fleshed out at the beginning of the 20th century, an issue along the lines of what Drex is addressing here was a point of serious contention. As set theory was beginning to be worked out as a foundational theory, it was objected that nothing about our concepts of numbers seemed to include the idea that numbers were sets, and such a view that numbers are sets seemed to be wrong. The counter to this argument, and the view that is still dominant (I believe; if this is changing it'd be news to me) is that the job of a theory of mathematics isn't to treat numbers like a box we open up and look at the guts of; rather the point is to find a theory that is consistent, gives us all the important theorems we had before, and keeps its junk theorems comfortably few.

The same can be said of a theory of hybrids (or any other class of move). The job of a hybrid theory isn't to "find out" what hybrids "really are". The job of a theory of hybrids is to find some other set of statements that, when taken in conjunction, have as their extension mainly all the same things we had already been calling hybrids--with some tolerance for ruling out things previously called hybrids, or accepting things that had not been called hybrids. Where to set that tolerance may be debatable, but I think any sane person would accept a few awkward cases if the definition predicted enough new mind-bending patterns that we hadn't seen before.

The real challenge, as it stands, is not for such a definition to capture "what we had meant all along", but to be restricted enough not to accept almost every kind of spinning as a hybrid. I don't believe we have that definition yet, and that's what I would like to see emerge as the nerds move forward.

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Posted: 5th Jun 2010
Awesome, I think. I was so confused with later patterns in a way of keeping them in mind.
But few patterns have something similar now I see.

Quote:
Each Poi is doing different thing in a different half of a hand circle(master path).
Quote:
Each hand can or can't leave the half into the other half.

Quote:
Hands have 3/9 or 6/12 meeting points according to timing.

But this all is relative to only straight arm patterns,
only few of all hybid combinations fallback here.

Not those unit circle ones..

all for now,

Posted: 5th Jun 2010
Hybrid:

1. Genetics: The offspring of genetically dissimilar parents or stock, especially the offspring produced by breeding plants or animals of different varieties, species, or races.

2.
a. Something of mixed origin or composition, such as a word whose elements are derived from different languages.
b. Something having two kinds of components that produce the same or similar results, such as a vehicle powered by both an electric motor and an internal combustion engine as sources of power for the drive train.

If you're gonna argue semantics and pedantries, maybe find a name that doesn't have such an ambiguous root?

Empty your mind. Be formless, Shapeless, like Water.
Put Water into a cup, it becomes the cup, put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, put water into a teapot, it becomes the teapot.
Water can flow, or it can Crash.
Be Water My Friend.

Posted: 6th Jun 2010
Originally Posted By: LookThisChangesIf you're gonna argue semantics and pedantries, maybe find a name that doesn't have such an ambiguous root?

Probably because the etymology has no bearing whatsoever? No interesting facts about clementine oranges hinge on that fact that Clement was the surname of the variety's originator, or that this name in turn means "merciful".

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Posted: 6th Jun 2010
The hybrid label was decided to be wrong a long time ago, when we discovered that the meaning we had for it was so ambiguous that it bore no similarity with the moves whatsoever in a purely etymological sense (because that's where the name originated, believe it or not), that couldn't be translated to every other move.

Only instead of agreeing on a new name, we stuck with it, and it all got more confusing, and more posts like the first in this thread happened.

Then this thread happened, and the debate started again, only this time in internet form. See the circles?

So, my point, which you missed, was to think more about the labelling system. maybe further categorisation is the answer? weave/isolation hybrid? spin/antispin hybrid? etc? Add the existing hybrids to other move families?

I'm trying to reach a conclusion to this question, not just argue for the sake of arguing. I've experienced this circle before, and I'm tired of it. I want it sorted.

Empty your mind. Be formless, Shapeless, like Water.
Put Water into a cup, it becomes the cup, put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, put water into a teapot, it becomes the teapot.
Water can flow, or it can Crash.
Be Water My Friend.

Posted: 6th Jun 2010
It could be that these moves don't have enough in common to be grouped under one heading, and that's an issue worth discussing, but I think your point about the etymology of "hybrid" misses the issue. It's not that the word "hybrid" is etymologically ambiguous that raises any real issues. Whether it etymologically relates to what we're using it to name, or how it began this use, is of paramount irrelevance.

What is relevant is whether the meaning we attach to the word in this context is clear and coherent, and, if it is not, how it can be rehabilitated to give us something close to what we wanted out of the original usage. The confusions involved in hybrids aren't confusions that result from etymology; at least I hope not, because anyone who's confused for such reasons is guilty of far worse pedantry than I.

p|.q|r:|::s|.s|s:|:.s|q.|:p|s.|.p|s

Posted: 7th Jun 2010
I think that we could at least roughly agree that it is not entirely clear and could be cleared up. I also think that it is too entrenched to change it now though.

Originally Posted By: LookThisChangesSo, my point, which you missed, was to think more about the labelling system. maybe further categorisation is the answer? weave/isolation hybrid? spin/antispin hybrid? etc? Add the existing hybrids to other move families?

Most people do this anyway, when not talking about them as a group. So if you are talking about a particular hybrid, being precise with a generic hybrid being a case of all of the above. At least, that is how I think of things.

'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Posted: 7th Jun 2010
Terminologies use in poi is for the verbal or textual discussion of how our poi are moving.

I've always used further categorisation and only ever seen people using further categorisation... not everything can have a name like.

"The mexican wave"

This is limiting when speaking of more advanced movements, especially, since there comes to be too many incredibly slight variation.

I know a few plane change movements that can be done under or over the arm, making it appear very different in the way I move my body, and yet the poi move in exactly the same way... this kind of thing would be incredibly difficult to give a common name.

Posted: 7th Jun 2010
Naming is very inportant, because it helps to store pictures
in mind, even complicated pictures, very hard to describe.

------------------

Bakc to topic, I think here are 2 basic hybrids:

Code:Regular hybrid
Unit circle hybrid
Regular hybrids, can be described according to rules above,
but I din't find yet, rules for the unit circle one.

matter of time,

Posted: 7th Jun 2010
So let's stop quibbling over semantics about etemology and naming so much. I think it necessary to clearly define what is involved in what has become known as a hybrid. Drex has done a pretty good job at this thus far, thanks Drex. but I just wanted to clarify something. surely in the hybrid variations below there are some that are the same. I think i understand what you mean about leading hand but surely, as with all circus tricks, you should learn every trick in both directions on both sides. Does this then not mean that Isolation Vs. Extension is the same as Extension Vs. Isolation? I don't count LH Isolation/RH extension and RH extension/LH isolation as a different move/tric because it is the same, just on the opposing side. but then myabe i'm wrong...discuss?

So here's Drex's breakdown of what can be considered a Hybrid:
Originally Posted By: DrexFactor

Isolation vs. Extension
Isolation vs. Antispin
Isolation vs. Pendulum
Isolation vs. Cateye [ unit circle hybrid ]
Isolation vs. 'CAP'

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The Second type of Hybrid Arrangements is Antispin Lead, as in 3 or 4 petal flower variations.

Antispin vs. Pendulum
Antispin vs. Extension
Antispin vs. Cateye
Antispin vs. 'CAP'
Antispin vs. Isolation

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The Third type of Hybrid Arrangement is Pendulum Lead.

Pendulum vs. Isolation
Pendulum vs. Extension
Pendulum vs. Cateye
Pendulum vs. Antispin
Pendulum vs. 'CAP'

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Fourth type of Hybrid Arrangement is Cateye Lead. [ Note: Cateye's can be done either vertically or horizontally in relation to the accompanying driving style. ]

Cateye vs. Extension
Cateye vs. 'CAP'
Cateye vs. Pendulum
Cateye vs. Antispin
Cateye vs. Isolation

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Fifth type of Hybrid Arrangement is 'CAP' Lead. [ Note: CAP's can be done at either 12,3,6 or 9 any any arrangement you see fit. Any of of the hybrid listings, the CAP location can be at any of those spots ]

'CAP' vs. Pendulum
'CAP' vs. Isolation
'CAP' vs. Antispin
'CAP' vs. Isolation
'CAP' vs. Cateye

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sixth type of Hybrid Arrangement is Extension.

Extension vs. Isolation
Extension vs. Antispin
Extension vs. Cateye
Extension vs. Pendulum
Extension vs. 'CAP'



And here's what I think it should look like:

Isolation vs. Extension
Isolation vs. Antispin
Isolation vs. Pendulum
Isolation vs. Cateye [ unit circle hybrid ]
Isolation vs. 'CAP'

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The Second type of Hybrid Arrangements is Antispin Lead, as in 3 or 4 petal flower variations.

Antispin vs. Pendulum
Antispin vs. Extension
Antispin vs. Cateye
Antispin vs. 'CAP'


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The Third type of Hybrid Arrangement is Pendulum Lead.

Pendulum vs. Extension
Pendulum vs. Cateye
Pendulum vs. 'CAP'

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Fourth type of Hybrid Arrangement is Cateye Lead. [ Note: Cateye's can be done either vertically or horizontally in relation to the accompanying driving style. ]

Cateye vs. Extension
Cateye vs. 'CAP'

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Fifth type of Hybrid Arrangement is 'CAP' Lead. [ Note: CAP's can be done at either 12,3,6 or 9 any any arrangement you see fit. Any of of the hybrid listings, the CAP location can be at any of those spots ]

'CAP' vs. Extension

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sixth type of Hybrid Arrangement is Extension and is already covered under the other headings.


I believe that's right. I hopes so. I think then all that's left is to determine which of these qualify for the actual title of Hybrid and which of these need to be grouped under some other title. I mean when you think about it, under drex's layout of what is a hybrid a CAP is a hybrid in itself and probably shouldn't come under its own heading as it is just an alternating Antispin Vs. Extension hybrid. At leat that's how i think of it, the definitions and determinations of hybrids are so vague it's hard to know how to catagorize it.

i hope that raises some ideas and good thoughts on the logical progression of defining and refining this stuff.

Posted: 8th Jun 2010
That was Insignia's breakdown, not Drex's.

Part of the problem is that that scheme is based on the rather nebulous concept of "driving style".

'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Posted: 8th Jun 2010
Originally Posted By: astonThat was Insignia's breakdown, not Drex's.

Part of the problem is that that scheme is based on the rather nebulous concept of "driving style".

Agreed...it was actually working through these one-by-one that led me to drop the idea of driving styles given the aforementioned issues with CAP construction. And yes, iso vs extension (at least as far as I'm concerned) is the same as extension vs iso. I do think it's a good habit to learn to do all hybrids ambidextrously, but it's by no means a requirement.

I think there are actually more questions to this thread than the one I thought I was answering with my previous post. There seems to be the initial question of how to define a hybrid, what the subsets are thereof, and thus what all the available hybrids are to us and which haven't been performed yet. Insignia's post was an effort to break down the last question and while very detailed also proceeded from a couple assumptions that I think were ultimately flawed--including making driving style synonymous with concept (ie, an atomic is not a driving style) and ultimately I think what is the more pressing question when asking about all the possible hybrid combinations: which moves can be combined?

In combining the elements to create a hybrid, we are by definition combining two movements that travel different linear distances in the same angular span. For example iso vs cateye creates hybrid wherein the cateye performing poi head travels a linear distance more than twice as far as the isolating hand (if we assume a unit circle distance of one, the isolating poi travels 3.14 units for every 7.02 units the cateye poi does), yet we're able to perform both tricks in unison such that they can complete a single cycle of both movements simultaneously. There are a set range of linear speeds within which a given move can be performed without either not achieving the proper resistance to gravity or going so fast that it's for all intents impossible for the human nervous system to react fast enough to perform it. We've yet to map out all the ranges of each individual move that match up to the point that we can guarantee a hybrid is there--for example I'm inclined to think iso vs 4-petal antispin would be nearly impossible unless one were using very long poi indeed.

To me that's the bigger question that needs to be answered before we can know for sure all the hybrids that are possible and which aren't and to the best of my knowledge nobody has yet figured out the math that could resolve it. Any takers?

Peace,
Drex

Posted: 8th Jun 2010
hhmmmm... I'll have to see if I still have my old spirograph kit. Surely that will come in handy.

Now, I personally believe that anything is possible so long as you keep at it long enough but I agree that there must be some limits to what we can do. For example a top half of the circle pendulum will be almost impossible (nothing is impossible) to do neatly due to gravity. I do however think an isolation vs 4-petal antispin is possible, at least in wheel plane and possibly in wall plane too.

I've got a big list of things to work through poi-wise, not to mention a bunch of tutorials to edit let alone film. But i get a new tablet laptop at the end of the month so i will ponder upon this and over the next few months i will try to get some ideas down on paper (or photoshop). But there are definitely people out there with much more experience in hybrids than myself, yourself being one Drex so keep at it and maybe together we can come up with some sort of coherent, cohesive theory... hooray!
EDITED_BY: poifull_spirit (1276039816)

Posted: 9th Jun 2010
There's another bit of refinement here that was pointed out to me over the weekend that I'd totally missed...everything we describe as a hybrid requires a relationship such that one point of interest at either end (read: hand or poi head) must share the path of a point of interest at the other end regardless of timing and direction.

For example: triquetra vs static the static poi head follows the same path as the triquetra hand, cateye vs extension the hands follow the same path even if they are not at the same point on it. We wouldn't regard performing these two moves in adjacent hand paths a hybrid but do classify it as such when the hand paths are superimposed upon each other.

Peace,
Drex

Posted: 10th Jun 2010
But in the Russel's videos the first move didn't aply to this rule I think,
because only hands share the same path.

Posted: 10th Jun 2010
That just means there are head to hand, hand to hand or even head to head hybrids.

I've only found one movement thus far that I'd call a head to head hybrid.

Its antispin vs prospin in a linear isolation that traces a square.

Posted: 10th Jun 2010
No, than you could also call a simple weave a hybrid,
but thats no true.

We have to care about the simple targeting rules,
over ideas with broad ranges.

Posted: 10th Jun 2010
A weave has both poi travelling along the exact same paths, hand and head paths... whereas hand paths in the other patterns are opposite, yet parallel to one another.

Besides which, the original "Hybrid" which was isolation vs longarm was much closer to a weave than the examples I gave.

Posted: 10th Jun 2010
Originally Posted By: [ Unregistered ]But in the Russel's videos the first move didn't aply to this rule I think,
because only hands share the same path.

They did...the hands switch between occupying the same point on the path and phased apart on the same hand path. Russ's hybrid switches between antispin vs pendulum hybrids and antispin flowers (hence my contention that they're actually CAPs composed of hybrids).

We only need this relationship between two points of interest, so poi head can match hand, hand can match hand, or in the case of unit circle hybrids we can have hand match hand AND poi head match them both. This weekend at Wildfire we even played with some examples where poi head followed poi head but I think we're more likely to perceive the previous two cases as hybrid movement as this latter case is dependent upon point isolations.

Peace,
Drex

Posted: 11th Jun 2010
How does hand/head connection apply to pendulums.....i think that is a general trend but not a rule.

of course some pendulum patterns have head following or hand following configurations...

hmm...

Posted: 11th Jun 2010
Hand/hand?

Posted: 12th Jun 2010
Could a hybrid be a "double CAP" ?

Posted: 12th Jun 2010
I'm not so familiar with the term "CAP" but so far as I understand it, it tends to be switching between two different hybrids in a single, fluid motion.

If thats correct, then I guess you're on the right track, if you doubled one half of a CAP, you'd end up with a hybrid, doubling the other half would result in a different hybrid.

Buuuuuut, someone more well versed in the term can correct me if my use of "CAP" is incorrect.

Posted: 13th Jun 2010
I am under the impression that a CAP (Continuous Assembly Pattern) is not necessarily a 2-handed pattern, but rather a CAP is a looping pattern where the poi goes through two or more driving styles (I know, this definition brings us to the same dead end as hybrids, due to lack of clear definition for "driving style"..). And by this definition, CAPs can be done with just one poi. Whereas I think we all agree that hybrids are all necessarily 2-handed patterns.