Fire spinning

I got myself a set of practice poi, because I want to look like I’m not a complete klutz at WildFire.

It’s actually quite a bit of fun — it’s a lot like juggling, except that you never have to stop to chase a dropped ball around the house. Instead you periodically get whacked in a random part of the body with a heavy beanbag moving at high speed. Much preferable.

I’ve been using it as a periodic break from work: whenever I get stuck on a particularly thorny coding problem I can stand up and do something physical for a while, which in theory gives me a chance to relax and get myself unstuck. In practice, yesterday I never did manage to solve the particular issue I was working on, but did learn how to do a five beat weave. So that’s something.

Stellan, of course, has been watching all of this, and is in a learn-by-imitation phase; so this morning he politely asked if he could have a turn.^* So I handed him the poi, which are of course about twice as long as he is, so the beanbags just sat there on the ground next to him while he happily started windmilling his arms around just like daddy, repeatedly shouting “ouch! ouch! ouch!” just like daddy.

^*“STELLAN DO IT! DO IT! I DO IT! I DO THAT THING! … peeese.”