I met Bernadette during Planet Zips’ August SpinDependence in Manila. She not only impressed me with her height but especially with her fire-hooping skills! Almost effortless she whirled a flaming hoop up and down and around her body. I was truly impressed and ready to extend my Poi skills into hooping (let’s skip the fire for now). Ready to sign up for classes with Bernadette I learned she is Cebu-based. Too bad!
During my latest trip to Cebu I met her and more Cebu-based Poi practitioners. Over a truly Pinoy dinner (crispy pata, which I as a vegetarian only looked at from afar) we shared our experiences and frustrations learning the art of “fire handling”. It’s great to connect with strangers through a commonly shared passion!
My next trip to the Visayas will surely include a fire spin with the Cebu crowd. I can’t wait!
All it takes is two tennis balls, two strings, ribbons, and two napkin-sized pieces of cloth, colored pencils, and the unlimited artistic creativity of 40 kids to make the most interesting Pois. Introducing a new and fun activity to the children of Barangay Tumana was the goal of Planet Zips’ first community outreach program. For four hours, Planet Zips instructors, students, and friends assisted an energetic group of 7 to 12 year old kids to make their own set of pois and, of course, showed them how to use them during a Poi tutorial. Barangay Tumana in Marikina City, has been severely affected by Typhoon Ondoy in 2009. Joining the Red Cross Rizal Chapter, we helped distribute donated goods and teach sanitary practices such as hand washing along with our Poi workshop. Although I work in what most people would call the ”help-others-industry”, it was my first time joining such an activity. I was impressed how well organized the program was. The materials were given out to each registered kid individually. The kids were very well-behaved! No fighting over pens but friendly sharing and helping each other out. Most of them were super focused on coloring their individual Poi cloth!I got a bit concerned when the first kids had finished their Poi sets and started swinging their new toys uncoordinated. Having gone through the learning process of Poi dance myself, I know how painful a tennis ball in the wrong spot of your body can be! :-) Time to teach the kids some basic moves!And that’s what we did! I was impressed by a handful of the kids who picked up the moves quickly. Some of the natural talents couldn’t be stopped to practice whereas the majority was too shy to get up! This is where I saw the parallels to my work: All we can do is provide people with the tools and motivate them to use them. We can’t force them to do anything. They have to pick up the new tools out of their own motivation. I’m sure we motivated some of these kids that day and gave them a fun tool to use. Now it’s up to them to practice and to get better.
I am a surf chick! I'm riding the waves on my pink and orange surf board like a pro. The beach photographers just can't get enough of me... Glenn always says one should have goals! Admittedly, my fantasy might have gone overboard with me when coloring my surfboard. A five-hour bus ride in the middle of the night, from Manila to La Union, has these effects.The goals for our surf weekend in La Union with our friends from Planet Zips were set for an unreachable high. From all the way up there they dropped deep when the first wave sent me and my (plain white) board crushing to the sandy bottom of the ocean. Oh, I just hope no photographer saw me! Climbing back on my board I readjusted to a more humble goal: try not to kill myself. What I finally achieved (after an exhausting hour paddling in the waves) were a few well-balanced short surfs to shore.La Union is a great place to surf or even to learn. The beach is clean and there are noticeable few vendors. The place has great waves (according to real surfers) yet is not flooded with tourists. For 400Pesos an hour, you can rent a surfboard and an instructor. For beginners I’d highly recommend an instructor. For half the price you can struggle the waves on your own, given the instructor believes you can handle the waves. At night we fire danced on the beach to the live Samba tunes! We watched Chinese lanterns take off and chatted on the beach. Whoever got out of bed early joined the 7am yoga (guess who did and guess who did not ;-) ). What a great weekend on the beach with the Zippers! Thank you, friends!
Planet Zips' June Spindependence will go down in history... At least for Cafe Mondial which, after an unidentified female zipper (not me!) knocked down half of the cafe's signage, lost part of its identity. For the rest of the night, we changed the venue to Cafe Mondi l (to avoid law suits).Staying incognito is tough for this group though. The smell of kerosene seems to always give us away. Our fan base spontaneously increases by random by-standers as soon as our fire pois or glow toys illuminated the night. The flash lights of cameras had a hard time competing for presence. (Which didn't keep us from cam-whoring all night long...)Another fun night with friends! Until the next SpinD in July, lets free, flow, go!
I met Bernadette during Planet Zips’ August SpinDependence in Manila. She not only impressed me with her height but especially with her fire-hooping skills! Almost effortless she whirled a flaming hoop up and down and around her body. I was truly impressed and ready to extend my Poi skills into hooping (let’s skip the fire for now). Ready to sign up for classes with Bernadette I learned she is Cebu-based. Too bad!
