Hey gang!
Drex from DrexFactor.com here to answer one of the most common questions that people have
when they first start spinning: how long should my poi be?
It's a simple question that can have a pretty complicated answer, depending on a lot of
factors.
Today, I'm going to do my best to simplify it a bit so that you can get spinning sooner
and figure out what works best for you!
Before we dive in, I just want to take a moment to give a shout out to the friends of the
channel!
Big thanks to Dark Monk, Emazing Lights, Flowtoys, Spinballs, and Ultra Poi for helping to make
the videos on this channel possible.
You can visit them all on the web by following the links down in the description of this
video.
Big thanks to Dark Monk, Flowtoys, Spinballs, and Ultra Poi for helping to make the videos
on this channel possible.
You can visit them all on the web by following the links down in the description of this
video.
Now on with the show!
I'm going to start off answering this with something that may not seem like much of an
answer--and that's to say there's no single correct length for poi tethers to be.
Different tether lengths are good for different things and what length works best for you
will depend a lot on which things you want to work on.
In general, poi seem to default to the length of your arm--basically, from the first joint
of your thumb up to the crease of your shoulder.
On most people, tethers this long wind up being somewhere between 20 inches or 50 cm
and 24 inches or 60 cm.
I'd count anything longer than this as long poi and anything shorter as short poi.
Short poi are good for making quick and clean stalls as well as for inside plane work such
as inversions, lovelacing, and toroids.
For many years, poi that stopped mid-biceps was considered the norm among tech spinners.
Some spinners opted for even shorter--sometimes no longer than elbow length.
Short poi have the benefit of being lighter and easier to control than longer poi.
For this reason I frequently see this length being used by female or younger spinners.
Popular spinners who've used this length include Chris Rovo, Kate McCoy, Charlie Cushing,
Alien Jon, Ky Lee, and even myself for a time.
The drawbacks of short poi are that they make contact poi nearly impossible, they require
you to spin faster than any other length, and your planes are more difficult to control.
In addition, because the patterns they create tend to be small they're generally only
good for performing in small and intimate environments.
At the other end of the spectrum are longer poi.
These are poi that are longer than your arm--sometimes being able to touch the ground from a neutral
position!
Long poi are good for contact poi, juggling, and make tosses much easier.
The longer the tether, the bigger the target when it comes to catching them.
They slow down the movement of the poi, making it easier to learn more complicated tricks
and they produce patterns that can be seen from great distances away.
This is the length preferred by many of the classical and European spinners as well as
jugglers including Nick Woolsey, Ronan McLoughlin, Keith Marshall, Ashlee Galliford, and Chris
Kelly.
The downsides of long poi are that they occupy so much space that they can be difficult to
control, especially for beginners.
They also tend to be heavier, so collisions will have a greater impact and they require
more energy to get moving.
Finally, it can be difficult to find a good way to shorten them for doing insides work.
You're almost certainly going to find that over time your preference in poi length will
change.
I started out with poi the same length as my arm, then shortened them considerable in
the first two years that I was spinning.
That was the length I used for about five years until I began experimenting with longer
tethers--finally settling back on poi that were about as long as my arm once again.
If you're just starting off, it's a pretty safe bet to go with this length--you can wrap
the tethers around your hand to shorten them up for insides work and they're long enough
to still do contact poi tricks and throws fairly easily.
It's really the best balance of all worlds until you can experiment enough to find out
what you really like.
You can also start off by looking at the spinners whose work you most enjoy and figure out what
length of poi they spin--giving yourself a place to start.
Try new things, see what sticks, and see what length of poi that style happens to support.
Thanks so much for watching.
If you got anything out of this video, please hit that like and subscribe button to help
my channel grow!
Special thanks to all my awesome supporters on Patreon--you guys are the ones that make
these videos possible.
If you're not a current backer and would like to sign up to support the work that I
do, please go to patreon.com/drexfactorpoi.
Thanks again and peace!
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