Forums > Beginner Poi Moves > Backwards/Reverse Weave.

Posted: 2nd Jun 2006
i just cant do it the reverse weave.. =s its so frustrating when i try it i make the butterfly can someone help me plz?
its so hard to try it reading this threads.. i think i need to have a teacher here at my side and i live in mexico and no one practice it here but i can do a lot of tricks, just this one its soo hard

HELP PLZ...

Posted: 26th Jun 2006
PLEASE can we have straight instructions on this-i'm no good with all the other stuff, i just get confused (and we all know how easy that is!) e.g, for fwd weave, you get the nice left over right, etc (i'm not saying that has ANYTHING at all to do with the weave, so don't use that as advice!)

Thanks for whoever gives us the AMAZING advice. (I just need reverse weave to learn fountain.)

Thx again.

THE hop Pyro.
(with parents)
Unowned

Posted: 26th Jun 2006


I struggle with the reverse weave too. At the moment I can do a single reverse weave and when I try and take it back to the beginning again, the poi kind of swing sideways instead of down, especially the right one.

As for ttn, the "hands one on top of the other" advice asgiven up-thread helped me crack it.

Posted: 1st Aug 2006
Thanks to all members with advice on the reverse/backward weave. Your advise is sound in theory BUT I CAN'T stop my hands from going back to the forward motions!! I have mastered EVERY move forward, my challenge now is to go the other way!! Any additional pointers would be most helpful. THANKS !!!

P.S. If I had a dollar for every time I have whacked myself over the years..... I'd spend it all at HOP !!

Posted: 10th Sep 2006
Hey I just wanted to thank all the people who posted on this. I woke up this morning after having read this last night and decided to give reverse weave a try again. I've been failing to figure it out for months now. I started with swinging them backwards split time and crossed them over when I felt comfortable and got it the first time! Its awesome because I've been in a rut the past few weeks and I was starting to feel bad. Thanks a bunch for all the great advice!

Posted: 3rd Mar 2007
i still can't do this move, tried with pens, and spatula handles, and short poi, and long poi

Faith
Nay, whatever comes one hour was sunlit and the most high gods may not make boast of any better thing than to have watched that hour as it passed

Posted: 19th Mar 2007
for me reverse weave was a real nightmare - i just could not figure out how my hands were ment to do that. they way i see it is when you do the forward weave your hands sort of push the poi down into the figure of eight shape weaves are based on - right? so to do it reverse, your hands need to push the poi UP into the basic figure of eight shape.


Make sense?

Posted: 20th Mar 2007
Reverse weave was a bit of a buzz for me too but if you can do regular weave and find a good video showing the reverse, it wouldn't be too hard after some practice.
Good luck to all who are struggling with it!
It just takes time and practice, so you'll get it eventually.

Posted: 22nd Mar 2007
The thing I found I had to remember with the backwards weave is that, although your hands are moving exactly like forward weave in rewind (under, over, round etc) it feels completely different. Instead of pushing your hands down over each other you should be pulling the poi up from underneath. This also works wel for outwards ttn, if anyone's interested. Pull!

Buy gerbils cos you can't spin with hamsters

Posted: 11th Oct 2009
Hi everyone! I just started spinning poi a few days ago. I made my own with dress sockets and tennis balls. Thanks to this website i will have some real poi soon! I have learned the forwards 3 beat weave some of the butterflys and high turns low truns. I am working on the revevrse weave. My many problem is i keep getting my poi rapped around my hands. Its driving me crazy i cant figure out what i am doing wrong. I was wondering if any body else had this problem and can tell me how to fix it!

Thanks,
Bam

Posted: 11th Oct 2009
just practice with one poi first left or right hand, depending on which one is your dominant hand, then your weak hand until you get it down with both of them.
Its just the reverse of a forward one, just keep at it.
I remember learning reverse 3 beat and i thought id never figure it out. but now i can do reverse/forward 3 beat in my sleep. ive only been spinning for round 3 months now as well.
word of advice though, once you get the 3beats down, i'd work on 5 beats. i just started workingon 5 beats and wish i learned it earlier, because its not as hard as it looks/seems. I can do forward but reverse 5 beat, wraps up around my hands as well.
but just keep practicing and do one hand at a time until you get it down.

Posted: 11th Oct 2009
as well, since youre beginning now, im not quite sure how flexible you are, but you should start stretching your arms out now for btb moves so when youre ready to start doing them in a month or so your arms will be ready for all the behind the back reaching you need to do.
Stretches help, i wish i knew to start doing them earlier.
stretches such as crossing your arms in the back and reaching for your elbows, and pulling your arm to the opposite side of your torso behind your back and pulling at the wrist, and maybe even interlacing your fingers behind your back and stretch arms out

Posted: 12th Oct 2009
Sweet Thanks for the help. As far as the streching goes i do martial arts so i am pretty lember.


Thanks
Bam

Posted: 12th Oct 2009
bad ass, then youre a step ahead of me

Posted: 12th Oct 2009
Lol I got my Reverse 3bt weave now its sloopy but i can do it! So i tried the behind you back weaves didnt go so well i was checking out some of the other stuff on here and was wondering when a good time tostart learning Isolations spins and and inversions?
EDITED_BY: Bam_Bam (1255396339)

Posted: 12th Oct 2009
I would start the theory and practising isolations straight away, even if your not using them for things right away, they open up a world for you later on, they help with stalls, inversions, stretchy flower stuff, orbitals, isolated weaves and flowers and other fancy things. Isolations are the kind of thing you should constantly practice because they are very hard to get consistant. So it's (IMO) better to start learning them now, get the motion down, so when it comes to learning isolated stuff you don't spend a load of time learning how to isolate too.

I (personally) would leave inversions for a bit, I have only just started toying with them (after 8 months of spinning) and they are pretty cool to play with, but they don't seem to open up as many possibilities as other things (flowers, fountains, buzzsaws). I think you would end up spending time that could be spent on more practical stuff. Otherwise you may end up being able to do inversions perfectly but then you would have nothing to do with them yet (IMO) and would be stuck going from weave to butterfly to inversion etc, so going from "move" to "move" instead of opening your spinning up and making things flow.

I would recomend learning flowers (compound circles) next, they will open up your spinning to a whole new level, they will help you move around and mean that your not constantly concentraiting on having your hands close together in front of you like weaves and butterflys do. Plus they look really good when done with fire or light.

Learn to turn with your weaves and butterflys too, so forwards weave, turn 180 into backwards weave, then 180 again back into forwards so you have done full 360. Then do the same again the opposite way. If you got it down, do the same with the 5 beats too. And for butterflys you would do a forward butterfly, turn 90 degrees into a butterfly buzzsaw, turn 90 degrees again into a backwards butterfly, 90 degrees again into a backwards butterfly buzzsaw and 90 degrees again back to a forwards butterfly, and keep doing that until you have it consistant and smooth.

Corkscrews and windmills are pretty good to learn early too, you can then learn them as 4 beats too. This opens up the possiblities of fountains when combined with weaves.

Spiral wraps are quite good to learn, just because they look good and can be done from weaves, flowers and other stuff.

Then maybe practise transitions between weaves, butterflys, fountains, flowers and extentions, while turning, dancing and exploring your space.

Oh, try learning the "saloon door" stuff, which will give you much more control of your spinning. I can't get on youtube, but I think if you go to Nicks youtube page there is something about it on there, which is real handy. Think his username on there is Meenik, if not then the Playpoi youtube channel.

I reckon that should be enough to give you a few weeks/months worth of practice, and will totally change your spinning (well it did for me and others I know).

That's what I would do anyway. Others may say differently.
EDITED_BY: T-S-A (1255402353)

"We were making castles in the sand: Now we swim in the seas that swept them away"

Posted: 12th Oct 2009
Thanks for the advice. I will work on it and let you know what i come up with. Its not like i have anyone to help me with this. So what was a few months for you might keep me busy longer!

Posted: 13th Oct 2009
Most of my advice came from Nick, Durbs and a few others youtube channels. You will be surprised how quickly you can pick things up once they have been explained well. Admitedly I was unemployed and spent half my days on the beach in the summer with a few beers, some smoke, music and poi.

But for the most part everything I have learned (bar one or two "moves") have been through watching videos.

I also bought Scales of Poi, Adventures in Poi and Encyclopoidia, which pretty much cover everything you need to know to start off, and will keep you busy for ages.

Scales is good, it approaches a lot of different movements, skills and "moves". But not in a "this is how you do a weave" and "this is how you do butterfly" etc etc.

There is a lot of good stuff on the video tutorial bit of this site.

"We were making castles in the sand: Now we swim in the seas that swept them away"

Posted: 13th Oct 2009
Yea the movies i will get but i got fired from my job last friday so i go loads of time for spinning my poi now. That was actually a reason why i choose to learn now i got the time to learn. Oh and jim you go to any off the clubs around dallas?

Posted: 14th Oct 2009
i go to afterlife when i get the chance, i try and stay away from it because i know whats for sell up there and what not and im trying to get my life straight .
but i actually went Last weekend to watch people spin poi and to spin some poi at the club.
I've yet to go to lizard lounge or insomnia but i'd love to.
It was kinda saddening though last weekend when i went to afterlife. it was like an emo kid haven. Rather dead night for club night as well, but i didnt see all the kandi kids and all the usually club kids im use to, a few but not alot. I however did meet an amazing spinner, and i watch some people spin, and go to see some flowtoyz in person. But my girly and i left early to go home and watch some movies and get warm. It was rather cold that night and it was kinda weird for us since we hadnt been in so long.

Posted: 14th Oct 2009
Lizard lounge is cool to go hang out and check out music. They always have great djs. You cant spin there it sucks. But insomnia is the best out of the clubs around here. They have the same djs from the lizard lounge and there only open saterday morning from 4am to 8 am. That is were i frist seen any body spin. I went to afterlife for candy mountian that was a big mistake. They got raided. Thankful i left like 10 mins before that. I never really liked after life. but i like the set up for it for it. They just need better djs.

Posted: 14th Oct 2009
i was at candy mountain when it got raided.
I love life, its grungy and nasty and stinks like b-o.
haha, ive been to life alot, they have some good djs that go in there.
but alot are locals, some djs suck i must admit but other djs do preform pretty good.
They also have some really famous djs stop by, Venoms been a cpl times and such, some mainstream djs, some happy hard djs too. I remember one event night i fell in love with the a dj grp, but i was intoxicated and never caught the name of them and wish i did

Posted: 16th Oct 2009
I agree with another poster that it's never too soon to start practicing things like isolations, stalls, inversions, etc., if only because they're the kind of thing you can play with any time you have a free hand and it takes steady practice to really get these down. And you don't have to know anything very complicated to start adding them to simple moves you already know.

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

Posted: 22nd Oct 2009
This one has me stumped, all I seem to be able to manage is a very strange reverse butterfly that resembles the beginnings of a weave. I don't think it's simply a reversal, but another move all together. I found this to be true with the explanations for the low turn as well, after much practice and observation the poi changing directions was not an optical illusion at all, but more of an unconscious requirement for momentum although the hands are still moving in the same direction.

Did that make any sense and would building on that concept help with this reverse weave at all? Following traditional instructions to the letter end up with a whack to the face with my chain or the poi will come over and hit me squarely on the back (had the same problem with the low turn until I applied my theory).

~Rock on!~

"As the pattern gets more intricate and subtle, being swept along is no longer enough"-Waking Life

(All you RLers this is epitome_of_lame *waves hello*)

Posted: 23rd Oct 2009
When you turn around, the poi will be spinning the other way. Just let that happen and it may come right.

The poi do not actually change directions in a low turn, but your hands do....

If I understand what you are saying correctly....

'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: 23rd Oct 2009
Almost, when you turn the poi spin the other way and just allow it to happen. While your hands are still doing the motion for spinning the poi in the forward direction the poi, when allowed to follow with natural momentum after the hesitation and turning your body 180 degrees, are actually backwards it's not just an optical illusion like others have explained.

That's what I found after deeply analyzing every bonk I had been getting for weeks, tried to loosen up and just spin with less thinking and the low turn flowed that way easily. After I got it down, I repeated it several times until I came to that conclusion I stated above. So I was wondering if applying this knowledge would help in other cases because the backwards weave is not at all working as a complete reversal in the literal sense?
EDITED_BY: EpitomeOfNovice (1256313505)

~Rock on!~

"As the pattern gets more intricate and subtle, being swept along is no longer enough"-Waking Life

(All you RLers this is epitome_of_lame *waves hello*)

Posted: 23rd Oct 2009
Well, when doing a low turn the *poi* do not change directions. In mechanical terms, angular momentum is conserved, and an observer watching the circles your poi make from the side would see them keep spinning in the same direction as you turned. What changes is the direction relative to your body. (Insofar as direction relative to one's body is an objective [if derived] property of your poi's motion, you are correct in that it is not an optical illusion. But now I'm just getting technical for the love of it.)

The reverse weave is, however, a complete reversal of the forward weave. That is, if you were to take a recording of someone doing a forwards weave and play it backwards, that's the motion you need for a reverse weave. It's just that, unfortunately, simplicity of explanation and simplicity of execution are seldom on par with one another

I would practice pretty much the standard way I learned weaves: get the crossing motion with each hand by itself, then figure out reverse two beats (leading with each hand). If you can do the two beat motion without hitting yourself, you can do the three beat with only a minor tweak.

Without seeing you try in person, my guess based on what I've seen others do is that you're possibly unintentionally hesitating to bring one of your poi across your body, or that one of your hands is trying to do a forward weave motion. Possibly that and your planes going wonky.

Wow this post got long. Must be getting sleepy.

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

Posted: 23rd Oct 2009
Is it a "complete" reversal to the point that you start the weave at the same starting point from the reverse spin as though it were a forward spin entering a forward weave? That's really a contributor to my funky butterfly I get instead a weave. I can't possibly get that full crossover action if I don't know where to begin the reverse weave from the swinging stance. I hope that makes sense, if it's not true that the reversal is accurate all the way back to where you start the cycle... I will need further instruction on how to start it and the pattern isn't a true reversal (similar concept that hindered my "low turn" example until realizing the confusion). Perhaps that might give a touch more insight about my concern?

Haven't quite had my words polished like that since school, but it doesn't change the fact it said the same thing

But yeah once again I hope it made sense because I don't speak physics too well! Input would be greatly appreciated

~Rock on!~

"As the pattern gets more intricate and subtle, being swept along is no longer enough"-Waking Life

(All you RLers this is epitome_of_lame *waves hello*)

Posted: 23rd Oct 2009
Instead of over-under-back, you need to go under-over-back. And the poi are obviously spinning in reverse.
For your start, try just spinning the poi in reverse and bring your right hand under your left as each crosses your body.

Have you looked for any good videos? There are a bunch around....

To go back to the low turn: The poi are going in the direction you face at the top of their circle when spinning forwards. So are your hands. When you turn around, the poi will be going in the same direction to anyone else, but will be going passed your head towards your back for you. This means that your hands need to spin in that direction also.

'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: 26th Oct 2009
Hmmm, I'm not exactly clarifying what's stumping me too well it seems, I think someone in person would have to help me with the issue. I can do a low turn just fine and I see what you're saying, but there is more than one motion to give your poi momentum so your hands are not required to "spin" in all cases especially in neutral or during transition.

The reverse weave issue is not the motion itself I understand the motion, it's where to start the motion, at what angle, and with how much momentum. My problem is where to begin the reversal from the standard backspin, I think that point is greatly different from where you have optimal momentum and direction going forward.

The only video I have that goes over the basics is Art Of Poi which is almost useless to me, I did better applying Scales Of Poi to get the basics I know down because of the type of instruction answers the detailed questions I need to understand the flow of motion. If you have any video suggestions that would rock as well!

~Rock on!~

"As the pattern gets more intricate and subtle, being swept along is no longer enough"-Waking Life

(All you RLers this is epitome_of_lame *waves hello*)