You should be comfortable pivoting side to side, turning 180 degrees, turning 360 degrees, and moving freely through the space while turning. Make sure you can do this smoothly and consistently without putting any strain on your ankles and knees.

Although we offer some approaches to footwork in our videos, we encourage you to study other forms of dance to learn how to turn. Perfect pirouettes can take years!

Poi-fu is all about developing good habits with your body movement. Make sure to relax and keep breathing! Pay attention to your posture and the lines that run through your arms.

As a foundation, you should be comfortable circling extended arms through basics modes and turns. These include:

1. Circling extended same-time arms on wall planes, and turning 180 and 360 degrees.
2. Pivoting forward to backward with extended arms in split-time same-direction, clockwise and counter-clockwise, and turning 180 degrees and 360 degrees.
3. Pivoting with extended arms in opposite directions, inwards and outwards, and turning 180 and 360 degrees.
4. Pivoting with extended arms in split-time opposite directions, inwards and outwards, and turning 180 and 360 degrees.

If you've just finished the beginner series, you will know the drill by now. If you've come to playpoi as an experienced spinner, go to the "poi fu" section and check out the poitruvian lessons!

It's always best to build up to poitruvian poi by reviewing the pieces, polishing each piece as you go: First one arm at a time, then both arms, then one poi at a time, then finally both poi.

Once you've reviewed the pieces, play between the four directions: Clockwise poitruvian, forward big arms, counter-clockwise poitruvian, and backward big arms.

Then play between clockwise and counter-clockwise poitruvian with 180 degree turns.

Then play with 360 degree turns to get back to the poitruvian you started with.

Then play freely between all of these turns, mixing 1/4 turns, 1/2 turns, and full pirouettes.

To turn smoothly, it can help to find visual landmarks to follow your "lines." If you are outside, you can stand between two trees. When you turn, follow one of your poi up one tree and down the other, or vice versa. If you are inside you can pick anything, such as the edge of a window or door, or pipes along the ceiling.

Note though that you can't follow these lines perfectly. Since the poi are inevitably crossing from one track to the other, they will also cross through your reference line. It's a matter of staying as close to your reference line as possible.

Hopefully you are now used to the idea of playing with your planes. There are many ways to do this:

• Exploring space with planes is when you play with tilting planes and keeping them straight, anywhere you can reach your arms. A great exercise is to stand up to a wall, and try to keep your poi spinning an inch from the wall as you reach into different positions.
• Turning freely inside your planes is when you keep your planes where they are, and turn your body inside your planes.
• Saloon doors is when you tilt the poi in and out from the wall plane position. It's best to do this with short poi.

Make sure you're exploring all of this this with all the modes. Every time you have trouble with your planes, make sure to return to practicing with one poi at a time. Play with tilting the plane on purpose and see if you can get your fingers and wrists involved as much as possible.

Your planes do not have to be perfect. Perfect planes take years! As long as you've truly committed to the process, you'll have no trouble going Beyond the Basics.

You should be flowing freely with the basic variations of same-time spinning. This includes:

• Passing the poi in front on the down-swing
• Passing the poi in front on the up-swing
• Passing the poi up behind the hips
• Passing the poi down behind the shoulders

You should be able to link these turns smoothly together in the following combinations:

• Poi passing in front and behind the shoulders, either as a reel or a full turn.
• Poi passing in front and behind the hips, either as a reel or a full turn.
• Linking behind-the-shoulders to behind-the-hips, either as "chase the sun" or as a full turn.

Reels are a good time to apply the philosophy of "less is more." The less your hands move, the smoother the turn can be. Let the turning of your body do the work. Once you can do the turn with very little movement from the hands, start adding hand and arm movement again, but this time the movement will be intentional rather than compulsive.

In all these turns it can help to practice passing the poi between yourself and a wall, first facing the wall and then facing away. This exercise takes a lot of practice, so you don't have to be perfect at it to proceed to Beyond the Basics.

In all these turns you can set the eventual goal of whirling continuously with straight planes.

Weaves, windmill, watermill, fountains, and Crossy-Crossy are all split-time same-direction patterns.

You can use poitruvian poi to transition between weaves, windmills, and turns, or to open into extended arm pirouettes. At first you can make the motion very full, but with practice you can also do it more subtly.

To learn to turn with consistent planes, stand near a wall. Keep returning to the same orientation to the wall with the same pattern. With practice you can do two or more turns in a row. This will take time!

Make sure you are comfortable with windmill both clockwise and counterclockwise. You can use poitruvian poi to turn between them. Some people don't realize that they can only do it one way! This movement is a prerequisite for any Beyond-the-Basics courses with Playpoi and we'll hold you to it.

You should also be comfortable with split-time hip-reels, which is like windmill but down at your hips. It is sometimes called "watermill." This pattern is often neglected... so don't feel bad if you can't do these perfectly. See our video on making sure you can do split-time hip reels.

Knowing basic patterns like the 3-beat weave is only the beginning of your journey with poi. The fun part is making the movement graceful, rhythmical, and expressive. Here are a few things to think about when seeking to master the 3-beat weave.

Start by looking at the movement of your hands and arms. If the movement of your hands and fingers is erratic, the circles of the poi will be irregular and lumpy. Here are a few exercises to smooth out your spinning:

Try holding a tether between your hands as you perform the weaves. At first you'll need to review the movement without poi, then add poi again.

• First try isolating the center of the tether. Try to keep the tether circling as a forward circle, especially as one hand crosses over the other. It can help to watch somebody else from the side as they attempt this. The idea is to have the hands consistently circling the middle of the tether. Once you are doing this, the poi circles will be consistent in size, rather than getting bigger and smaller erratically.
• Once you can isolate the center of the tether, try isolating one hand and then the other. If this is done well it will result in a consistent pattern of the poi circles circling each other.
• Then you can try making the smallest vs biggest possible circles with hands and wrists. This will result in the expansion and contraction in the size of the poi circles.

As you develop control, put on music and see if you can keep the rhythm with your spinning. For most music you'll have trouble keeping the down-swing of the poi on the beat, as a 3-beat weave is a 3X4 pattern and most music is 4X4. Instead, try to turn your body with the music.

And finally, try exploring your body movement. Keep the weaves really simple and see how expressive you can be.

You should be able to perform corkscrew in each direction, keeping the poi spinning fairly horizontal both above and below the arms.

It's well worth the time playing with one poi at a time, spinning above and below the arm and turning with and against the direction of the spinning poi.

Then try two poi and just flow!

You should be comfortable threading the needle inwards... and outwards. You should also be comfortable holding each butterfly with either hand on top. If you find a difficult variation, give it some extra practice!

As you explore butterflies, see how close together you can get your hands and planes. The pattern won't truly look like a "butterfly" until the poi are almost sharing a plane.

Start threading the needle again, and take the whole pattern through a big circle, clockwise and counter clockwise, then draw squares and lines and other shapes with your hands. Then see how much you can free your body in relation to the pattern. You can even try to slowly bend the whole pattern over and behind your head, although that's definitely going beyond the basics!

Try turning continuously to the right, first with the right hand on top, then with the left hand on top. Then do the same turning to the left.

Then make sure you are comfortable passing the poi front to back, over the head, at the hips, at your sides, and so on. Practice with one poi crossing at a time, alternating left and right, or both poi together.

As you explore all of this, note any turns or transitions that need attention, and make a point of practicing them. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to correct. It can help to stand close to a wall. Otherwise you won't know if you are losing your planes when the poi are behind you.

You can drill planes, rhythm, and turns with opposites by shortening the poi enough that they aren't crossing and tangling.

Finally, simply play and turn freely with opposites. If you've practiced all the variables you should feel pretty free! Playing along with the rhythm of the music will teach you loads!

You should be comfortable with inwards and outwards split-time opposites. Make sure you don't have the habit of putting one hand "on top" of the other. This is a common bad habit with split-time butterflies!

Like same-time butterflies, the closer together you bring the planes and hands, the prettier the pattern will look. See if you can get the poi to almost share a wall-plane.

You should also be able to turn through the 4 directions: Starting with inwards split-time butterfly on a wall plane, crossing to split-time opposites on separate tracks, crossing into outwards split-time butterfly on the other wall plane, and then crossing to the other split-time opposites on separate tracks, and then back to where you started.

Once this is flowing, you can turn all the way from inwards to outwards. The trick is to not do too much with your hands! Then you can turn the far way around each side.

For this last move: It's all about how you turn your body! Don't do too much with your hands.

The closer the poi are to each other while passing at the sides, the prettier it will look.

Finally, start to freestyle, and experiment with opening your hands to top and bottom. If you are keeping the split-time pattern the poi will meet in the middle.

You should be completely comfortable alternating between reversing the right and then left poi on the side planes... and on a wall plane in front of you.

First practice on side planes to transition from forward, to opposites, to backward, to the other opposites.

Then try the wall plane, from inwards, to clockwise, to outwards, to counter-clockwise.

You should also be learning to do this with your arms crossed... and on a wall plane behind you... but don't worry about mastering those skills yet. You can move on to Beyond the Basics as long as you've begun the process.

As you gain skill and confidence with these reverses, you'll start to see how they are a way to transfer between moves and modes.

If you are in a weave, reverse one poi into butterfly.

Then reverse the other poi and come into reels.

Hint: You can mix up the order of any of these exercises. Just make sure you're passing through all of them!

Music helps. If you can do this on the rhythm, you'll learn even more!

A great way to develop general control of planes and freedom of movement is to play along the tracks with short poi. This frees you to dance without thinking about “moves," allowing you to focus on your rhythm, planes, turns, and expressive movement without the frustration of the poi hitting your arms or tangling.

It's great to be able to turn continuously with straight planes. A wall can be a huge help! Simply pick a pattern you want to turn smoothly with, and try two or three turns close to a wall. You'll soon see exactly how and where you are loosing your planes! From there it's just practice ;)