Article #2

Methods to Shorten a Meteor

Sometimes it's fun to shorten your meteor during a spin session. By shrinking the size of the prop you not only change the visual effect of the toy dramatically but also open up different planes to explore that normally might not be accessible with a full length meteor. Here are a few different methods you can use to change the length of your meteor without breaking your flow.

One Handed Methods

Method #1

While spinning a figure of 8 (2 beat weave) as you cross over to the opposite side of your body wrap the thumb side of the meteor around your hand once and grab hold of it before crossing back over to the starting side. Now if you stop right here and keep weaving, the thumb side will be shorter then the pinky side and will feel much like a 3/4 length gripped weave feels. To shorten the pinky side, as you swing the meteor back to it's starting side begin to wrap the pinky end around your hand and then grab onto it when ti swings back to the proper position of a pinky grip. To exit this move release the held wrap that you wrapped second which in the above case was the pinky side. There are a few variations on this method based on which end of the meteor wraps first on which side.

Method #2

This time we will be tangling the meteor around itself until we reach the desired length and then grabbing hold of the knot. To begin do a 2 beat weave and instead of crossing the leading side of the meteor back over leave it spinning outside your hand so that the pinky side and thumb side begin to twist together at your hands. Allow this twist to keep growing until the meteor is as short as you want it, then grab hold of the knot and continue weaving. To exit this shortened grip you have to grab a hold of the meteor above or below the knot and allow it to come undone while weaving it.

Method #3

You can also shorten the meteor by doing a spiral wrap and catching both ends after they wrap around once. If you are leading into the spiral wrap with the thumb side grab a hold of both ends of the meteor after the pinky side has completed it's first wrap. This will shorten your meteor but it causes both ends to come out of one side of your hand making the meteor more difficult to control.

Two Handed Methods

All of these examples will be entered from a 2 handed grip of the meteor.

Method #1

Begin with two hands gripping the meteor so that each end is the length of a poi you can do a buzzsaw with. Start spinning in fwd on the outside of your hands as if you were spinning in the wheel plane with poi. Now do a two beat weave, with the right hand swinging over the left hand. As the right hand crosses over to the left side of your body, hand the left hand "poi" into your right hand so that it is in the pinky grip position of a meteor. Continue spinning a 2 beat weave with your right hand. If you did this hand off right there should be a loop of slack rope hanging out of your hand. You can enter this shortened grip from any two handed weave but just be sure you can do a meteor weave with the same degree of twist before trying to hand off a higher beat two handed weave.

Method #2

Do a two handed bf with your hands gripping either end at quarter length. Then just like the method above hand off one end so that you are doing a one handed bf. You should once again have a bit of slack rope hanging out of your hand.

Method #3

This is a variation on the first two two-handed methods. Instead of just handing one end of the meteor into the other hand do a hyperloop, buzzsaw or other move where the ends cross between your arms and twist the meteor up on itself. Then hand one of these twisted ends of the meteor into the other hand. This creates an interesting twist of rope around your hand and will take on various shapes depending on how many times you wrapped the meteor around itself. This works for both bf and weave hand offs.

Method #4

Now start as you would in the third method but this time bring only one end of the meteor between your arms so that it twists up on itself. Now instead of stopping your twist before it tangles all the way up, let the meteor wrap all the way up on itself then hand the twisted end into the hand that didn't do any twisting onto itself. Now you have one end twisted all the way up and the other free. release the twisted end and as the knot comes untwisted the meteor slowly lengthens.

Now these are just a few of the ways you can shorten your meteor during a spin. The one handed methods are definitely more traditional meteor based and the two handed variations especially the twisted versions are more poi based. Once you shorten your meteor a whole new range of planes is opened up and things like in-swings become possible.