How to Make Homemade Practice Poi

Intro: How to Make Homemade Practice Poi

Welcome to my little tutorial on how to make some poi.
First of all, to those who don't know what poi is:

Quoted from Homeofpoi.com
""Poi" is the Maori word for "ball" on a cord
The Poi was used, many years ago, by the indigenous Maori people of New Zealand to increase their flexibility and strength in their hands and arms as well as improving coordination.

Wahine (female) dancers perform the Maori Poi, a dance performed with balls attached to flax strings, swung rhythmically.

The Poi dance was originally used by the Maori women for keeping their hands flexible for weaving and by the men for strength and coordination required during battle. Poi are also used as a training aid for other ancient weapons like the Mere or Patu (Short club)"

Now days poi is a popular form of entertainment and just plain for fun practice good for cordination.
Glowstringing is a similar art to poi, largely developed and advocated by the rave community, before spreading throughout electronic music culture. It involves spinning glowsticks to make patterns in the air at raves or in the club scene. While often mistaken for poi, it is in fact a separate discipline, and the two styles have had some influence on each other.

Learning the fundamentals of poi make an excellent foundation for glowstringing and advanced fire poi, like in the picture below.

A simple way out would be purchasing a pair of poi off the web. It isn't a bad idea, but as for me, save the $20 or so dollars and get crafty. I personally find I like working with my own crafted items better myself anyways.

But enough of my rambling, lets get started on some basic homemade pratice poi!

STEP 1: "The Ingredients"

First of all, sorry for the bad pictures, I really need a new camera!
Onto the supplies.

1. A pretty good sized scrap of fabric
2. Some yarn or string
3. A couple of old(or new, your call) shoe-laces
4. Two plastic baggies
5. Some rice or sand
6. Scissors and a ruler

If all goes well and you don't get rice everywhere (like me) this should only take about 10 minutes.

STEP 2: Two Fabric Squares Plz

If using scraps:
Your fabric should be decently sized, I stick to around 12" across (yay darth vader!) Cut into even squares.

If using socks:
Cut your socks off at around the heel so you have a nice pouch.

STEP 3: Snip Those Ziplocks

If your using ziplock baggies like me, snip off the ziplocks so the bags will tie easier.

STEP 4: Fill 'er Up

Now take your baggie and fill it up with rice or sand until you think you've found a desirable weight.
If you end up not liking the feel of it later on then it's an easy fix.

STEP 5: Twist and Tie

Once your happy with the weight of the baggies, give them a couple twists and tie them nice and tight with some string. Or if string isn't your thing try some small pieces of duct tape. Just make sure it's tight, you wouldn't want to be swinging and all of a sudden *poof* rice everywhere.

STEP 6: Folding the Fabric

If using scraps:
Place the baggie in the middle of the square and fold all four corners around the baggie. Take your shoe lace and tie the baggie in nice and tight.

If using socks:
Slide the baggie into the sock pouch and tye off with the shoe lace nice and tight.


If you feel your poi might slip, try some colorful electric tape, duct tape or masking tape around tie just incase.

STEP 7: Finishing Touches

Your almost done!
Give them a few test swings, dose it flow well? If it's too light or too heavy go back to step 4 and try again.

If it dose:
Find the right length for you (usually about as long as your arm from the wrist to the armpit) and tie off a handle.
Finish off the handle by wrapping some electrical tape or duct tape around the cord if you want. Add ribbons, puffy paint and just have fun decorating your practice poi!

Some other things you might want to try:

Instead of shoe laces try kite cording (nylon cord) or fancy ribbons found in craft stores (the fabric kind).

Try a tennis ball slipped into a long (knee length) sock and tie it off so it doesn't slip around.

Make a "tail" out of fabric and sew it onto the fabric square or sock and watch it chase the poi around and around!

STEP 8: Lessons and Learning!

I hope you like your practice poi as much as I do, this is just a simple process for a simple pair. As you progress you might want to go a little more complicated, watch out for more tutorials on more refined poi!

New to poi? Well there's plenty of guides and lessons online to get you started.
Here's some helpful links:

http://www.maori.org.nz/waiata (Traditional Māori poi performance)

http://www.homeofpoi.com (One of the largest poi communities in the world, awesome lessons!)

http://artofpoi.tribe.net (A very heplful poi community)

http://www.fire-dancing.com/fire-poi.php (Fire poi basics)

http://www.playpoi.com (More lessons here!)

http://www.glowsticking.com (A very nice resource for glowstringing!)

http://www.domorepoi.com (A very welcoming forum)

Spinning fire and making stunning walls of color is a long way off, but practice makes perfect!

Until next time
-Hydra

Comments

[00101101]

How long should the shoe laces be? >.< Or rather, how long should it be BETWEEN the handleloop and the ball itself?

[onenomadwoman]

The best length is usually measured from your finger (where the strap goes) to your armpit- this will allow you to do maneuvers behind the back, etc without tangling your poi ;)

[onenomadwoman]

The best length is usually measured from your finger (where the strap goes) to your armpit- this will allow you to do maneuvers behind the back, etc without tangling your poi ;)

[DevilishConcept]

Nice Post, im actually looking for some content contributors, to posts tutorials and other articles on my website, i cover subjects such as poi, fire spinning, twirling , circus skills, flow lights and loads of other stuff that makes you jump in the night.
for any avid contributors i will be sharing the advertising income depending on what they have submitted, if any of you guys fancy it hit me up on my site, if your not but you still like poi and fire spinning etc head over and check it out an join the forums :) much love www.aboveandbelow.org

[hippiedoll80]

Ijust made my first set of practice poi balls! Thanks for your inspiration!

[CosmicBrambleclaw]

Darn exercise thats fun? Whats the world coming to? XD :3 congrats now I'm craving some poi and Maori carvings X3 although I always did want to use fire >:3 XD thanks

[AnarchistKid]

What did you use to get the colored flames? i know a few things but I'd like to know what you uses

[Rjeff]

Might want to hold off on that and learn the glowsticking first. Don't jump straight into fire, its dangerous.

[ravebot]

fire dangerous? no fire is your friend smoky the bear told me

[CosmicBrambleclaw]

Lol Dustfinger told me it was my friend (Dustfinger from Inkheart)

[AnarchistKid]

lol, fire dangerous?? never

[nzbellydancer]

home of poi now sell tribal neon coloured fire that changes the flame colour rather cool

[Hydra]

Those colors were created by glowsticks or LED stick lights/glow sticks (which you can pick one up for, often, under $10).

[PaganMoon]

balloons would make a good alternative to the baggies

[deaf258]

How about condoms?

[PaganMoon]

could make for an interesting shaped poi

[dragonsniper]

lol

[wiillii]

why don't you make this stuff from a lamp led or something like that. ıts gonna be cool and look like real:D

[AznDonut]

My poi is just a long pair of soccer socks with water bottles in them

[HDM528]

how can you make it glow so brite???????