BENGALURU: Tt has been a long day at work and the weekend seems terribly far. It’s Wednesday and definitely too soon in the week to show up at work with a hangover. So, what do you do? Well a few Bengalureans take to spinning fire. Literally.
City Express catches up with fire poi enthusiasts who take to the flow art to unwind on stressful days.
Doctor’s Relief
For Dr Shreyas Sel, 27, spinning poi is the biggest stress buster. “There are days when I have too many patients lined up in my clinic and it gets more draining than usual. Sometime, my family too gets to me and drives me insane. That’s when I take a break to spin poi,” says the audiologist.
He has held workshops at Manyata Tech Park and a few other IT firms in Whitefield, where employees are taught spinning to relieve them off the usual work routine. The management invites the doctor to conduct such workshops, explains the drummer, who goes by his stage name Sel.
Quit Job to Spin
Ashwin Kumar,32, took to the flow art as a stress buster while he was working with an IT firm in the city. He, however, later quit his job and now performs as a poi spinner on stage at corporate events and musical gigs.
He says that over the years, poi has changed him as a person. “It has changed the way I handle things. I am now more focused on things,” says Ashwin who self-taught himself the artform through YouTube tutorials.
As a performance art, poi involves swinging weights through an array of rhythmical and geometric patterns. Poi artists may also sing or dance while swinging their poi, which could be a soft poi (made of fabric cloth), LED poi or fire poi.
Ashwin also conducts workshop for beginners who want to learn the flow art. He even teaches them how to make a poi themselves.
The poi spinner has performed and conducted workshop in off beat festivals such as Malanad Calling with the band Mind Map as a flow artist. “I will be performed at the upcoming Hampi Music and Bouldering festival,” he adds.
‘Got me Dancing’
Rohan Jacob,24, credits poi on opening up his body language. The freelance writer credits poi to get him to a meditative state. The former software engineer says,” It is an expressive sort of art”.
When Rohan took to it initially he was never the kind of a person who would dance, but his first poi that he made out of socks and tennis balls has today turned him into one happy feet. “I even attend salsa classes these days,” he giggles.
Another freelance writer, Cheryl Braggs,25 took to spinning poi falling for the graceful movements that the art commands.
Still a newbie with poi spinning, she confesses that her sessions with flow art have helped her keep a balanced state of mind at work.
“I am an extremely emotional person. I get attached too easily. Spinning helps me channel my emotional energy into casting better movements. It brind my emotional state to an equilibrium. When I had my last three hour workshop session with poi, my emotions were at check and I had a better day at work,” she says.
Poi is Cheryl’s substitute for meditation. She aspires to take to fire and LED poi someday.
Workout Session
Environmental lawyer Nikhita Lakshmikanth,28, took to poi to strengthen her arm muscle area. “I took it as an exercise but I have fallen in love with the art form since my first practise session,” she says.
A few years ago, Bengaluru didn’t have such a thriving community of poi spinners, notes Roma Ganesh. The 27-year-old photographer practises soft poi and says that she always thought it was cool to learn the flow art. “I am doing this for myself,” she says.
While for Arjun MC, it is one passion that he would soon like to convert into a full time profession.
The hardware engineer practises fire poi after getting back from work and says that it helps him be more creative. “Poi demands patience to learn and has made me more disciplined,” he adds.
Arjun stitched his own soft poi to practise and ordered his fire poi online.
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