Poi Dancing - Journey Beyond the Basics

Name: Poi Dancing - Journey Beyond the Basics
Rating: 4.9 (473 reviews)

Journey down your path to poi mastery with this 13-section progressive poi dancing course

Created byNick Woolsey

Last updated 5/2025

English

What you'll learn

Build a strong foundation in the essential skills of advanced poi dancing

Course content

16 sections • 181 lectures • 16h 5m total length

Welcome to the Poi Dancing - Beyond the Basics!2:10
Welcome to Poi Dancing - Beyond the Basics! In this course we will learn the essentials of plane control, rhythm, poi fu, compound circles (poi flowers), and many advanced moves such as hyperloops, behind-the-back weaves, and many more
What to expect from this course2:44
Attitude! Use soft poi! Practice! :)
Guidelines for submitting video questions2:24
Poi and your health: Warming up, technique, and stretching3:58
Ideas for warming up and incorporating the modes of movement8:24
Why and how to develop good poi-fu and posture for poi4:27
Footwork 101: pivoting and turning in a circle7:15
Let's play with pivoting side to side and turning in a full circle while keeping good posture
Stepping with turns while moving across the floor6:01
Circling your arms in opposite directions... like a ninja6:54
Introducing poitruvian arms5:29
Looking closely at how you spin the poi4:36
It can be very helpful to get specific with how you're actually spinning the poi with your fingers, hand, wrist, and elbow.
Ways to move the poi: Spin, extension, pendulum, extendulum, inspin, antispin9:55
In this video we overview some fundamental ways of moving the poi

Spin

Extension

Pendulum

Extendulum

Isolation

Inspin

Antispin
Exploring Planes12:15
Control of planes is essential to freedom with poi. In this video we explore the core concepts:

Bending planes

Turning inside of your planes

Exploring space with your hands with controlled planes
Left/right stall and reverse progression4:14
(Much) further with left/right stall reverse progressions3:03
Body tracing preparation: Reviewing the six-beat fountain2:47

Let's warm up our brains with a rhythm/coordination brain game5:24
Practicing turning footwork4:50
Reviewing pivoting and turning in a circle

Full Pirouettes

Traveling in a circle (patty cake with partners)

Covering space

Steppy step back step…
Poi Fu: Introducing Circular Stepping4:09
Poi-fu: Arms split-time same direction2:50
Poi-fu: Split-time same-direction through a FULL TURN on a WALL PLANE3:23
Introducing Switchy-Switchy5:21
Introducing crosspoints4:10
Introducing Jiggying2:48
Planes 201: Saloon doors3:11
Saloon doors foundation
Basics of rhythm: Upswing, downswing, inswing, outswing5:56
Explain up and down swings

One circle with turn = down swing on one side and up swing on the other

Now add a circle to each side

So you can't keep turning on the down swing because one side you cross down through the midpoint and the other side you cross up

So the rhythm of symmetrical turning will always be sincapated eithe half half or 1.5 1.5 etc
Exploring isolations4:53
5-beat weaves9:13
Forward 5-Beat Weave: Slow Motion from Above1:00
Just watch and imagine it is your own arms and poi!
Backward 5-Beat Weave: Slow Motion from Above0:51
Imagine it is your own arms and poi
Tips on not getting dizzy4:04
Meet the tree: Using objects for visceral reference5:26

Warming up the body and brain with poi fu9:47
Finger games inside arms
Exploring and understanding cardinal focus points5:54
Variations of turning in a circle
Practicing circular stepping3:30
Poilates - Core conditioning for poi6:17
The Jedi Grip4:49
Combining ways to move the poi: Zero points and cool combos4:42
Playing with the planes of buzzsaw4:26
Exploring extended poi and flowers along a wall2:56
Planes: The one-beat windmill4:44
No beat windmill

Moses Progression

f/ wallplane splittime t/ buzzsaw opposites

Saloon doors 2
Body tracing: Archer weaves6:14
Challenge: Turning with weaves with clean planes2:25
Footwork: Adding back-step for traveling3:56
Playing with two pillars to improve planes1:12
Q&A: Poi-Fu: Practicing pivoting 180 degrees side to side5:43

Warm up7:06
Flowing with Poi-fu5:19
Modeswitching @ Cardinal Directions
Combining footwork and poi-fu4:39
Poilates 2015:16
Tips for practicing no-beat windmill3:55
Mastering 2-Beat Weaves: Surprisingly Advanced and REQUIRED for upcoming moves!7:01
Review and master 4X4 fountain as a mirrored progression5:22
Turning in the weaves high and low - where it can go6:46
Dancing with Poi: Rhythm and Reels16:15
Flowers and CAPs7:34
Horizontal flowers to understand petals
Introducing the whirling progression...6:30
Footwork: Turning on concrete safely4:25
Introducing clockwork: Tick-tock6:49
A fun tip: Practicing split-time with a friend!2:38
Spotting and following continued

Each mode through turns foundation

Warm up with pirouette progressions and rhythm6:59
Variations of Piroettes

Traveling in a circle
Moses progression4:47
Combining 4X4 and turning with weaves high/low7:55
Switchy switchy into wall-plane flowers4:36
Warm up part 2: Poi fu progressions3:06
Adding arms and poi to circular stepping6:08
Jiggies behind the back5:49
Combining types of poi movement: swing and spin + poi fu = wow3:48
Isolations continued6:57
Antispin flowers6:52
Rhythm and timing continued12:22
Keep working on tick-tock: Some places to go5:25
Feedback on behind-the-back jiggies: flexibility and being comfortable3:11

Warm up8:29
Poi fu brain games: going further6:34
Buzzsaw fingers… focus points
Basic CAPs (Capped Antispin Patterns)5:43
More on 4-petal antispin... adding turns!6:33
Pirouette turns technique with weights
Nick's favourite stalling pattern5:35
Back to horizontal buzzsaw and UFOs3:28
Lead-ups to spiral wraps: Bounce off of arms, then wrists5:19
Mastering Mexican Wave : Focus on Crosspoints5:10
Planes: Saloon doors 3 (OLDER VIDEO BUT GOOD TO WATCH!)8:22
Switchy-Switchy into wall plane flowers from the side, way better video!4:48
Rhythm and timing: 2-in-1s10:16
More on turning and whirling with inspin6:14
Split-time moves sequence...3:58
The MISSING reels...3:45

Warming up: Introuducing 3-beat weave with your feet5:43
Making sure you can turn with wallplane splittime opposites3:54
Poi-fu: Buzzsaw fingers continued: Let's go 3D!4:12
Footwork: What and Where and When: Making safe decisions and habits4:21
Variations of Pirouettes

Whirling with partner variations

Traveling in a circle
Turning on cement continued3:40
Playing with various lockouts from weaves4:19
Bullet stalls up and down: Using a wall to develop good habits5:57
Unpacking turning in the weaves with straight planes6:31
4-beat corkscrew7:59
Introducing Swoopty-Swoops2:57
Introducing Tangles, hyperloops and air wraps5:21
Rhythm and weaves - the choices you can make14:58
Behind the back weave #25:33
Backward Behind-the-Back Weave: Slow Motion from Above1:00
Just watch for a bit, and imagine it is your own arms and poi. Visualization can help tremendously with new moves.
body tracing the 6-beat fountain3:18

Poi-fu for capped swoopty-swoops5:58
Introducing the idea of... the ARM CONE!3:31
Making a 3-beat weave look good from the side is a beginner achievement. Making it look good from the front is an advanced achievement.
Turning with straight planes: A summary of variations and benefits5:49
Progression of turning with straight planes with split-time same direction and opposites
Smoothing out the 5-beat weave5:22
Rhythm when combining 4X4 and turning with weaves6:42
Because even when counting based on turns of your body instead of down or up beats, there's a speed adjustment to be made when switching from 4 to 3 beats and back). It helps me to use a 4 beat weave (or a 3 beat fountain, but that's less fun...) to make the two patterns match up better. Maybe you could do a video or two on making use of "non-standard" beat patterns (2, 4, and 5 beat weaves, 3 and 4 beat windmills, etc.) to adjust rhythm?
Making sure you can do 4-petal flowers9:55
Variations of Piroettes

Whirling with partner variations

Traveling in a circle
Learning CAPs10:02
Body tracing: Adding tracing along the torso7:57
Sky view of reviewing 3-beat vs 5-beat weaves2:51
Sky view of air wraps7:59
How air wraps and hyperloops can be understood as the same thing2:43
Skycam view of split time arms poi fu2:16

Spiral wraps7:12
Flowers: 6-petal? 8-Petal? 5-petal?5:07
Flowers and CAPs: Introducing triquetras8:29
How to beautify antispin with one poi (4 petal, 6 petal, 8 petal)

--How to beautify it (don't droop back petal)

--How to put it to the beat

--Get comfortable on wall and wheel planes

—Box stalls vs X stalls
CAPs continued6:51
Swoopty-swoops continued: Poi-fu plus extension/antispin switchbacks6:05
Flowers with two poi: the rhythm7:12
Playing horizontal to understand CAPs and flowers10:45
Turning continuously through buzzsaw and switchy-switchy1:06
Sky view of lead ups to hyperloops7:23
Sky view of lead-ups to orbitals5:09
Lead ups to hyperloops via barrel roll inversions5:57
Pendulum weaves4:33
Sky view of jiggies and pirouettes2:19

Stalls and changing directions: Think INSIDE the box!6:19
Improving whirling in same-same and split-time opposites6:40
Getting ready for The Matrix - Controlling 4-beat corkscrews2:44
More on The Matrix4:06
Split-time Opposites : Rhythm & Turning & Buzzsaw6:12
Antispin fountain4:05
More spiral wraps2:21
Spiral wraps around one hand3:26
More on CAPs5:00
Turning with opposites flowers5:00
Turning with split-time same-direction flowers5:59
Body tracing: Arm tracing the 4x4 fountain3:18
A split-time/same-time partner exercise... you'll need a friend!4:16

Requirements

You must already be playing and turning freely with with the basic variations of weaves, reels, windmills, and butterflies

Description

Join world-renowned poi teacher, Nick Woolsey, to take your poi spinning skills to a new level!

Each section of this course includes 12-18 videos. The lessons will progress through a proven system of exercises, with the goal of enjoying complete freedom of movement and expression with poi. Nick will also post review and homework notes to help you stay organized focussed.

Although most students spend one or two weeks on each section, you are welcome to go at your own pace. Your membership will last for years!

If you love poi and the feeling of flow, this is your change to unlock your potential.

Some highlights:

Strength and conditioning for poi
The fundamentals and variations of poi-fu (arm and body movement for poi and flow arts, left/right coordination games, etc.)
Footwork: Moving across the floor, the pirouette progression, the whirling progression, footwork with partners and groups, and more
Advanced plane control
Unlocking Stalls
Understanding how crosspoints help you make your patterns more beautiful and fluid
Understanding inspin and antispin (flowers) and CAPs
Performance
Rhythm and timing
The Horizontal Poi Progression
Variations of Spiral Wraps
To many “moves" to mention (this will often be pointers to existing “move" videos)!
A methodology of mastery that will help you learn how to learn
Oh so much more!

Who this course is for:

This course is for anybody who is already comfortable with all the basics of poi

Poi Dancing - Journey Beyond the Basics

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Laying a foundation for intermediate and advanced poi16 lectures • 1hr 27min

Phase TWO16 lectures • 1hr 7min

Phase THREE14 lectures • 1hr 7min

Phase FOUR14 lectures • 1hr 30min

Phase FIVE13 lectures • 1hr 18min

Phase SIX14 lectures • 1hr 24min

Phase SEVEN15 lectures • 1hr 20min

Phase EIGHT12 lectures • 1hr 11min

Phase NINE13 lectures • 1hr 18min

Phase TEN13 lectures • 59min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: