Forums > Social Discussion > State of an art

Posted: 16th Aug 2011
I Have to admit I have seen a lessening of people here posting in recent years, indeed as you say since Facebook etc, this used to be a place people hung out, got to know each other have silliness etc as well as unique talents showing us new things they are doing now.

I do think there has been a resurgence of staff in recent years with people doing 3 with contact and juggling them, however the days of Devkev with his poiggling and phating seem to have slipped with people showing off in other places other mediums.

I will stay here helping the new jugglers and spinners where I can with my (limited) knowledge, but I have to agree there have been days I've come to have a look and seen relatively few new posts.

I don't help myself not commenting on nearly every intro like I used to or doing as much silliness but as a new dad I do have a little less time to play online or with the toys I so enjoy.

to be fair though I did give up time (and a lot of money) to start a spinning and juggling festival (Southern Lights)so I hope that balances a little, giving the online community a chance to meet and share ideas in person

A couple of balls short of a full cascade... or maybe a few cards short of a deck... we'll see how this all fans out.

Posted: 16th Aug 2011
I tend to drop by a couple times a day still. It has definitely quietened down since I joined. I think a large part of that is that the people who were doing this and getting involved now have other things on their plates: jobs, families, other hobbies, whatever.

Of course, there is a definite trend towards Facebook and Youtube having a large part of the new developments being showcased there, but I still prefer fora like this.

I try to welcome people, but fairly few are talking about what they are doing, showing and talking about new things.

Not sure that there is too much that can be done though. There are still a fair number of people joining, but not actively talking. And the few who are talking can be counted on a hand or two at this point.

'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: 16th Aug 2011
Yeah. I think despite the popularity of websites such as twitter and fb and now G+, I still prefer a forum style community for open discussions. First off, you can search through posts. Secondly you can easily go backwards in time through posts. It's a lot more organized in my opinion.

It is sad to see, from when I started posting here years ago, that there are less and less people chatting it up on here, although I'm hoping at some point to live near / with more poi people so as not to have the internet as one of my only sources of poi wisdom.

Posted: 16th Aug 2011
I'm not sure the search is working correctly and I don't know what Malcolm
is cooking backyards.

Yeah ,there is an visible activity, when new video with some unusuall
staff arrive, or when someone write something out of regular boudaries.

RB

Posted: 18th Aug 2011
There has definitely been a move away from here and towards other communication media. Facebook has hundreds (if not thousands) of spinning groups and there's loads of new video's going up on Youtube. A few years ago there were only a few places online for spinners to chat. Most of them met here. The result of the FB 'revolution' has been that there's now a lot of small local groups that are completely disconnected with the wider circus / juggling community. I've met a lot of people recently who were not aware of the various conventions around the UK, let alone had been to any. A lot of them had seen video's on YT and picked up their idea's from there though.

Of course as Mynci pointed out. Most of us that have been here for a long time have got other things going on in their lives and don't have the same amount of time as we used to to dedicate to circussy skills. I really like this community so when I'm not snowed under I try to drop in and chat with the people on here.

I think there are more people than ever taking up circussy arts. I also think that a lot of them will probably never have been part of a forum and won't understand the significance of it as a medium for discussion. I've noticed this sort of thing a lot since starting university as a 'mature student'. As I said above - I think that a lot of discussion has moved away from HoP to other places.

The community as a whole (from what I've seen) is thriving though.

Posted: 18th Aug 2011
So where is the party going on then ? It's the facebook, twitter
so great ? I did liked it here cause I could find here everything
together and still I'm fining this site a good overall resource.

So is this 'many small groups' good, or it meens something ?

I'm one of those who work regulary, practise spinning, don't go
to parties or meeting that often, so where do I can find what's
going on around the world ? Do I really need to search all the
network again?

Or is it just, cause I'm not in the mainstream anymore ? I think
When the internet still play a big role in international scale,
so why there are some subsidiary channels ?

really I don't know,

RB

Posted: 19th Aug 2011
I do think it (the community) has gotten bigger, which has led to some fracturing, in that you are more likely to find people near you who are able to spin, so there is less incentive to go online.

I think also with YouTube it is easy to find videos on nearly anything, so people are more likely to go there, rather than read through reams of text.

That said, if anyone has a reasonable plan for enticing people back here, have at it!

'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: 20th Aug 2011
I tend to check in every now and then, but I tend to see old concepts given new names and convoluted beyond mere practicality.

Discussion is great, sharing new ideas is great. Helping new people is even better, but it seems like the nomenclature is being updated just to simulate new discoveries, new concepts...

Maybe I'm out of touch, maybe I'm projecting a lot of this, but this is what I'm seeing as someone who has drifted away from the HoP community for a while.

I was going to mention here that perhaps my terminology page in the learn section could be updated by someone more adept at defining the new concepts, but it seems like at least Aston is already capable of editing that.

Posted: 20th Aug 2011
Quote:I think also with YouTube it is easy to find videos on nearly anything, so people are more likely to go there, rather than read through reams of text.
With the video era, especially the new people became usually complete clone of any
'high profile spinner'. Wtihout video there were much more originals. Kinda age of style
plagiarism. But it's recognisable only by profesional eye.

RB

Posted: 21st Aug 2011
No one wants to learn from text anymore, when they can learn from video much more easily.

And of those people that get to a high level of spinning... it seems that not many of them want to codify and communicate through text.

It does seem a lot like hard work. Pictures are so much better.

"the now legendary" - Kaskade
"the still legendary" - Kaskade

I spunked in my friend's aquarium and the fish ate it. I love all fish. Especially the pink ones. They are my bitches. - Anon.

Posted: 21st Aug 2011
Being a spinner for only a year and being on this site for even less time, I'm probably not especially qualified to comment on these issues. That being said, in my opinion the reason for the lack of general communication on this board is the way people are using it. Instead of a place to hang out and get to know people or have discussions (poi related or not), most of the new people are just using it as a Q and A board, asking a specific question then either leaving or lurking without much activity.

As for the clone issue, I think that stems from the fact that with the many easily available tutorials on youtube, a large portion of the newbie spinners are all learning from the same source like the meenik or nathanialeverist tutorials. Now naturally, unless you're one of the rare people who are completely self taught, your going to develop similarities in style to the person you learned from. I don't think that new spinners were any more inherently creative in the days before youtube, but they were just all learning from different people hence the appearance of more originality.

Another thing that may have contributed to it is the huge amount of things to learn these days that are readily available. Before tutorials were available or a lot of the new moves were created, it was much easier to reach the frontiers on poi knowledge and start creating new things. Now there is years of knowledge that new spinners have to catch up on before they can hope to do something that hasn't already been done, newbies can just continue to learn new things for much longer before they reach a point where they can be original.

Finally, about style development in general. With the sheer amount of things to learn, a lot of people are placing more emphasis on just wanting to know everything rather than developing an individual style with the things they already know. Which is leading to spinners just using move after move with little individual flair.

Phew =), for anyone that doesn't want to read that overlong, poorly written crap, tl;dr:

1. People are using hop like yahoo answers rather than a message board

2. Loads of newbies are learning from the same source, leading to style similarities

3. Everything's already been done so its practically impossible for new spinners to be original (a bit of hyperbole =p)

4. Newbies are too focused on learning everything to develop a unique style

Thats just my (uninformed) 2 cents =)

Posted: 22nd Aug 2011
Aston - Someone in an intro thread suggested a spinning Wiki. I think it sounds like a brilliant idea. As long as the structure is created the right way it could be incredibly useful to new spinners (If you could click through a series of menus to find pages in it). If Malcolm installed a mediawiki / dokuwiki (doku is easier to install and run but offers less features) I'd be happy to help craft the early structure before it goes public. It could have sections on spinning (with embedded videos and outward links), sections on the law in different countries, advice for peformers, etc. A lot of it could be dragged straight out of the forum. I think the inevitable debates would open up a bit more discussion on here.
I'm pretty sure that it could use the userlist from here too. I imagine it would be easy enough to set it up with only a small user group having access to get it started and then open it up to the whole community once it is ready.

Posted: 24th Aug 2011
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63CyiD-dmwQ

I hope after many years people will be able to talk about spinning
ideas in a language that everybody will understand.

And I think there are things that can't be delivered throught video,
sadly.

Posted: 25th Aug 2011
Seye: I would also be willing to help with that. The current library system is a tad clunky.

Stnd: Agreed on 1 and 4.

Actually, a system like Stack Overflow may be workable in this case as well. (Stack Overflow is like Yahoo Answers, but more focused.)

'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: 4th Sep 2011
Richee - thanks for posting that

Posted: 8th Sep 2011
ITs funny to think that i would of been one of those people a few years ago who posted almost daily went to the local festivals like play festival etc and now i pop buy like once a month to see whats going on.

I think one of the main reason i disappered is i spend so much itme outdoors spinning then what i used to when i am not working that i dont have time to sit on the laptop despite missing the talk and hte friendship i think this has helped with my devlopment.

As to the answer well we need to do somthing to get the world to notice that us guys are a community that art form we are all the old gaurd of has peaked in devlopmental terms we dont have people coming up with isolations and whip catchs any more in my opinion and the only way to expand it is to get new blood intrested and get new ideas flowing but with out such a focus on the newbies watching videos of YUTA and Nick and Durbs etc

The way to get the newbies in for lack of a better term is though out reach projects getting people into communitys and showing them somthing cool they can do with there spare times which is not "Geeky" or for people that work in the "circus" these two words have done more damage to the community then good i cannot go out spinning without saying have you worked in a "circus"

In marketing terms we needa a whole rebrand of our style but then again this is just my humble opinion of things i have been thinking for sometime.

he he i am mike the amazing gloscircus person who is mike.

Officaly an exception to the Poi Boys are Girls Thing

Posted: 9th Sep 2011
Rebranding like "non-competetive aerobic fitness activities" instead of juggling and poi... unfortunate acronym of NAFA though.

Surprised how schools don't take up more "ahem" physical arts for PE to help trim up the kids not interested in competition.

I suppose it's all about drafting the most physically abled into school teams.

A couple of balls short of a full cascade... or maybe a few cards short of a deck... we'll see how this all fans out.