Advanced Flow Arts: Contact Staff and Buugeng
Moving beyond the basics of poi, I love exploring the unique mechanics of contact staff, buugeng, and dragon staff. These props offer fresh ways to connect with rhythm, balance, and spatial awareness.
A fire contact staff session exploring the question: am I guiding the staff, or is it guiding me? This prop teaches a deep lesson in partnership and balance.
A fire staff performance on a rooftop with a unique patterned floor. This clip showcases some of the martial arts inspired movements, like Silambam, that influence my staff flow.
A daytime contact staff session. This practice is a meditation on the desire for desires, finding focus and flow in the simple act of movement.
Some explorations with the Buugeng, or S-staff. I haven't given this prop much time, but its unique, hypnotic patterns are slowly winning a corner of my heart.
Having fun with a dragon staff at the Kappa Cultr festival. This prop, with its star-shaped ends, creates incredible visual effects as it rolls over the body.
A contact staff practice session in the park. Here I discovered a new move, a toss with a fishtail, which was a rewarding moment of personal creation.
A 360-degree video of a fire contact staff jam. This unique camera angle provides a fully immersive view of the flow, capturing the energy from all sides.
A fire contact staff flow against the city lights. This clip is a good example of how I blend technical skill with artistic expression in my performances.
About Exploring Other Props
Learning the contact staff feels like a meditation on gravity, where you are not just swinging a prop but rolling it across your body with precision. Unlike poi, which relies on momentum, the staff demands constant contact and subtle weight shifts, making it a powerful tool for developing body awareness.
The beauty of moving past poi is the variety of physical challenges each prop presents. When I work with the Contact Staff, I often pull from martial arts like Silambam, where the staff becomes an extension of the spine. It is less about speed and more about understanding the pivot points and the friction between your skin and the wood.
Then there is the Buugeng, or S-staff. It creates these hypnotic, geometric patterns that play tricks on the eyes. It is less about high-speed movement and more about deliberate, clean lines. Even the Dragon Staff, with its multi-spoked ends, offers a visual feast and a different kind of balance as it rolls across your shoulders.
If you are based in Bengaluru, we can explore these at my regular spots like Bangalore Creative Circus. Whether you want to master the fishtail, learn basic isolations, or just understand how to move with a prop, my 1-on-1 sessions are designed to move at your pace, not the curriculum's pace. We strip away the intimidation factor and focus on the joy of the movement.
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