Forums > Help! > Meteors! Cant rotor >_<

Posted: 11th Apr 2007
Vertical rotors, despite looking fairly simple, especially to staff people, where the equivalent staff move is pretty much the first thing learnt, are, with meteors, very difficult.

Of all the basic meteor moves, including poi-style weaves, turns etc, passing behind back etc, vertical rotors are by far, IMO, the most difficult to learn.

If you're after going from a slack rope to sustained rotors, my advice is to forget about it.

Instead, work hard on the other basics i.e. all the poi moves, turns, transitions (with meteors) plus the specific meteor stuff like one-hand figure eights and pass-behind back etc.

Here's my video-

https://www.davidpanther.plus.com/movies/dave_meteors.avi

(if you're going to watch it please download it ie 'right click' 'save target as...' rather than streaming it)

nothing too technical, just basics done well, clearly visible in daylight.

Then notice how, both in the vid and then, in your own practice, how, when doing those basics, there are transitory (single turn) rotors.

When you can focus on those transitory partial rotors, you can then start adding an extra turn, building up to consistent double rotations, then triple etc, etc.

Then you'll start to get an understanding and, that understanding won't be in your head, but in your hands, which is where it should be.

Once that happens, you'll be only weeks away from being able to do sustained rotors at will.

That's my advice; if however, you do succeed in getting sustained rotors using a different method, please do post the details.

"You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it."

--MAJOR KORGO KORGAR,
"Last of The Lancers"
AFC 32


Educate your self in the Hazards of Fire Breathing STAY SAFE!

Posted: 12th Apr 2007
Excellent advice and video there OWD ( as usual ) It was Andy House who first introduced me to meteor spinning and your fire meteor video that kept me going, however ( unfortunately ) I seem to have lost interest in the toy over the past winter...I'll go dig it out.

I too had difficulty with rotors, and used to think of them more as a transition from a forward weave to a reverse weave until I got to the point where I could pull a full 360 with them but still I thought of going from a fwd weave to a fwd weave, rather than being a "move" I could actually do something with.

Eventually I got to where I could ( sometimes ) go from a weave to a btb rotor...pass that up high and switch hands and hopefully make back into the weave before the rotor *died*

So what I'm wondering....Is there any way to add momentum to a rotor ( like spinning a staff ) or is it all about minimising the rate at which the speed of the rotor decreases ? I'm wondering about the three turns you do at the end of your posted video...there's no way I can keep up a rotor for that long. Do you add any "power" to it...or is it even possible to add power ?

Posted: 13th Apr 2007
Certain transitions seem to naturally add energy to rotors- which is why I advise total beginners asking about rotors to focus instead on moves like passing the mereors behind the back, as, for some reason, that transition adds rotational energy to the meteors.

The three turns at the end of the video is another such move- it doesn't actually feel like a rotor and I've never really thought of it as a rotor- the act of turning the body whilst the meteors are behind the back, itself maintains the rotor.

That's not to say that my previous ability to maintain a sustained rotor in front isn't helping, just that it's not on a conscious level.

ie it's different to when I'm doing a sustained front rotor, where I am having to deliberatly maintain the rotation with specific hand motions.

What i'm saying is that, yes, you can add momentum and sustain momentum, by-

1. a by product of certain transitions, as detailed above

2. by deliberate hand movements

Where sustained front rotors are concerned, it is only method 2 that is feasible- this is why they are, initially, so difficult to learn.

(For any beginners reading this, bear in mind that there's another reason why front rotors are so difficult- as a beginner you will likely not have mastered the other moves that can translate into a rotor, so you will be in the near impossible position of attempting to initiate a rotor from scratch, before attempting to sustain it.

IMO, you need to be able to sustain a rotor before you have any chance of starting it from scratch (ie from a slack rope).

Here's the details of the hand movements that i use when powering a (front) rotor-

1. imagine a clockwise rotor

2. the right hand is just about to take the rope

3 just prior to the rotor being vertical is when the right hand takes over and does so with the right elbow held high and to the right of the body, enabling the right hand to grasp the vertical rope with little finger uppermost and palm pointing to the right; it goes above the left hand and the left hand then releases the rope

4 right hand now rotates strongly clockwise- there is a feel of the little finger end of the hand dragging down on the rope- pushing and adding energy to the lower/right half of the rope- it feels as if the hand is rotating faster than the rope- this is, IMO, the source of the added momentum

5 this continues until the meteor has turned more than 180 degrees( approaching 270 degrees), at which point the left hand is brought in and the right hand releases

6 the left hand grasps the rope palm up- at this point the rope is becoming horizontal and, for an instant, both hands are on the rope, both palm up

7 the right hand releases and the left takes over- there is a similar acceleration effect with the left, but this time it is the top (index finger) end of the hand which drags the rope forward and adds energy

8 the rope advances another 270 degrees till it approaches vertical with the left hand now little finger uppermost and left elbow held high and to the left of the body- at this point the right hand, as before, grasps the rope above the left hand, with, again, little finger end uppermost and right elbow held high and to the right

Simply repeat the above for a sustained rotor- but, if you're relatively new, don't frustrate yourself by attempting infinite rotors, instead slip them in on the transition between turning from forward to babkward weaves (and vice-versa), gradually adding extra rotors as you improve.

On my video, just after the half-way point, there's a bit where I do three consequtive rotors- it's after the lyric 'in the name of god my father'll fly' and starts at same time as 'his eyes...'.

It's interesting that, in those days, my rotor was still noticably raggy in comparison to most of the other moves I do on the vid.

In 'media player classic' the vid seems to work quite well in 'pause' mode and you can single step through the move and see the hand/arm positions.

Lastly, I hope the above instructions are correct- I've just written them now from a quick analysis of my rotors- any obvious mistakes that anyone spots, please point them out so I can correct them.

"You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it."

--MAJOR KORGO KORGAR,
"Last of The Lancers"
AFC 32


Educate your self in the Hazards of Fire Breathing STAY SAFE!

Posted: 13th Apr 2007
Thanks OWD...it's nice to know that an infinite rotor IS possible ,I was seriously doubting this especially after writing the above post, then digging out the meteor, only to find that my skills with it had degraded over the past 8 months of not spinning it.

I just followed your step by step instructions using a staff,,they make sense and I appear to be doing the same thing. Yes, there is a severe ragginess to the whole thing, and I just might be falling into the trap that most people who are new to these arts do...which is trying too hard..aka spinning to fast..or in this specific case, trying to spin to fast.

One problem I may have is the toy itself. I have a sock meteor, which slightly lengthens ( or shortens ) with speed of rotation. The one I got from Andy I found to be on the short side, it's the length ( and supposed to emulate ) joining two poi together ( remember the button handles idea? ) and I found it really frustrating to try most poi moves with it. Weaving for instance. ( what?? a one handed three beat weave? I'm not even close to being there yet )

OK, off to build a 5 foot rope and sock end meteor......naaa scratch that, I've been working on contact staff most of the winter, I'm used to getting hit in the head,,repeatedly, bring on the tennis balls with big nuts in them..I can take it.