I didn’t get to post this before Firedrums, so I’m posting about both events together.

Kinetic Fire

My body movement workshop at Kinetic Fire

After a lot of excitement and anticipation (and 4 flights), I landed in Chicago airport .I met my lovely host Ellie, and we drove back to her place with Alex.

We spent some time around Chicago, and when we got back we made some signs for Kinetic Fire, I made what was possibly the best sign ever made for the greeters’ station.
That night I also met Ellie’s roommate Julia, and her friends April and John. All 3 of them are totally awesome.
The next day April picked up Rem from the airport and we headed for Kinetic Fire at night. We got there around 2AM, met Jon, Nicky, Grimm, and a few other people who were there, and went into our cabin (which was really nice).
We woke up the next day and helped with setting up everything around the festival. Later that night some people started arriving, and we all played with glow toys in the Main Play area. I was experimenting with some body movement and floorwork a lot that day.

The festival started the next day. This day had no workshops, but we had a pretty large group of people practicing together. That night was the first Fire Jam of the festival. I had a few sessions, including a tunneling session with Charlie.

More from my body movement workshop at Kinetic

I started the second day of the festival with my Body Movement workshop. It was a very big workshop, somewhere around 50 people would be a good guess. The workshop went great, the students really enjoyed it and people said it opened up a lot for them. That was also my first time teaching this workshop after a lot of changes to it, and I felt that it worked a lot better now.
Later that day I did my Contact Poi workshop. The workshop went very well, this is the furthest I ever got with contact in an hour, so I’m really happy about this.The fire jam that night was great, I had some very good sessions to insanely good dubstep.
The third day started with my first throws workshop, this went really well, we got through all the basic types of throws and had some time for variations at the end.
The second throws workshop also went great, we went through many 2 handed combinations, including some particularly crazy stuff towards the end.

Ellie spinning fire at Kinetic

The last fire jam of the festival was amazing. I had some great sessions, including a nice tunelling session with Drex and a fun improvised poi/palm torches session with Julia. Other highlights for me were Marvin and Jonah tunelling with Club Swinging torches, watching Ellie’s awesome spinning style and Kate and Mike doing a great choreographed tunelling set that blew my mind

Huge thanks to everyone who came and made this festival so perfect, even despite the rain and cold weather during the last 2 days.
To Marvin, Zan, and Drex for their great workshops that I took a lot from.
To Ellie, April, John, Rem, Drex, and Charlie for being awesome roommates in my cabin.
To Ellie and Julia for being awesome hosts, and to April for driving me and Rem to the airport.

Firedrums

After Kinetic Fire I spent a couple of days in Chicago and flew to San Francisco, I got to the Vulcan in Oakland and met up with Greg and Margaret, who picked me up from the train station near the Vulcan.

The Vulcan was already full of amazingly talented spinners from all over the world. I was staying at unit 56, with Greg, Margaret, Jordan, Axel, Tom, and Jerome.

We went to San Francisco the next day, we were about 20 people (most of which are on my youtube subscribe list.) and went spinning in Golden Gate Park.

A couple of days later we left for Firedrums, I was driving with Grimm, Chris Rovo, and Tom. We ended up getting slightly lost and getting there around 7PM. The location this year was a scout camp, with a big play area and lots of big trees all over the place.
That night I had about 10 fire sessions before going to sleep.

My throws class at Firedrums

The next day I taught 2 back to back throws workshops, which went really well. I covered all of my material in both workshops, with some time to spare for variations towards the end.
I also took Keith’s negative space workshop, in which he taught a few really nice basic moves, as well as his workshop on Partner Poi Manipulation with Meg, they taught us a fun 2 person sequence based on a lot of cool manipulation concepts.
I had a lot of fire sessions that day, including some tunneling with Drex.

My class on body movement and performance

The next day I did my Body movement workshop, it was smaller since I clashed with a couple other dance workshops at the time, but we still had about 15 people. It went really well, we ended with getting some of the students to show off what they learnt.
Next I did my contact poi workshop, it went great, I taught some new variations I never got to teach, which was a lot of fun.

That night was great, my friend gave me a pair of gloves from Trick Concepts, which I used to do some simple contact moves with fire, which was a great change for me, and made the many fire  sessions I had that night a lot more fun. I stayed up spinning and hanging out with awesome people until sunrise, and we left Firedrums after getting some sleep.

Huge thanks to all the Firedrums and Kinetic Fire organizers for inviting me over, helping me with everything I needed, and organizing these perfect festivals.
And to Greg and Margaret for hosting me before FD, and Kyle, Bri, and Brian for hosting me after that.
To Keith, Meg, and Kevin, for their awesome workshops.
And to all the awesome people who came to Firedrums and made it so awesome.

It’s that awesome time of the year again. After packing everything we needed, Elhanan picked me up at 6AM and we headed towards Gan Hashlosha (Sakhne), where the Israeli juggling convention is held every year. When we got there, we met all the volunteers and organizers who showed up early to help with setup. We set up our tents and got inside the gym.

I spent most of the first day practicing my routine, as well as meeting new people and catching up with old friends. Later that day we had the Avi Rosenberg competition for creativity with 3 objects. This year it was for 3 clubs, and there were lots of amazing things in that competition from both local jugglers and guests from abroad. For me the highlights were Florent from France, and Bram from Belgium.

The next day was full of shows from the afternoon. First we had the Special show, which was the full show of Compagnie Ea Eo, a group of 4 insanely talented jugglers from Belgium. I simply have no words for how awesome this show was. It was a perfect blend of juggling, dancing, comedy and theater, perfectly synchronized routines between those 4 amazing jugglers.
Next we had a show by Shake That, another group of 5 from Belgium doing insanely good flairing. Again, a good combination of insane skills with comedy and theater. I missed some of this unfortunately, but what I saw was incredible. I later got to drink some of the stuff they made =)
Then we had the Open Stage, I was the final act, and my routine went well, despite a few drops and mess ups, I felt pretty good about it, and the response from the crowd was great and that’s ultimately what matters. I didn’t get to see all the acts, but one that did stand out for me was an act by 3 kids that will definitely be the future of the Israeli juggling community.

My poi routine

The next day was the Israeli Gala, with some of the best jugglers in Israel. This year it was directed, with all the different acts flowing into each other. The highlights for me were Amit‘s staff routine, combining 1, 2, 3 and 4 staffs with his amazing dance skills, Noam‘s great club juggling act, Yano and Talia with a good and playful contact ball+dance routine, and Tobi with a great ball juggling routine.

On the last day I did my Body Movement workshop, which went really well, I changed this workshop a lot since nice year and I could see that the students were improving faster than before.
The last night of the festival had the International Gala, which year after year makes me look for my jaw on the floor. This is the show where all our guests from abroad show their amazing skills. I got to see Stefan Sing doing both his solo act and his act with his wife Cristiana, I saw both of these at EJC, and they’re even more amazing the second time – so well written and perfectly performed. Matt Hall from the US did 2 great acts – a Diabolo act and a tennis balls act. Joris from Shake That did his amazing solo routine (Dropless!), Florent Lestage from France did an amazing routine with clubs and a cane, Eric from Ea Eo did a great dance/juggling routine, Ines Brun closed the show, doing insane acrobatics on a bicycle.

This was an amazing festival, thanks to everyone who came and made it awesome, thanks to everyone who organized and volunteered, and I hope to see everyone who wasn’t there next year!

Lots of photos are available here

Hi everyone,

I’ll be traveling in the US and Europe again this summer, Charlie and I will be teaching workshops all over Europe, here’s our plan for workshops and Festivals, tickets will be available once I have final details on workshops.

May 12-15 – Kinetic Fire in Illinois, USA

May 19-22 – Firedrums in California, USA

June 7th – Poi workshop in Tallinn, Estonia

June 9-12 – Kiev Fire Fest 2011 – Kiev, Ukraine

June 14th – Poi workshop in Tampere, Finland - Tickets available here!

June 17th – Poi workshop in Helsinki, Finland – Tickets available here!

June 19th – Poi workshop in Stockholm, Sweden

June 25th – Poi workshop in Göteborg, Sweden

June 30th – Poi workshop in Malmö, Sweden

July 1st – Poi workshop in Copenhagen, Denmark

July 8th – Poi workshop in Basel, Switzerland

July 15th – Poi workshop in London, England

July 17th – Poi workshop in Manchester, England

July 27-31st – PLAY Festival, UK

August 6-14th – EJC 2011 – Munich, Germany

Spinning glow poi after the last workshops at Speevers

After the success of the last double workshop in Yaffo, I’ve decided to run 3 more events there in the near future.

On December 19th I’ll be teaching another double workshop, this time about Pendulums, and about Body Movement. More details here.

On December 24th I’m doing a free Introduction to Poi class, focusing on fundamentals like planes, crossing, and turning. This is for complete beginners, and will help them learn everything in the beginners poi course. More details here.

Starting January 2nd, I’ll be teaching 2 poi courses in Yaffo, one for beginners and one for advanced students. More details here.

The 2 workshops last night in Yaffo went great, we had a pretty good turnout of 5 students, from all over the country (as well as Norway!), as well as people watching online in the first streaming Poi workshop (that I know of).
After the workshop I performed my poi manipulation routine, and we had some free spinning with glow poi.

The students spinning glow poi

Huge thanks to everyone who came to the workshop, it was great meeting you, teaching you, and spinning with you! And thanks to Shahar for helping organize this.

In the near future I’m planning on running some poi courses at Speevers, one for beginners and one for intermediate spinners. More details will be announced soon.

For Hebrew information visit the facebook event

After a 4 month long workshop and performance tour in Europe, I’ve decided to do a workshop tour in Israel.

On Saturday, November 20th 2010, I’ll be teaching 2 poi workshops at Speevers in Yaffo.

The workshops are 1.5 hours each and are for all levels, and each workshop will have new things for both beginners and advanced poi spinners.

First Workshop: 18:00-19:30

The first workshop will be about direction changes – Stalls, Wraps, Spirals, and the many places you can fit them. Beginners will learn the basic ways to change direction, while more advanced students will learn advanced variations.

Second Workshop: 19:30-21:00

The second workshop will be about throws – Isolated throws, flat throws, body throws and more, throws are fun and can be done almost everywhere, in any way, shape or form. This workshop covers all the basic types of throws, as well as some theory and variations.

Prices:

• One workshop (1.5 hours) : 60 Shekels
• Both workshops: (3 hours): 90 Shekels

For more info and to sign up call: 054-5546555, 054-4388824

I’ve signed up to Eventful, which allows people to demand that I come to their area, which would really help me plan my next workshop tour, you can use the “Demand It!” button below if you like poi, would like to learn more poi, would like to come to my poi workshops, and/or are awesome.
(Of course, if you REALLY want me to come to your area, get more poi spinners you know to demand it as well!)

I’ve also added a poll on the left side so you could tell me what you want to learn the most.

Happy Spinning!

Poiboy

After 2 flights that took about 7 hours combined, I arrived in Kiev and was

Photo from my Poi Throws workshop at KFF2010

greeted by Kupava, who picked me up and we drove to the Kiev train station to meet everyone else. We were waiting for Mel since his train was delayed, and I met Alyssa, Max, Clyde, and Nushka. After a few minutes ofwaiting at the station, Mel’s train arrived and we met him and Alina. We all drove to an apartment to eat and I finally had a spinning session with Mel. He showed me an interestin CAPmove that I’m still trying to wrap my mind around, among other crazy stuff that boy knows.

Then we began our journey to CAMP, where KFF is held. We had to take a bus, 2 subways, another bus, and some walking to finally arrive at CAMP. We spun some more and then decided to go to Dnieper river, a really big river in Kiev which I think I saw from the plane. A few hours later we went to sleep.

On the first day of the festival I got to meet Stefan (Paperdoll) and we had a few good spinning sessions. At nightwe did the first fire jam of the festival. It was amazing to see how high the level of spinners at this festival was. I did some fire sessions, and an improvised session with Mel.

The next day was mostly about workshops for me, I went to Antti’s workshop on juggling sequences with double staffs, and I will try to apply what I learnt there to poi and see what comes out. Next I did a very successful workshop about throws, most of the students got a lot out of the workshop. Mel also did a workshop about flowers, all I could learn from that is the Russian word for “beat”. I also met D. Menza and Bastien from France after that, and they’re both very lovely people.

The third day I went to Mel’s Sliding Style workshop, which was about moves where you slide your hands across your body. After lunch and a wait for the bus, we got to the amazing green theatre.The show opened with a series of mass fire battles, and continued with performances by many fire theatres, and ended with a big finale of all the spinners performing a simple choreography, with some spinners(myself included, I did a short choreography with Dima, a very good ukrainian spinner.) spinning a solo or duet performance in the center.

The last day of the festival I taught a workshop on Contact Poi. It went pretty well, with most people learning at least a couple basic moves. Next I had lunch with everyone and went to the green theatre for the second fire show. I was pretty nervous about it, and at the last minute I decided to improvise since I was very out of practice with my routine.

My poi routine went pretty well, and people generally thought it was good, so I’m happy about that. Among the other performers were Mel and Stefan (Paperdoll), who did 2 very good freestyles. After Mel’s act we were talking backstage and we decided to do an improvised partner poi session.After talking to the organizers about it we went on stage after the very talented staff juggler Leo Holsti. The second fire show was amazing, with performers like Konstantin Kosovec, Josh and Valerie (Solstix), Antti Suniala, and Varuzhan.

A few important thank yous:

• To Nushka and Kupava, for organizing this amazing festival and inviting me to perform. I’m really happy to have had the opportunity to teach and perform at this amazing festival, alongside many great spinners, and the great russian and ukrainian spinning community.
• To Gora, for giving me awesome bright silicone handles for the fire show
• To Linda and Lazlo, for being great roommates.
• To the many people who translated stuff for me.
• To the Ukrainan and Russian spinning community, which recieved me with very open arms.