Forums > Beginner Staff Moves > 2009 Staff Goals

Posted: 9th May 2009
1) Get a new staff (thank you KLM) -Done.
2) Get Buugeng -Done.
3) Get back in shape with doubles -Done.
4) Learn contact moves the other way - managed neck pivots, angels, steve, prayer steve.
5) Continuous Jesuses -not yet.
6) Matrix -not yet.
7) Fishtails in all directions, antispin fishtails, some other fishtail variations - i managed fishtails in both directions with both hands, no variations or antispins yet.
8) Be able to do neck combos continuously. -Kinda done, needs some work, and i need to learn direction changes.
9) work on body movement (be more like banyan) -it's improving, but i still need a lot of work.
10) go to england again -looks like I'm gonna be too broke to go.
11) perform more. loads more. -been performing a bit more, but thanks to the credit crunch not too many gigs.
12) new routines in everything. -doubles routine halfway done, poi and contact staff routines need to be rebuilt with new music.
13) learn 3 staffs. -I managed 72 catches today. need to work on reverse cascade.

Posted: 21st May 2009
1. Make my own beginning practice staff. Done

2. Create a how to make a beginning practice staff guide. Done

3. Submit it to HOP for the library. Doing that tonight

4. Get it published. Hopefully lol

5. Learn basic staff moves.

6. Same as above but on weak ass left side

7. Ditto above two, but backwards (apparently all you have to do is turn around lol)

8. Move jobs in August from Anglesey to Lincoln and find a group over that way that can help me develop some more and that I can take my 4yr old along to.

9. Find time to do all of this whilst learning new job and looking after 4yr old and looking after brand new baby girl, who is due 10 days after new job starts.

10. Have a beer tonight (this was only put in to satisfy my paranoia that a list isnt a list unless it goes to ten)

Jay

From Within Chaos Comes Order

Posted: 28th May 2009
completed one of mine in my first gig this year. completed my first ever contact and staff on staff doubles act on fire. I even slipped in a couple of moves I've never done on fire before just to "feel" the difference. was all good

so
1) Properly choreograph full contact doubles set.
2) teach simon to count
3) make some new 3ft sticks to replace stolen ones.
4) tighten up double fishtails to the point I can Always do them not just on good days with good sticks.
5) teach simon to count
6) get some more music to spin to
7) get creative
8) teach simon to count
9) teach more doubles to certain people

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: 28th May 2009
1. Make my own beginning practice staff. Done

2. Create a how to make a beginning practice staff guide. Done

3. Submit it to HOP for the library. Done
4. Get it published. Hopefully lol(waiting grrr)
5. Learn basic staff moves. Hmmm getting there slowly, my head hurts a bit now
6. Same as above but on weak ass left side, see above my head hurts a lot now lol

7. Ditto above two, but backwards (apparently all you have to do is turn around lol)<8. Move jobs in August from Anglesey to Lincoln and find a group over that way that can help me develop some more and that I can take my 4yr old along to.

9. Find time to do all of this whilst learning new job and looking after 4yr old and looking after brand new baby girl, who is due 10 days after new job starts. I hate waiting, want to start new job now, want to hold new baby now.

10. Have a beer tonight (this was only put in to satisfy my paranoia that a list isnt a list unless it goes to ten) and my god that beer was nice, a bit of shameless advertising but Adnams Broadside is gorgeus and for the ban the car, ban the oil industry lot they do a Carbon Neutral beer aswell which is equally lovely.
Jay

Originally Posted By: Myncicompleted one of mine in my first gig this year. completed my first ever contact and staff on staff doubles act on fire. I even slipped in a couple of moves I've never done on fire before just to "feel" the difference. was all good

so
1) Properly choreograph full contact doubles set.
2) teach simon to count
3) make some new 3ft sticks to replace stolen ones.
4) tighten up double fishtails to the point I can Always do them not just on good days with good sticks.
5) teach simon to count
6) get some more music to spin to
7) get creative
8) teach simon to count
9) teach more doubles to certain people


If you want music to spin to whilst practising dont know how far you will get with using it on videos or for performances, but the Prodigys new album is good. And you could always try trawling myspace and internet podcasts for free stuff, Dark Compass is good for a weekly podcast plays all kinds of music.

From Within Chaos Comes Order

Posted: 28th May 2009
Cheers dude, I'm looking for some new music to perform to. been thinking airwolf because it just screams action but more likely funky instrumentals or harass my producer friend to make me something special.

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: 28th May 2009
Check PM,

I like the Airworf idea, throw in a bit of the A-Team and some Macguyver(sp), get an 80's outfit and your onto a winner lol
EDITED_BY: zyonchaos (1243521754)

From Within Chaos Comes Order

Posted: 11th Jun 2009
I heard a Soulwax tune recently that seemed to be an Airwolf mashup, was punchy too. The DJ said it was a couple of years old, 'fraid I can't help more than that.

Never lie down with someone who has more problems than you.

Posted: 11th Jul 2009
Staff goals for 2009:

1) get good enough with my painting pole so that I can justify buying a staff instead of more poi tools.

2) stop breaking out into random practice at work

3) remember to take the roller head off before random practice

I think 3 is arguably the most important.

2 is not such a big deal since i'm the boss.

link to picture of what i've been using:
https://www.woosterbrush.com/catalog.html

on the left side at the bottom of the menu type in the word 'sherlock' for the product search.

scroll down until you see the 'sherlock gt convertible'

The 4' to 8' works better then the 2' to 4' I have, even though it's much heavier. A buddy of mine has a real firestaff, and this paint pole is easily more then twice the weight.

Posted: 11th Jul 2009
dont stop the random practice! get it in whenever you can AND then add scheduled practice.

btw, staves come in a wide variety of weight. Mine is fairly light compared to a breakdown staff I've played with from a different company. MCP apparently used to have a solid aluminum staff (which had to have been super heavy). So it pays to test out all the options.


Im scratching all my previous goals and changing them:

Footwork
Dance
clean up the basics instead of learning new things.

I want to put on a smooth burn that looks competent instead of choppy. Besides which, any new moves I've been learning have been suffering because of not having those basic rolls and stuff down tight.

In the words of Meg, Im going to do it again, but this time with less .

"to a man whose only tool is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail." Abraham Maslow

Posted: 12th Jul 2009
Continue learning the basics.

Dentrassi showed me some stuff and it has been a lot of fun playing with it, so hopefully this will be a fun second (third?) prop.

'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: 25th Jul 2009
july update:


1) Subtitles for DVD
-- okay I made someone else do this... er, thx noel.
FAIL -- 2) Do more fire.
WIN -- 3) Col / Contact video...
fail -- 4) FINISH the 'blind date' routine.
hmmm -- 5) Think more on writing down ideas and choreographies for multiple people.
win -- 6) More club contact. + Club Routine.
hard -- 7) Be more like Wes Peden and Julian Wong...
hmmm -- 8) Get some stuff solid that is currently ridiculous.
hmmm -- 9) Dance. or Change my movement.
fail -- 10) Make a staff that's good for crazy stuff.
FAIL -- 11) More Doubles Contact.
hard -- 12) Practise the tiger roll with a ball.

Half way through the year ish... I wish I could become more than I am. That a goal and a half. But expressivity. That's the main goal. Expressivity is the new musicality.

"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: 11th Aug 2009
Update -

1 - substituted my paint pole for a real practice staff. Home-made from aluminum tubing, can maybe convert for fire at some point.

2 - Fail - still break out into random practice at work

3 - success, can scratch this one off.

(new) 4 - work more staff into dedicated weekly poi practice day. This is easier then it seems, because some of my practice mates are interested in staff too, and one of them even has a real staff.

5 - CONTACT! what brought me into wanting to do staff was contact. I don't ever want to touch the staff with my hands.

(thanks MCP for those wonderful contact tutorials!!!)

Posted: 11th Aug 2009
Pre-Burn Update:

1) Work on variations of the base contact moves in the other direction.
- I've been practicing lots of steves and angel rolls in both directions... steves are coming along nicely.

2) Learn how to do more doubles contact with my 3' doubles.
- Meh is how I feel about this...

3) Clean up body rolls to foot fishtails... mostly by learning how to do foot fishtails proper.
- My foot fishtails work now, and I've been working on this here and there. I think the demon roll to foot fishtails is quite nice.

4) Learn how to do a meast matrix from a prayer steve while keeping my hands in prayer.
- A worthy goal but I often get distracted by other fun things. Fail.

5) Elbow pops on my knees like in that feicha video.
- My staff is too bouncy, maybe my next fire staff will work better. However, I've gotten better at elbow pops.

6) Watch more baton videos and clean up my fujimi rolls.
- I've been inspired by a lot of baton work lately, but a lot of that stuff is really hard with a staff. Ray outs are pretty cool.

7) Learn how to be an effective teacher, and teach a class at firedrums.
- Never got around to it, I need to work A LOT more on this.

My goals have changed a bit, I think my primary goal at this point is to learn all the cool stuff I've figured out how to do with my practice staff for the past 8 months with my new fire staff. That would be nice.

New goals:

1) Continuous holy trinities. After I learn how to do that, I want to do the hard stall after each holy trinity.

2) Steve to antiturn headspin 360. Like the steve to headspin but once you get it on your head you turn in the opposite direction of the staff and then complete the move down your arm.

3) Substitution matrix cartwheel. I need to learn how to complete this once I come up from the cartwheel.

4) Vertical minimal steve. I really like this one.

5) More body rolls, including body rolls to foot fishtails.

Those are the main things I should be working on.

Posted: 13th Aug 2009
What have I been doing so far?
1) Organised a fire circle in Galway, with it's own FB page.
2) Went to the EJC
3) Bought 3 staffs for 3 staff contact
4) Learnt more Double contact, general double stuff, and some 3 staff moves.
5) Got my street show down to 5 mins of awesomeness; time and fuel went down, hats and talking to the crowd went up.
6) Working on a business FB page.
7) Pick up my opaque plastic business cards tomorow.
8) Got back into theatre.

Goals: more of everything.

Never lie down with someone who has more problems than you.

Posted: 6th Dec 2009
December update:


WIN nearly. -- 1) Subtitles for DVD
WIN -- 2) Do more fire.
WIN -- 3) Col / Contact video...
fail -- 4) FINISH the 'blind date' routine.
win doing that right now -- 5) Think more on writing down ideas and choreographies for multiple people.
WIN -- 6) More club contact. + Club Routine.
10% win -- 7) Be more like Wes Peden and Julian Wong...
win-ish -- 8) Get some stuff solid that is currently ridiculous.
WIN -- 9) Dance. or Change my movement.
fail -- 10) Make a staff that's good for crazy stuff.
win a little thanks to dag -- 11) More Doubles Contact.
WIN with fingernails, now to learn without... -- 12) Practise the tiger roll with a ball.

Year is almost done... I'm going to need some new goals... But that's a whole new thread... wow, I even completed some of my original goals... sweeeeeeeet. Might have to do the hundreds... hmmm...

"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: 6th Dec 2009
1) Get a new staff (thank you KLM) -Win
2) Get Buugeng -Win, should use them more.
3) Get back in shape with doubles -Semi-Win
4) Learn contact moves the other way - managed neck pivots, angels, steve, prayer steve.
5) Continuous Jesuses - Can do 2 in a row, but it's not consistent.
6) Matrix -Epic Fail
7) Fishtails in all directions, antispin fishtails, some other fishtail variations - i managed fishtails in both directions with both hands, no variations or antispins yet.
8) Be able to do neck combos continuously. -Still needs more work
9) work on body movement -Needs some work.
10) go to england again -Fail
11) perform more. loads more. -Win
12) new routines in everything. -Other than poi, Fail.
13) learn 3 staffs. -I dropped this goal due to my practice staffs breaking.

Posted: 20th Dec 2009
fail - 1)learn enough moves in prayer to do a routine entirely in prayer
ish - 2)keep doing yoga as its keeping me safe from muscle strains
win - 3)dual fishtails
fail - 4)sort out the annoying tendency of planes to move from vertical to horizontal when doing multiple turns in contact
win - 5)learn more ground moves
sort of - 6) get the neckspin cartwheel thing working
fail - 7)be able to do handstands (to smooth out the cartwheels)
win - 8)explore footwork a little more, with less staggering around in circles
fail - 9)find some new double throws patterns to keep my busy beyond the two staff shower
win - 10)find some better arm/hand positions when contacting

Because ActiveAngel sounds like a feminine deodorant

Like sex, I'm much more interesting in real life than online.

'Be the change you want to see in the world around you' - Ghandi