What do you want to see on flowarts.io?

The first thing that comes to mind for me is that I want to be able to embed youtube and maybe instagram videos here in the forum posts

Hi Matt/Nick,

Long time no see. I meen from dead HoP, but on the subject. First what we have. Facebook chat  rubbish,  Drex rubbish and some Vojta experimental escape from Patreon and ton of lost spinning souls buying expensive toys. Just product of inevitable recession after the "boom" decade ago. Maybe it's time to create global scale community again? Or will thist be just another "noob cash out" generic web? Sorry Vojta.

And maybe it's just dead end. So much content evrywhere. Free, payed, whaterver. Just some big messy chaos without order. Are you really want to change it?

And maybe there is a way. Create private global full flaged flowarts social network, like Mastodon. Where poeple from all around the world could freely collaborate the modern way. Imagine HoP, but on steroids.

That, would possibly syphon all the Facebook users a cross-connect multiple countries again. Forget this cheap self-support-me-please solitair individuals(no offence). It woudn't be easy, but i would be at least something.

Hey julian. Welcome to the site :) It's nice to no longer have to just talk to myself.

It could just be that I'm old but I've been learning dragon staff recently and trying to find any sort of structured content online is a nightmare. Searching instagram just returns the same videos every time, half of the tutorials being the same beginner move, escaping death, ha.

So I think there's value in just taking what's already out there, curating it, categorising it, and at the very least giving people a starting point for their learning. Even just a list of people to follow and relevant places to chat would be something.

My bigger concern with the modern web is that it's all so immediate and temporary. Things show up for a minute and then vanish into the void. I want to keep the best content at the surface and promote people making great stuff.

Also I find the level of conversation in the comments is usually pretty shallow. Back in the heydays of spherculism a new video or idea might spark a week of deep discussion amongst 30-50 passionate spinners. It really felt like we were getting somewhere. Maybe I just don't hang out in the right places but that seems lacking these days.

I want to bring back some of that old school web, modernize it, not ram adverts down people's feeds, pay teachers a solid income. I want to cut out all the middle men and all the ceo's with multimillion dollar salaries, replace things like patreon and udemy and essentially make a netflix for flow artists where education and entertainment go hand in hand.

I want to help people stop doom scrolling, stop ranting about trump, and do something positive. I want to get some of that old fashioned internet community going again. Just carve out our corner of the internet again and ignore all the silicon valley bullshit.

I disagree that those things are "rubbish". Everything has it's place and everyone is trying their best to operate inside a flawed system. But what I'm here to do is change that system. I'm going to build the absolute best e-learning platform for flow artists and I'm going to facilitate teachers to earn a living doing what they love.

Last time I did everything on spherculism for free, but ultimately that cost me thousands of dollars and wasn't sustainable. What I'm hoping this time is that I can get people to invest in this vision for 20 bucks a month and just build something absolutely mind blowing.

In other news, I've been setting up media embedding in the forum. Currently youtube, vimeo, spotify, soundcloud are all working in dev and facebook and instagram are work in progress (meta insist on you having a verified meta app to embed content).

But it's getting there slowly. I'll get it all live within the week.

Also setting up a newsletter system so I can keep in touch occasionally because there are a lot of exciting projects in development.

Maybe. I have your video spinning wobbles, wibbles or how was it called ;) from 2003 somewhere. In sandals with colored sock Poi at some parking or what...

Those days are gone.

 Dunno. Did you saw poitutorials.com by Vojta? The idea is there, the execution is average, and the result is just bad. This is not the way.

For local or fan-based micro group ok, but internationaly? It's hard to comepte with "high speed information exchange" platforms, but speed is necessary for modern kids.

Long discussions.. there is just so few people left with knowledge Matt. I wish make it, realldy do. But I so sceptic after all this years. But as would Rev ssy these are just my thoughts. The bigger picture might be a little more positive.

I had a plat too. Kind of an video archive of the old stuff I have stored(you included) I mean pre-youtube video archive with anotated history of long forgotten legends ;).

Wish you luck and email me, I'll send you some real world contact. Maybe I'll come back a couple more  times.

Haha, yeah Wibbles. I've been meaning to make tutorials for 20 years. Whoops.

I've never met Vojta but always hear good things. I'm guessing the differece is that he hasn't spent 20 years working as a web developer, always taking on projects which align with one day making the best flowarts e-learning platform there could ever be :)

I'm totally up for bringing other teachers on board. The main hurdle is automating the payments which I'll do manually to start with. I just don't want to have 100 teachers and spend days paying everyone and dealing with discrepancies etc. But the system I'm using can potentially automate all of that.

So Nick is the first and only teacher at the moment, then Nikki and Stan will be the next 2 teachers. They are producing 2 courses each, nikki's doing ropedart and fans, Stan's doing Contact Staff and Dragon Staff. Then Nick is keen to get his intermediate / advanced course on here too which I'll probably start doing soon.

Nick's other course will probably be the first to be finished, then stan and nikki should have their's finished within 6 months.

But since we're doing an all-you-can-eat subscription instead of selling these things separately there's no reason not to have all the courses online whilst we're making them. So we'll probably regularly release new content over the next 6 months as opposed to doing huge releases occasionally.

We're also thinking about putting an excellent fire safety course on here, but I'm just tentative about adding too many teachers before there's any income.

Basically I want it to be a no brainer for all flow artists to ditch one streaming service they already pay for, and sign up here instead. Like there's just a vast catalogue of the best content plus heaps of other useful tools etc that it's just excellent value.

But that all takes time and there's only one of me to develop a lot of features. Once the site is running smoothly I'll get around to making new content, and before that I plan to remaster and upscale some old content and dump it all on here. I've spoken to people with huge old archived of flowarts videos about potentially upscaling it and putting stuff on here. Partly as a great resource but also just to archive all this stuff. So much of this knowledge is passed from person to person and stuff gets forgotten over time.

No one cares about subsrciption. There is a thousands of resources out there in a single search prompt. Thre is no added value in selling something that is already everywehre. The web is literaly flooded with trash, rubbish and lame content and there is no way back from this mess. Not that I see.

Long live Poi.

It's such an obvious dead end. There is no body, no rules, nothing to back up your visions. It's an art by coincidence. Ball on a string with zero value. Maori people would tell you where is the true value.

Better go to festival. You want a resource?

https://encyclopoidia.com

Now you have all you need for 10 years+ to practise.  See?

Speaking of which, since the global community kind of obviously disintegrated. For some reason, the "hey I will strip for money" support me please is an oportunity tu support your favourite spinnier. But is it has same downside too. Cause you got stuck in kind of a hard to escape loop( hello Drex).

Go outside, spin some Poi and have fun. Ok? I will.

It's ok to be jaded, we've all been there. I disagree with a lot of your assertions though.

Flowarts practice has a huge benefit to your mental, physical and emotional wellbeing. You've clearly never met a māori person if you think Kapa Haka has no value to them, this was just last week https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpnx0pnIb9U 

Yes going to festivals is great but not everyone has access to good ones, or the several hundred dollars it often costs to go to one. Some people aren't even old enough to go.

The encyclopoidia is a classic, but just nick's first course alone is 12 hours of teaching, his second course is a similar length. I think there's a huge amount of value to providing courses of this depth and quality within a nurturing and supportive environment.

Once we've got a good set of course content for beginners and intermediates we'll be focusing more on professional performers. Choreography, makeup, costume, business, busking and so on. How to organise events, safety, logistics and so on. We can take the site in any direction we choose. Helping people follow a career they love seems like a worthwhile endeavour to me.

But right now we're just starting off simply, offering nick's course which usually costs 75-100 bucks, wrapping it up in a feature rich e-learning platform and doing it for 20 bucks a month with as much conversation and support as you need. I think that's a pretty good deal, which is only going to get sweeter over time.

But time will tell. I poured years of time and energy into spherculism back in the day and I'm finally in a position to do that again.

Maybe I got misinterpreted it, but I do honor Maori people more than anyone. Im kind of sad, sad the the new kids had not have the same "start from nothing" like the first generations and are just dumped into this Poi world unprepared.

You know what? I got directed here from a person who has the guts to critisise someting that has not even started yet saying "new challenger has entered the tournament".

This kind of acting is the state of the community. You are building something great I hope you will but on ruins. Ruins of what once was a global  community that is no longer.

There are very few great individual people around the world and everything else is either momentum or just random noise.

There is no knowledge preserved. Only two books exist about spinning. The terminology is highly dilluted now. Naming conventions wary. Dunno.

Sorry for this being such a negative perspective, but that's what I see. Poi will survive, for sure. But nobody will know what is notcoleman3 or what is a Wibble anymore ;).

Cheers and good luck anyway. ;).

Hope this is not the only discussion here.

I just a grumpy ranting oldtimer ok? ;D Dont beat me please ;). I'm reguraly searching the net for spinning gems. The Phoenix festival in Germany is promising. Dunno about Oz or current state in US. The Europe, Japan I feel a little passive but stable. Once promising Russian/Eastern community it's just big sad story. What can I say? Pretend evrything is ok? 

Is it even good time for big future-wise project now? How big is the audience anyway, few thousand? Isn't the Facebook chat enough then? 

Its really hard seeing this Poi ups and downs for 20+ plus years and stay possitive "the community way".  Not for individual people spinning for fun in theirs backyards or having fun at some local party. No. I meen those cross country friendships of openminded people. Where is it?

Buling coherent knowlege resource is.. okey-ish. But is it enough?

Hey julian. I've been out of the international scene for years. But my kids are a bit older now and I'm getting back into it.

Whilst your outlook is pretty grim and depressing it's sort of the vibe I had too and part of the reason I wanted to come back and help.

So I think you're actually a pretty good limus test for the wider community and I'm wondering what you think needs to happen to satisfy just you. What things need to change. What can I do to help you?

Maybe if we just focus on you then we can help the community as a whole?

Matt, thanks for setting this up. Your last venture on the web(like 20 years ago almost?) broke some boundaries, stoked to see what you’re dreaming up next. Let’s get into some XR shit!

I haven't left the scene at all, but I'm more passive, watching, outside the mainstream. I'm still spinning Poi thou. 

Speeking of scene, it's state in an country I'm living is literaly the same. No change at all. Just a    "rebel" group with drums and fire, nomading through the city.

 Honestly. Not the future I was hoping for..

After 20 years, the benefit of Poi is to get stoned and have a fire party, waiting for cops, cause you are in public park, so better next time. Well done local community.

I feel kind of hopeless here, really. But thank you for your courage, the light and hope :). 

The lessons by Nick are great, but almost nobody spins the " classic way" anymore. Nobody is turning, nobody dance. It's so rare these days.

90% is some contact, rolls, bouncy, wrappy, juggle mess. Static mess of tricking, people just copying one another. Lost in the jungle.

The world is not ready too. Lot or crazy stuff out there now.. 

Hey Musashii, a pleasure to have you on here mate. Let's see if we can get some cash flow to put towards those huge flowarts projects we've been dreaming about for decades :)