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

My friend Keith from Edinburgh doing awesome things with poi in Bristol. Pure awesome!

I found out last night that I won first place on Home of Poi’s “Circles of Light” competition.

I’m still incredibly happy, this is a dream come true for me!

Huge thanks to my friends in Poland who helped me film this

Congratulations to Meg and Keith for winning 2nd and 3rd place, both of them really deserved it.

The DVD is available for download on HOP, and also for sale – here.

I really recommend buying it and supporting the awesome people at HOP, they deserve it!

My COL entry

Cyrille Humen recently made an amazing new video, which inspired me to go out and film this video. Some new poi manipulation moves, new bits from my routine, and new sequences.

Watch it in HD!

Enjoy

Coming soon – the Forearm Transfers tutorial, and another poi article.

Another in the Contact Poi tutorial series, this time we’ll learn outer forearm rolls.

Important tips and tricks for this move:

• Keep your forearm parallel to the ground, parallel to your chest, and your elbow bent at 90 degrees.
• Start the roll when the string is vertical.
• Don’t gravity roll. Ever.

Check back next week for a tutorial on Forearm Transfers!

The second tutorial in my Contact Poi series, this one is about inner forearm rolls.

Important tips and tricks to this move:

• Keep your forearm flat at all times
• Use your wrist to flip your hand to allow you to catch the poi head.

If you like these tutorials, use the share button at the bottom so more people will know how to contact poi. You can also subscribe to my newsletter on the left to be updated on new tutorials and future workshops.

Enjoy the video, happy spinning!

Poiboy.

This Poi tutorial is the first in a series of Contact Poi tutorials I’m currently making, I’ll be teaching some basic contact poi moves, as well as exercises that help learn them and clean them up.

To follow this blog for new poi videos and tutorials, subscribe to my newsletter

Here’s the video, enjoy:

Related Posts:

• Contact Poi Lesson 2: Inner Forearm Roll
• Learn Poi – spinning videos and tutorials, poi tips, movements, tricks and lessons, see me at the KFF Fire fest!
• Online Poi Lessons
• Circles of Light 2010 – First Place!
• Contact Poi Lesson 3: Outer Forearm Roll

Hi everyone,

I’ve started making more Poi tutorials, I’m currently doing a series of “homework” tutorials for people who’ve been to my workshops.

These homework tutorials will follow up what I usually teach during my workshop, and will help people go even deeper into what I’ve been teaching. Some, like this one, will follow up on some older tutorials I’ve made.

In the near future I’ll be mainly covering throws, contact poi, stalls, and some basic poi tutorials for beginners. My friend and Co-teacher Charlie Hession from England will also be making some homework tutorials, mainly covering flowers and body movement.

To follow this blog for new poi videos and tutorials, subscribe to my newsletter

Here’s the tutorial, happy spinning!:

Poiboy.

For those of you who don’t know, FireDrums is one of the best and biggest US Fire Festivals. Unfortunately I’ve missed it this year, but here’s a collection of great videos from the festival:

Ronan Spinning Fire (video by Drex)

Grimm With Fans: (video by MemoryLena)

Yuta and Ronan fire improvisation: (video by Yuta)

Aileen with Contact Staff: (video by Yuta)

Notes from Ronan’s throw workshop: (video by GreyPoiAllStar)

This is my latest video, I made it to show some of what I can do before heading off to Europe:

See you at the Workshops!