The Drive Program

Brenden White: Flow Arts, Spinning Poi & Fire | #43

• Tom Driver

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Tom

It it it essentially like saves both of our files locally and then sends them live. So we'll both sound like sometimes if the internet messes up, you know, it can mess up the recording. I see. But that's yeah, I feel like I I didn't explain that, but yeah, man, it's pretty it's pretty cool. Um, but yeah, so let me think. Okay, so I've never talked about flow or poi or anything on the podcast before. So I'm gonna start with kind of like some basic questions, but like what is flow and what is poi?

Brennan

Um, well, flow, I guess in general, is like the way that I see it is like the the flow state, the mindset you can get into if you're doing like getting into a hobby, you know, you're playing soccer, you're playing an instrument. That's what flow to me is. When it comes to like flow arts and poi and like different props, it's it's using that flow state to manipulate like uh a ball on a string or uh uh stavs on fire, or you know, there's a whole bunch of different things, uh different props, fans, all that type of stuff. Yeah.

Tom

Yeah, right. So the flow state you can kind of get there anyway, like you were saying, instrument or even like if you're working or you know, doing anything, but then the flow sports they're like in the specific category of that flow state, right? Because I feel like they all share like similar patterns to stuff, right? So there's like there's what umbrella do you put around those sports, yeah.

Brennan

The the way that it's been explained to me by like a lot of my flow arts friends is there's different categories. There's like juggling, which is like a very technical type of manipulation where you have juggling balls, clubs, rings, um, hool hoops, whatever it is, and those all fit into a very European style of flow arts. And then there's what's like a new age type of flow art, which is manipulating different props like poi, which is ancient in its origin, but the way that people are relating to it now is more um new age with learning how the the shapes kind of come together, how the the 3D space around you can be manipulated, all that stuff. So not so much juggling. So those are kind of the two genres, I guess you could say, is juggling and then the flow arts or the pure like manipulation of a prop. Mm-hmm.

Tom

Okay. Yeah, I actually never thought about how juggling was was basically the same thing as well as poi and and all these different things. So then what let's just start with like when when did you get into poi? Like who who introduced you? How did you start? How did how did this how did you begin doing this?

Brennan

Yeah, so I started about 10 years ago, 2000, like the end of 2011, 2012, and a buddy of mine who had come up from he had moved up to Northern Virginia from uh Florida, and he uh he was into poi. I'm not actually sure how he got into it, mostly from like the rave scene, you know, glow sticking, that type of stuff. And he uh when he came up, you know, we um are we are we allowed to talk about uh psychedelic stuff on this? Or I don't know your opinion. Yeah. So so he he had uh yeah, he had had brought this up to us, and when we had, you know, gotten together, all of our friends and all this stuff, and we were having a an experience of of the psychedelic kind, and and he kind of just whipped him out one day and it and uh was like, hey, let me let me show you guys something while we're in this enlightened kind of state. Um, and it blew all of our minds, you know, because it's not something that we've ever seen before. Um and all of our all of our friends were like, this is awesome. Teach us how to do this. And he was pretty good at at the time. He was like a at an intermediate level. Um, so we all kind of jumped on it. And at the time I was like not really into it. I was still young and I was trying to find out like, oh, what what do I actually want to do in life and this type of stuff? And you know, when when all your friends do something, you're like, okay, I might as well try it. And um yeah, and then my brother and a whole bunch of my other friends, they they're a bit older than me. So they went off to college and they were doing all this other stuff, and I was basically alone, and so I just practice every day. I would get home from from school and and practice, get home from college, practice, practice on the campus, all this stuff. Um, and uh yeah, basically just turned it into kind of like my own little meditation practice, and then some of my friends dropped off, and and I would watch YouTube videos and kind of just learn how to how to do it. It's been a journey.

Tom

Dang, so you were already into this in high school then, going into college.

Brennan

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Tom

Okay. And then so I met you through the flow club, and I think you actually taught me most of what I know. So, first of all, like thank you for you were basically a mentor to me, I feel like, for two years. I don't know if you wanted me to be there, but I was I would just show up at this club and like watch you and watch all the crazy moves and patterns you were doing. Uh I think everyone was definitely welcome. But did you did you help like create the foundation of that flow club then? Or because if you knew about uh flow in c in high school, I'm I'm surprised because like that's kind of what introduced me, or was that already established when you when you got to JMU?

Brennan

Yeah, so the way from my recollection was um Taylor, you remember Taylor. Okay. Um she she and my brother, who was at school before me, they founded the flow club. So my brother had already been practicing poi and all this stuff, and they brought it together, and then when I got there after my brother graduated, um Taylor was still doing it, and she was closer to my uh my grade. So uh it was easy to just kind of jump in and then help her out, kind of doing what my brother was doing, um scheduling stuff and all that.

Tom

Nice. Okay. It was it started off like small, like five, ten people, I guess.

Brennan

Yeah, it was it was probably it was Taylor and her two two friends, and then me and Heather, and then we just started collecting people, basically. I know knew some other people from from school who I was like, oh you you and then you know, you came and then Heather's boyfriend, and then some other some other Heather's friends. A lot of it was like friends of friends, and then you know, you meet people at a party and you're like, Hey, you like this thing that I do, you know, you should uh come and hang out with us because we, you know. So yeah, it was it was just kind of like word of mouth, and then people started coming, they would join the Facebook group, and then whenever we had a thing and they were free, it was never like an obligation to come or anything, but people seemed to enjoy coming and just chilling out.

Tom

Yeah, man. I think I joined when there was like 20, 25 people, and like by the time I left it was 45 or 50 or something, man. There was so there were certain days there'd be like 60 people there at the right time in spring, you know.

Brennan

When we went outside, I remember that we we had a little a big uh big session outside where we had a whole bunch of people coming on. We took took a picture, I for it. It's probably on Facebook somewhere, but yeah, it's definitely definitely got up there. Now, I don't even after me and Taylor left, it was like, I don't even know if they have a flow club anymore.

Tom

Um I know actually when I when I started looking for people to hit up for the podcast, I went to that flow club and I was kind of hoping it would like be still active, and then I noticed I was like, oh, someone's in someone hasn't posted in here in like four years. Okay. Yeah. Uh whatever. So that was a little bit of a letdown. But anyways, uh what um okay, I feel like for a listener who doesn't understand what poi is, I'm still I feel like maybe we're not doing the best job of of explaining it. So it's two poi is technically two balls on a string, right? And you spin it around, and uh, you know, they usually come in like light up kind of colors if you can find one, or they can be done on fire, right? I feel like most people might resonate with someone spinning fire ropes around, would be like in Hawaii example.

Brennan

Yeah, yeah, it's it comes from the origins of poi specifically, come from uh Polynesian culture. There's a there's a group of people called the Maori, and the word poi is a is a Maori word that means ball on string. So that was the origin, and it was a very traditional type of dance, mostly done by women. Um, men would also do it to build up forearm strength for hunting, but the traditional is very ceremonial, a lot of simple patterns, um, things like that. Um doing it for for whatever reason. I'm not an expert on it, but I know kind of a little bit. Nowadays, the more modern poi is an exploration of the art style of it using LEDs as instead of like a ball on the end of the string, or fire, kind of like they would do in Hawaii where they spin fire. So yeah, man.

Tom

It's so I mean, just thinking about it, it probably is ancient. It probably goes back to before there was any written, you know, written data about anything. So I I I mean I assume it was pr it was not too hard to put two strings on two rocks or something, you know?

Brennan

Yeah, it's like what fun do we have to do, you know, back when there's no entertainment. Yeah, you know.

Tom

So I think it probably was the coolest form of entertainment. Yeah. Oh, it's not. Because there was something in me that felt it it felt like an instinct, right? It's almost I don't know, can you explain like when you're first learning it? It's like realizing you have a third arm or something, you know, or like an extra sense that you didn't know you have because all of a sudden your your body like learns these patterns and and you hit yourself, you know, 20 to 50 times and and like your muscle memory just knows to never do that again, you know, and then you just I don't know. Can you can you say anything to like how the body learns tricks and kind of like I don't know, maybe anything to like the psychology behind it?

Brennan

Yeah, the way I can explain like the way that I conceptualize it, right, is that when you're learning when you're learning how to spin poi, it's almost like it's an extension of your arms, right? Because it's a extra amount of string extending out to a ball, and you know, you you spin it in a circle, and you don't want to hit yourself, and when you hit yourself, your body kind of gets conditioned to oh, don't do it that way because it hurts, you know, or it doesn't feel comfortable. Um and I think that over time when you start to learn about how you can manipulate the balls in in the space around you, it's it's kind of like um it's kind of like you're experimenting with the shape of the space, you know, of what your what reality is. You know, the air around you has a shape that it, you know, gravity allows it to fall and rise in a certain way. Um, and it's kind of the the manipulation of that that fall of gravity and that rise back up on the other side in a circle that kind of um you can manipulate, turn it, twist it, all of that kind of stuff, as long as you do it in a way that the human form doesn't get in the way, you know. So there are limitations when it comes to uh, you know, the the human form, and you can't spin it a certain way because oh my arm, my elbow doesn't go backwards, or my, you know, or I can't reach too far behind my back. But other than that, it's it's almost like the space around you is a playing ground for whatever shapes you want to do. And it and they're all fundamental shapes, you know, you can do triangles, you can do um diamonds and squares and and circles, that's like the basic, the basic shape. Um, but it's it's like now that I've done it for so long, I'm able to kind of paint a picture of, oh, what do I want the viewer to see? You know, I'm I'm creating this art form where just like painting, where I'm putting pigment on a canvas, I can I can say, I want to put the light in this area of the space around me, and I want it to look like this. So that's kind of how I think about that's so cool, man.

Tom

I don't know if I ever got to that point. Like I was still very much living inside the the world, you know, when I was performing. Like I didn't have the foresight to think about how exactly it was gonna look from the you know the audience's perspective. That's really cool.

Brennan

And that that's actually the uh that's the the biggest thing about that when I was learning was like you know, online when you're when you're reading about it, everyone's like, oh look in a mirror. What watch yourself in a mirror, because that's how you learn what it looks like, you know. So when I do like a there's there's a one of the simple patterns is a four-pedal anti-spin. Um and so it looks like um basically the cardinal directions, four points, you know, north, south, east, west. And when when you look at it for the first time, you can tell, oh, my my south point or my bottom point is too much to the right or the left, or my side points aren't far enough out. So that's that's kind of how you can visualize what it's supposed to look like.

Tom

Oh yeah. It's like all coming back to me, man, because I haven't done this in a minute. I'm I'm just remembering now. Like the four pedal is a classic one, and like the three-pedal, you know? And and triketching. Yeah, yeah. What what other like shapes do you kind of progress through or like maybe moves because I remember there's like a two-beat, right, where you go like right over left, and then all of a sudden you learn a three beat, which is like right over left over right again, and then you'll be able to like open that up to the pedal, right? Once you do it kind of on with your arms open, you know.

Brennan

Yeah, so the way that the way that we start out when we teach someone is like you know, spin them at your sides, you know, right right next to your shoulders. Um, and then after you do that, you want to be able to cross them opposite of each other. So you just cross in front, and then after that, you can do what's called split time. So instead of same time where they're going that that at the same time, you do da-da-da-da-da. Um, and then you learn how to cross like that, and and it's just kind of uh you're compounding on that uh uh original, just spinning it at the side. Um and and they consider a couple different things when they're teaching go into patterns, right? So when you when you are first learning out, you're doing what's called wheel plane. And wheel plane is just basically um I'm standing straight at my audience and I'm spinning them at my sides. You know, that's wheel plane. Now, wall plane is a little bit different. Wall plane would be I'm looking at my audience and I'm spinning it in front of myself and behind myself as opposed to at my sides. And wall plane is what is the foundation for those patterns like the four-pedal, the the three-pedal, the the five-pedal, all of those things. Yeah, I'm here.

Tom

Can you say that again? I didn't hear you. I'm sorry. I um I was saying that's the the very the very last part.

Brennan

Yeah, I was saying that the uh wall plane is the fundamental for basically the uh the four-pedal, the three-pedal, and the five-pedal, kind of what you were saying before, the more technical patterns. Mm-hmm.

Tom

Yeah, I'm also remembering it it was really helpful to practice in a mirror for the pedals and stuff like that. Or windows have to. Yeah. A window, yeah, yeah. Dang. Okay, so then once you get like a lot of these patterns down, uh, how does this like link up with music kind of for you? Like, how does music play a role in in the way you perform or learn to poi?

Brennan

Yeah, so I think that there's a couple ways to to kind of combine music with it. You know, if you're someone who is more mathematically brained, you know, you like the the math around it, um the shapes, geometry, all that stuff, you might think that oh, each point of the shape goes to a beat, right? Um, or you can think of it as every downbeat goes to the beat. Um, sometimes that's how I think about it. Um, you can also do it like there are a lot of pe friends who I have who um are more of like on the flow aspect, not so much technical, and they'll say, I'll move my body in a certain way um to the beat. And not so much emphasizing what the poy's doing, but what my dance is doing, you know. So there are a couple different ways to think about how music combines with the flow.

Tom

Yeah, man. What um what kind of music do you like to listen to when you practice or perform uh kind of artists?

Brennan

Uh um I'm I'm a fan of a lot of electronic music, um down tempo music. Um but I mean I I could I could get down to metal, I could get down to basically anything, folk music, whatever. Um it just kind of depends a lot of the events that I go to where I organize and teach at. They they listen to drum and bass and down tempo and um trance and all that kind of stuff, trap music, whatever it is.

Tom

Yeah, I have uh a playlist that I used to listen to, and I think I probably was inspired by the club a lot, but I remember a lot of Flume and Papadozio and jam music and pretty lights, yeah, jam bands. Yeah, Frank was more into those than me, so I I I heard a lot of that just by living with him, but I guess Papadozio is kind of a jam band, right? Or no?

Brennan

They're electronic jam. Yeah, they're electronic jam, so they they definitely have those vibes in it. Also, like Humphreys McGee and Fish and all of those those type of bands, too.

Tom

What was like the favorite your favorite concert that you've seen that you've you've performed at, like in the audio or just practiced in the audience?

Brennan

Um well, there are a couple different I mean I've since I've been doing it for 10 years, I've had a spurt of maybe my my fourth year was the first time that I ever did something professionally, right? Where I went to a festival, I was like either paid or got immersed, uh reimbursed to go, that type of thing. So I've like spun it. Yeah.

Tom

I mean, I did not know that you ever went like pro. That's sick. Yeah, that's awesome.

Brennan

So I I've okay I've done like um everything from I I went to there's a festival called Rooster Walk, I think. And I that was a really cool experience that I was working at where I got to um spinpoi and and double stabs and a whole bunch of different props for the Wailers, which is uh Bob Marley's son's band now. Um that was that was a pretty fun experience.

Tom

So they asked you to come like set up at a certain area during the the concert and and basically you got paid to perform.

Brennan

Yeah, so the the way it works is there's a fire arts production company, and um, the guy who I was working with, he reaches out to different performers that he knows and says, Hey, do you want to come? We can copy a ticket, give you, you know, free whatever merch, whatever it is, right? Um, a lot of the gigs are free. You they basically give you a ticket to come, and then whatever other money you get, you work off of tips, basically. Um, it's unfortunate that a lot of performers at festivals get what they call paid in exposure, which is completely different topic, but um it's uh yeah and I and I think that um those were kind of the some of the best experiences I've ever had was working professionally at at these festivals.

Tom

Um my favorite um was probably being at a really close indoor Papadocio concert, you know, inside of like uh just a small little concert hall and you know some of the first times I ever was that in UVA um it may have been Charleston yeah I went to one of those I went to one of those yeah yeah those were really fun our junior or senior year or something I went to one of those that was I'm I'm that actually is crazy because I don't I haven't been to many of those type of uh concerts before so for that to be your favorite that kind of blows my mind because I I obviously had a great time there but that's the only time I've seen Papadozio or even really done a significant amount of point you know like it's in mid-concert.

Brennan

It's so close quarters that you know when you're spinning and they don't allow you to do this anymore where you're spinning in between people inside the venue itself but that was when I kind of first had the realization of how far my poyer actually extending because I you can spin it in between you know 50 60 70 people and you know not hit anybody is a challenge you know so I enjoyed like the challenge of doing that oh definitely yeah those those things were not like packed like sardines but they were crowded enough to kind of be you gotta be really careful you know do people I think I know the answer to this but do people ever compete for poi or is that against like is that the against the nature of what it is they do. There are different competitions in parts of the US not many at all um I think that the overall sentiment is that it's an art form for now um and to judge someone's art form is kind of I mean it's one of those things where you don't really want to say that someone is bad at art you know we want to encourage expression and encourage people to grow and learn and stuff like that. So there are definitely competitions but not so much as there are um places and events to to teach people and to show people safe uh fire safety and uh different performance techniques and all of that kind of stuff were uh when you did the Bob Marley Sun concert were you doing fire the whole time? Yeah I was okay nice have you ever gotten hurt doing that or seen someone I've I've never gotten hurt personally um I I remember one year I got a like a chain chain burn so like I I used to have poi that had metal chains on them at the very end and I had wrapped it around my arm but it wasn't bad at all um but I've seen people who have like huge you know six inch burns on their arms from you know getting caught in their in their props or um a big thing also is some people who have like fire fans which it's basically a ring that you hold in your hand that has spokes that come out of it. So being so close proximity to your hand you need to wear gloves. So I've seen some people get hand burns um but me personally no I haven't um there are also there are also things online that I've seen from friends of friends where people have have died from um doing performances and stuff like that. So it does happen. It just depends on your fire safety crew. You have to have people who know exactly what they're doing and you gotta be safe about it.

Tom

Yeah I feel like that's part of the thrill though I feel like once you get to a certain level you have to do a little bit of fire to you know I mean you've you've gotten so good at this thing you know you might as well feel the heat because I think I did a week oh yeah and it's scary.

Brennan

I remember I was uh the the one time I I did it I like was doing whatever uh trick they both go inwards on each other you know yeah the butterfly collided yeah the butterfly exactly and and they didn't hit me but they they hit each other in midair and collided and like one of them shot right at me and I like dodged it and I was like okay that's enough I'm good I'm gonna go back to the light up once yeah it's it's something that so I started fire probably a year and a half into learning learning poi like like you said super simple stuff you know it's scary at the beginning but the the thing about it that you learn quickly is that um if we're using the correct type of fuel and you're you have people who are safe and are being safety for you um I think that there's no way to you don't get engulfed in flame you're not gonna instantly light up um most likely what's gonna happen is what the what's called a fuel transfer where you you uh swipe your clothing and some of the fuel that's lit on fire gets uh transferred onto your clothing but it's easy enough to just wipe it down and and you're fine. And as long as someone is watching you you know they have calls for like um if someone is safetying for you and they see that you're on fire they'll call out to you what body part and you know the best thing obviously to do is look. Oh what am I doing at you know um the biggest thing of people who are new to fire safety I've seen people who are like who yell out you're on fire it's like yeah we know there's a fuck ton of fire here. What do you mean like tell me where?

Tom

So that that's a big thing is knowing what calls to do uh so that keep people safe yeah man that's gotta be crucial crucial um what about like advanced moves so I remember you said there was um like a the pedal and then when the pedals go reverse reverse of each other what was that called again?

Brennan

Yeah so there's like yeah there's basically two different forms of the pedals right the technical form of poi there's what's called in spin pedals which are basically if you spin a ball in a string and you don't move your arm that's a circle if you move your arm and the poi in the same direction that's what's called in spin. If you move the poi in one direction and your arm is moving in the opposite direction that's what's called anti spin. So it creates two different looking patterns.

Tom

Anti spin yeah yeah I remember you could you could like have the two spinning around your head and then all of a sudden you would bring them in on each other right and now your arms are going around the the poi instead of the poi going around your arms and you're doing that both like in reverse and and keeping it kind of like I don't know I don't like like a gear turned in on it on itself you know? Yeah and yeah. I never I never figured out how to do that one.

Brennan

That one is uh they call that a fountain so you can do with either in-spin or anti-spin you can do um a whole range of different types of like motions.

Tom

A fountain would be with with both hands moving in a circle um and so it kind of like like you said looks like a gear turning around in between your arms dude I love that name man what can we just talk about like more advanced moves and what the names are just because I don't know that's always I can list off a bunch of them for you if you want.

Brennan

Yeah just start list yeah let's start listing moves man um and and here the thing about moves is like I you know they're they're named from you know if some guy figures something out they're like oh I think I'm gonna call it this and then a more mathematical thinking person would say oh it would make more sense if we call it this because of whatever um but I think uh a couple things there's isolation which is basically the poi is moving the same equidistance around a circle that your hand is moving so it looks like you're isolating in one one spot there's anti spin and in spin um there is uh something called a a toroid which if you know about a toleroid in in physics is basically um the shape of a donut turning in on itself through the center and out out through the outside like the magnetic field of the earth is a toroid. Um but in poi you can you can create that shape because we're living on this planet so gravity allows us to you know spin it in a way that looks like a toroid um and yeah you'd have to you'd have to see it I mean I probably have maybe I can but I don't know about other people but I know what you're talking about. Yeah yeah just Google toroid and you'll you'll see what I mean. Okay. There's also um there are different types of weaves a weave is um basically that that first thing I was talking about where you spin them at your side and you cross them in front of you. When your arms cross that's what we call a weave um there are uh there are tracers a tracer is if you hold out your arm um and you spin it tracing around your body um and so like the way that people learn is they'll have they'll spin it you know they'll hold their arm out and they'll spin it with their hand on their arm and just kind of slowly move down their arm and then you get better at it and you can decide how many spins I want to do around my body.

Tom

There's something called a a snake a snake is it's like a tracer but you're you're moving from instead of tracing a body part you're going from front to back very close to the inside of your armpit the the nape of your neck that type of thing um there is the corkscrew which is it's a type of weave that goes on the horizontal so it goes from the top of your head to below your head and you're doing like it looks like a corkscrew um yeah so wait there's like three planes you you can work with right there's the one plane where it's um kind of like at your waist you know like a table then there's the when it's on either side of you right like kind of like you're boxed in and then the third one would be like in front of you you know like um a wall you know pressed in front of you and you can you can trace them along these three different planes right or is there more than three yeah the the way that they I mean technically there's an infinite amount right if you if you think about diagonal if I if I lean back you know I'm creating a different plane but the fundamental three are wheel plane which is at my sides wall plane which is in front and behind me and either ceiling or floor plane which are the same thing which is either above my head or below my head it's so interesting because like in weight in weight training they teach us about these same planes too and and you you lift a lot of weights on this on the same kind of concept of planes you know um a huge intersection there yeah I just realized but yeah man sorry I didn't mean to cut you off no no you did uh well that was that was all I had to say but but what is what is like an advanced like crazy trick like um yeah so something that I've been messing with and uh recently is what is a concept called polyvert polyrhythm.

Brennan

Um so you know a lot of the beginner patterns that you learn are you know both my arms are doing the same thing whether or not they're going opposite of each other or you know split timing of each other those are all very simple concepts um once you get to the point where you're like okay I want one arm to do one thing like I want it to do three pedals and my left arm is going to do four pedals that's when you get into a different type of uh difficulty so a lot of the polyrhythm stuff is a brain brain fuck uh because you're trying to you know rub your belly and tap your head at the same time I was just about to say that yeah yeah I was really I was really gonna say that yeah rub your belly pat your head kind of thing yeah I can't I that I never could do everything had to be like symmetrical for me and like my arms had to be doing like either the like you're saying the same thing or like the inverse of each other.

Tom

I I it was very it broke my brain to try to like be doing two different patterns with each arm. Didn't didn't at one point you start using three you would have like instead of two poi you or was it like a double edged? What what what was going on once you started upgrading like the actual equipment?

Brennan

Yeah so you can do um you can do three poy you can do four poys so you basically would hold two in one hand and one in the other um or you can do two in both hand um but they're completely different patterns when it when it comes to three because you have to learn how to do the patterns on your you know they they teach it with so one poi is in my thumb and forefinger my pointer finger and the other poi is on my palm and my pinky. So you have to learn how to do the patterns on the other side of your hand. So that's that's kind of how that that works out. Would you kind of like juggle them sometimes too like you'd pass the third one between your two hands I feel like right and kind of yeah you can some combination of juggling you can also just you can also juggle I mean there's it's easy enough to just say oh I'm gonna throw these up in the air um and I I have friends who can juggle five five poi it's very hard um and I think compared to juggling clubs or juggling balls it's a different feeling um because it's not as quick a lot of the what they call static props like clubs and and balls static meaning it's not a rope it doesn't you know a a rope a poi is dynamic right because it it moves around and it's not as stable with with poi when you juggle you have to give it like a pendulum swing in order to get it up into a into a juggle um as opposed to a a club where you can just catch it and throw it again. You know there's no there's no dynamic motion to the the prop itself.

Tom

So it's a different ball game yeah I imagine because it's it's kind of lopsided right I mean I never try to juggle them but I yeah that sounds that sounds difficult. Uh so you would you would get up to four sometimes then you would have two in each hand but did you ever do five or no?

Brennan

Just you do five sometimes five five is a bit awkward because there's less space in between well you can I mean you put it in in between your your middle finger and your ring finger um or at least that's how I would I would do it. But I think that when you add the limits I don't even know I don't think that six is even a limit um you the the limiting factor is the limiting factor is how much space you have to to do something because that's at a certain point if you have too many in your hands all you're doing is spinning them you know on your on your sides there's not so much room to do an intricate pattern. And that's why the fundamental is is two poi is because it's just two poi in relation to each other and your body um three poi you can still move in between the two on one hand and do some interesting stuff but with the further you get the less space there is to move throughout the patterns got it.

Tom

But what's your lim have you done six what's your limit though? Have you done seven eight I've tried six yeah I've tried six. Six okay and after that's just after that it's just like no that's great.

Brennan

That's kind of that's just to be funny.

Tom

Yeah there's not it doesn't you don't get very far is there like a golden you said two is is that just the golden like thing that you in my opinion or is is four is four like I you did three a good amount I feel like maybe you were just practicing but but do you don't ever want to do like four or three like when you're at a concert or having fun do you I um and and that this comes down to really like what you're comfortable with.

Brennan

Like when we're talking about like if I'm trying if I'm trying to have the most fun I'll just do two because that's that's what I know. That's what I'm the best at most practice. If I want to reach outside the box I might do three you know it there are different patterns that you can do that you can't obviously adds an extra ploy in there so you can't do them with uh with two um so that's a fun fun thing to experiment with um obviously you can juggle with three is like the most fundamental juggling is three of something um and then when you get up to four it you can do similar stuff as three but a lot a lot more uh a lot more complication because you're you gotta learn it with the the left hand if you're non-dominant is your left you know so that's where I cut cut it off is I'm like that's enough enough of that I feel like there's like an endless amount of possibilities with two anyway like there's like a whole lifetime's worth of moves to discover with two you know basically do you still practice on the regular and stuff um I I sometimes um I hadn't for COVID it was like like a year and a half worth of not doing anything other than working but yeah other than that. I feel that dude I'm I'm I'm way worse I haven't done it in like three years probably or longer dude I need to get back on this because I'm just remembering how much I liked it in this in this moment you know yeah there's a whole if anyone you know who who's listening wants to get into it there's a whole plethora of uh YouTube content for how to learn you know if you if you're into the technical if you're into the dance if you want to be a performer um anything basically you can you can find on YouTube that's how I learned um some some YouTubers out there like uh Drex Factor is really really good person to watch he he has the biggest discography basically of tutorial content on on YouTube.

Tom

Mm-hmm Yeah what about like um what do you get out of it? How does it affect the rest of your life?

Brennan

Does it you know it's like a form of meditation right does it help you feel centered and I mean it's a little bit of a workout I don't know what what are the what how does it kind of play a role in in your in your life outside of just doing it yeah there's a couple things um it's it's a form of meditation um it's something that you can get into you relieve stress some people use it to work out you know they get get that cardio in um but then you know deeper than that it's uh it can be a spiritual experience it can be something to help you with you know meeting people or something to help you with expressing yourself or you know if you're an introverted person it you know it's uh if you do it in front of people you know you can't help but be be looked at you know and so um a lot of the friendships that I have are from going to events and learning from people and um and then after teaching people and you know kind of being a part of that community is what what it means to me at least is the friends I've learned, you know, met along the way and all that kind of stuff.

Tom

Mm-hmm. Yeah, man, there is a huge like spiritual aspect to it. I feel like I'm understanding the universe, the cosmos, like I'm I'm learning all these like geometric patterns, and and my you know, like you're saying, you just understand like the space around your body better, and you feel centered, and then it does just pull you into social situations, but you also don't have to say much to each other. Like it's almost weird doing a podcast with you because we hung out so many times and we didn't even have to say anything. You know what I'm saying? Like 95, 95% of the time, I would talk to you for like two minutes afterwards or beforehand, but you and me are just hanging out, saying nothing to each other, and just looking at each other in the mirror and and maybe give each other quick pointers. But also, you could give me advice, you could be like, hey, look at this, and just do it, and and I would learn visually, you know. I don't have to, it's nothing verbal is required to go bond with a group of people.

Brennan

You know, it's I'll tell you a story about this actually, because I I have a good story for this. Um, so I was at a concert when I was um, it might have been even just as I was coming to school um with you guys, and it was a Papadocio concert, and I'm, you know, have my LED poi, I'm in the crowd, I'm having fun, spinning, whatever. And um, someone who I'd never met before um comes up to me, and he just right in front of me, you know, uh watching me spin, and he he looks at me in the eye and he holds out his hands as if, hey, can I can I try? I give it to him, right? And he just completely blows my mind, you know what I'm saying? Didn't say a single word to me, and just at that moment I was like, I need to know who this guy is. You know, I need to befriend this person because holy crap, he's really good. And he knew that, you know, he was going to kind of spark something in me just by coming up and holding out his hands, and um, now I'm really good friends with this person. I've you know been to a bunch of events with him, and he's probably one of the best poison spinners I've ever met. Um, so it's yeah, very much like you say, like you don't need to say much of anything if you're physically dancing or expressing or or whatever it is. Um, you just kind of see how someone is expressing themselves, and you either relate to it or you don't.

Tom

Mm-hmm. Yeah, man, it's crazy. It's like a secret handshake or something, you know. This guy just immediately he saw you had poi and just knew that there's gonna be a mutual respect there. It's almost like a martial arts or something in that way, you know, like you found another black belt in in your thing. I don't know, I think kind of like the competition, it would seem it would seem almost uh against the culture to give it black belts or yellow belts or or a ranking system. But there is definitely an unspoken skill level, and and if someone does something, you immediately know how many hours went into that. You know, I'm saying you're like, oh man, this guy has put in at least uh thousand hours if he can do that. Oh my gosh, like this guy's committed to the to the art form, you know?

Brennan

And something on that is also there are people who, you know, the the more that you know YouTube is becoming more prevalent, social media, people are adding these different flow arts, teaching people how to do it. And what we've what I've come to find is basically that someone who, like example, for me, took me five years to get to a certain point. Nowadays it's taking someone three months to get to the same point because they have such a wide you know directory of like stuff that they can look at online. So I've met people like um, you remember Noah from school? He learned he learned what I learned in two years in like a month or two. So yeah. So I I don't know. It's it's one of those things where you're like, you could say, and maybe it's like, oh, they did work 10,000 hours and they have you know worked that much, but now you can never really tell. You know, maybe someone is just naturally good at learning, you know.

Tom

Well, they at least it required a certain amount of of focus and concentration, you know. Yeah, just dedication. Their dedication, something if they might have gone hard, because I I learned a lot pretty fast when I was in college because I had YouTube, all that stuff, and the group there to learn from, and then haven't learned much since. But I mean I I did learn pretty at a fast rate for a moment just because I was like obsessed with it every single day, you know. So it's one of those things that can really pull you in, you know, and just I don't know. It just really it's it's it's a whole it's a whole like universe to to experience. I can't explain it.

Brennan

Yeah, a lot of it is like cognitive, you know, growth. Like you, you know, you put together how to move in a certain way and it helps your helps your mind out. It's it's like those brain training kind of things. You know, you you can get a whole lot of it, uh a lot out of it if you uh if you try try at it and get it. I I suggest everyone try out some some type of like juggling or something, something physical like that, because it I think it grows your brain.

Tom

Oh yeah, we were you were talking about how fast he learned. It made me think, um, I wonder if you could put sensors in the poi and have like a feedback system through like an app or something where it shows you like all the patterns that you did, you know, uh and then tells you kind of like how to make adjustments and and stuff like that. I bet you could put some cool some cool tech into some poi and have a really cool like learning system, you know?

Brennan

Yeah, speaking of actually, there are because I I thought about this before about you know the the upcoming sensation of VR and all of this kind of stuff, is yeah, yeah. I'm sure you can code some sort of props or poi or something in VR where you would get instant feedback. Um there's also um my my buddy Noelle, he he has an app that basically if you it has all the different base shapes, and you can say, I want this shape and this shape, and it'll tell you, you know, here's how it's supposed to look, here's how your hand is supposed to move, here's the you know, what timing do you want, how do you how do you want to do it? Um so there are like resources out there, but when it comes to like real-time feedback of what you're doing, I think VR is probably the next step for that.

Tom

Yeah, in fact, I bet there's already uh like VR games for poi because you just maybe not like as as as much feedback as we were talking, but as far as to practice and stuff, like all you have to do is set up, you know, the physics in in the in this little simulation, and then you should be able to do everything everything in there that you can do elsewhere, you know. It might be a little bit like the weight of everything would be a little different, but I bet they already have that, man.

Brennan

Yeah, I bet it feels really weird because you're not, you know, you're not you don't feel the the tug of the the prop when you're moving it around. So I'm sure you could get used to it, but I I think that one of the closest things is probably like the beat saber and the you know that type of thing.

Tom

No, for sure. That is similar, and they have like these staffs, these flow staffs now that are probably even more similar to some of the beat saber stuff. Yeah, man. What about um I uh what's it called? The the hula hoops? I almost blanked on that, dude. Um what about the hula? I know I know you didn't hula hoop, but what there's so many like like pattern that that are very similar between the hula hoop and the poi. I feel like they're the closest two almost. Um what what can you say about like the what is hula hooping compared to poi and how do they kind of intersect in their patterns?

Brennan

Yeah, so hula hooping is you know, it's a circle, obviously. And I think that when you're trying to do poi techniques with the hoop, the the circle that you're holding, the hula hoop itself, is a guideline for what your hand is supposed to do. So, you know, when you spin it around, you can use the same theories in in poi, like the the anti-spins and the whatever else. Um you just have to know that there's no string, it's just a hoop that I'm holding. Um I guess you kind of have to you have to visualize the pattern and what it's supposed to look like. That's where the mirror comes in, is you have to like kind of get it get into the watching yourself do it.

Tom

Yeah, I feel like the mirror is more important for the hoops because they have to really get it down or it can look a little funny, but like poi is gonna look pretty cool no matter what you're doing. You're just spinning it around. But like the certain patterns, if you get them really down with the hoop, then then you start they start to form like very crystal clear, you know, instead of being like wop a little bit wobbly, you know, just because it's a a sturdier thing they're dealing with. Where yeah, and LED hoops are are great. Oh yeah, yeah. Dude, oh those are sick. But yeah, I mean the so the hoops have the similar, right? You can spin it around your hand or spin your hand around it in a way, and you can do the the the pedals, the exact same pedal combination. You can even do the the hands can can roll over each other, the weaves, yeah. But they also have the ability to like grab it and like total like I feel like we always have to kind of f like slowly move into a direction, but they oh I guess we could we actually did a lot of like switching directions. I don't know. So but but but you have the ability to kind of like grab onto it and like do I don't know quicker things with Yeah, so so yeah, that's the difference between hoop is a static prop, right?

Brennan

So it doesn't have any string or anything like that, it's not dynamic, it doesn't move on its own. If you hold it out in a direction, it's gonna stay there. Um so when they do things like isolation is kind of what you're talking about, where they can move their hand around the circle without the circle moving anywhere. Um and then they can do what's called linear isolation where they're basically moving it from side to side without having to um change the shape because it's it's it's a circle. Um it's almost like sliding of a of a door, you know, a sliding door moving back and forth. Um with poi, you have to almost force it to do that shape. Um it it's you're working against gravity, but when you're holding a hoop, you can just move it sideways and it does the same same shape.

Tom

Yeah, man. And then what about the glove? I feel like do the gloves count as like in the same category or is gloving like a different thing, in your opinion?

Brennan

Um Yeah, it's the same thing. Same it's it's I think it's a flow art. Uh I I don't think that it I mean it doesn't really have the same um I wouldn't be able to do like a point move with with uh gloving, but the concept of like you've seen people do like tutting and stuff like that, or or even some sort of like hip-hop, you know, making shapes with their body, I think that those concepts can almost be um translated to poi and and hoops and all that kind of stuff, where um you know your body can only move in a certain way. Um so the the square they call it nine square theory in poi. I'm not sure if they have a name for it in in tutting and gloving, but uh basically there are nine squares, three up near your head, three near your your torso, and three near your waist. And um you can move your arms in a way that follow the edges of the square. Um yeah, so I think I think there are similarities there.

Tom

Like a Rubik's Cube, right?

Brennan

Exactly.

Tom

Like a three by three Rubik's cube. Whoa. It's tripping me out, man. I can like see the geometric shapes. I I love all the geometry involved in Poi. Like I swear there's some I haven't looked into it. I actually bought a book called Sacred Geometry with a bunch of shapes, and I never read it, but like so I don't I don't know why I don't ever spend the time to look into it, but I feel like there's something there, like some hidden key to the universe is locked within certain geometrical shapes, and there's some I I've looked at this before, like 64 or certain like I don't know, there's some certain mathematical shapes or stuff that appear in the universe, like like the galaxies and the atoms and all these different sizes of life will have the same types of swirling types of things. I don't know, it means something, I don't know, and I feel like poi is an exploration of like any like all the geometric shapes that the human body can.

Brennan

The way that I think about it is that the sacred geometrical shapes are a mathematical representation of the physics of our world, right? So, you know, just as the magnetic field around the earth has a certain shape and you know, different molecules have a certain shape, the connection between all of these different things in our world uh is the same as the space that I can move around myself. So it like the flower of life, for example, would be like a representation of I can make circles in reality in all of these different ways. And um it's just uh I think the poi and all of these different props are like a study of using that math, the geometry in the physical air, the space around the human body. So it's you know, it's very interesting. And like you said, it's an infinite amount of of things that you can learn.

Tom

Yeah, man. I don't know. People say like, uh, why do we learn geometry in high school and stuff? And and people like to say, we never use that stuff anyways, but for some reason, and I don't know the reason, I feel like it was deeply important to learn geometry and like algebra, but I'd never used it ever again, really, you know. But I get what people are saying, but I don't uh for reasons like this, I'm like, I don't know, dude. Something gets unlocked in your brain once you understand shapes and and like I don't know, it's it just it adds so much more mystery to the universe. Like the more you know, the more you know you don't know, or something where you're just like whoa, why why do all these things have similar shapes and energy levels and I don't know, and then being a a part of that like unlocks some sort of energy in yourself, and you you kind of have like a deeper understanding, but it's like non-verbal, you know? I don't know, it's really biz bizarre.

Brennan

It's like the the Fibonacci sequence um is seen in you know, in the leaves of trees, in the the cells of or the neurons in the human brain, in the stars in the galaxy. All of these things have the same basic mathematical representation. Um so it's very interesting.

Tom

Dude, that's what I've been trying to think of, the Fibonacci sequence, dude. Good for you for knowing that, dude. I was been I'm like the past three minutes, I've been talking about this kind of shit, and I've been that's the one I've been thinking of. What what is the Fibonacci sequence? Like, what is that?

Brennan

Um It's for anyone who doesn't know, I don't know what they would describe it mathematically as, but um it's basically an exponentially increasing spiral, um represented most mostly like a like a snail shell um coming in from the center and slowly spiraling outwards, like even uh like what people would consider like a black hole, a spinning black hole, or or something like that. But all all things in in life um follow that same exponential expansion. Um yeah.

Tom

Yeah, man. It's in shells, like you're saying, it's in like atoms and stuff like that, it's in like galaxies. Yeah. And then is it I guess it's in poi as well, too? Of course. Of course. Yeah, there's some there's some move where you're like spinning them like up and down in vertical. It kind of makes like this vortex kind of a lot of.

Brennan

You can also do uh the there's there's that, and there's also like um, you remember the there's a um the hand wrap where it comes where you're spinning it and it you put your hands together and it it wraps around your hands and it slowly goes to the center and then it goes out. That's oh that's probably the best representation.

Tom

Dude, funny story about this, and I've actually I just talked to Blake recently, but I didn't talk to him about this. But Blake, my friend, I don't know if you ever you definitely hung out with him once in college, but I was putting in a bunch of work on Poi learning all these different moves, and he bought a pair and he just put in a bunch of work on one move, and it was the one where it wraps around your hands, and he he looked like a freaking baller every time, and I couldn't even do that move very well. But I could I could do a lot of moves though, so I could flow, I I could have more fun like dancing than him. And he just he just nailed this one move though. And so whenever people were like, Oh, you two can ploy, he would just like yeah, let me show you. And he just he just nailed this that one hand wrap move, and then I'd be like, Oh, well, cool. That's yeah, that's that's hey, if you can master, if you can master one thing, that's that's the best thing ever. Yeah, no, like a uh it like a party trick. He you know, he used to be a magician magician, I don't even know how to say that, but he he he likes to have the a good party trick, which is I don't know if anyone is looking for that, I mean you can find some cool shit to do with Poi pretty quickly. You know, like we're talking a lot about putting in thousands of hours and unlocking like you know, basically dancing abilities, but I mean you can pick this stuff up and find a couple cool tricks in in like a week or so and and just have a lot of fun, I feel like meditating on a very simple level, you know.

Brennan

Or and one of the one of the things that I've been getting into recently actually is uh my my buddy Noelle is really into um nowadays the the smaller, more niche things like kendama or yo-yo or uh a butterfly knife and or like pen, pen spinning, that type of thing. So there are a lot of like really small uh niche things that um I'm starting to really enjoy getting into because it's it's the same type of concentration, takes the same type of learning and dedication, but it's it doesn't take a lot of space, you know. I think that's nowadays a lot of people have not enough space in there where they're living, at least for me.

Tom

Yeah, yeah, man. Do you remember tie-dye Dan? He was into the Kedama. Oh yeah, and oh 100%, I remember. I I I spent a lot of time with Dan through like the some entrepreneur program we did right after school, and uh yeah, he made Kedama part of his like tie-dye shirt brand and he would sell them and stuff, and he would he was really into that stuff, which is for anyone that doesn't know, it's like uh the ball on a string, and then you can catch it in a cup or two different cups, and then you can also catch it on a stick, you know, and there's a lot of different combinations on the spike, yeah.

Brennan

Yeah, I think um uh I forgot what it's um yeah, so ken is the Japanese word for handle. Uh sorado is pair of cups, and Tama is ball. So it's a Japanese art basically where they described you know what it a lot of the things in in Japan is like, let's make a word that describes what it is, so that's that's kind of how they how they categorize that thing. But it it's it's really interesting, it's it's really hard too. Um getting the and the ball itself has a hole on the bottom of it, so when you try and put it on the spike, you have to kinda get it up in in the hole.

Tom

Yeah, I'm not good at that. It's difficult for me just to hit it on there. Yeah, meaning. I feel like the craziest one, not even crazy, but one of the wild ones I saw like kind of near the end of college was the tentacles. I saw someone at a at a rave with just like big electrical tentacles. And have you seen these? Oh they don't even take much skill.

Brennan

They just look really basically they're like um what are they? Called it's almost like a whip type of thing. A whip. But it Yeah. Yeah, I forgot.

Tom

Oh it's like a whip that kind of splits off though into like twelve whips, you know, and it's it's like a weird, like like insect. It's like a very like insect-looking thing.

Brennan

Um something fly. I forget what it's called. There's a there's a word for what it is, but um yeah, it's it's basically it's basically a it's basically a it has a handle and it has uh fiber optic uh cable coming out of it and then it splits off all the way down. Um so it almost looks like if you've ever seen the original uh Avatar, the CGI movie, it almost looks like some of those um uh tentacle effects from the tree where the tree branch comes down and it has all the like look fiber optic looking offsprings like that.

Tom

Yeah, the Sahelus, the little the little ponytails. That's how exactly. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. It's just like those, yeah. Yo, you know they're they're actually making a sequel to that. It's coming out soon. I I saw like after like a decade later, dude.

Brennan

Well we'll see if it's good, if it holds up. A lot of people are saying that you know it's a little bit too late, took them, took them too long, and now the you know, the hype is gone because there's a lot a lot more CGI being used in movies nowadays. So we'll see. We'll see what happens.

Tom

I remember that being like the most mind-blowing thing of all time when it came out, but then it didn't age super well. Um people have pointed out to me like the plot is basically Pocahontas, so it's kind of like, oh well. So I was just calling it mesmerized by Americans. Yeah. So I was just memorized mesmerized by the CGI. I guess I wasn't paying attention to the plot too much, but they gotta they definitely can't just um put out a good movie based on CGI next time, so they gotta have a good storyline, hopefully. Um I'm getting kind of off topic, man. What else? Is there anything else to just say about poi or I know I know that you said you're in ISAT. Like, is there any more connections you've noticed between science and physics and and and flow sports?

Brennan

Um I'm sure there is. I think the the biggest thing is um there they're a whole different range of props, you know. A lot of the big thing nowadays is people are trying to figure out what the next big thing is, you know. So a couple props that I know. There's poi, it's a ball and a string. You can have just stabs, you can have double staffs, you can have what's called a contact staff. It's just one bigger staff that's weighted proportionally. Um you can have a dragon staff, which is a contact staff that has spokes on the end, almost looks like um a wheel, like an axle with wheels on it. Um there's fire fans that I explained earlier, a ring with spokes coming out. Um, they have uh Bugin, which are also called S stavs. So some people might have seen if they've ever seen on the internet there are people who do these weird-looking moves with stabs that are that look like S's basically. Um hoops, obviously.

Tom

Those are cool. Mm-hmm. The S staffs, when they they when they do like the windmills and stuff, they look crazy.

Brennan

Yeah, it looks very creature-like. Um, hula hoops, obviously, and then there's also um what else is there?

Tom

Yo, I just realized this probably was used in warfare a lot of times. Like they probably could hang like spike those spiky balls on these, and you know, I don't know. I'd yeah, so the I had a sword in my own. The way that I know.

Brennan

So flails. That's one thing. Okay. Yeah. Um, but also the Maori people themselves, the men would use weighted ploy to train arm strength. Um, and their weapon of choice for hunting was basically um um like a weighted like machete, like a mallet with a sharp edge on it. So they didn't necessarily swing anything around, but they definitely had used it to gain arm strength so that they could whack something, you know, if they needed to.

Tom

Yeah, I mean, I feel like you have a lot of reach. Like I would not if I had a sword, I would not want to fight someone with poi if they had like, you know, some metal or something on the end. I don't know that would be a good one.

Brennan

If I had if I had uh poi that were completely made out of chains, you could probably um wrap it around the sword and pull it out of their hand because the chain would catch. Yeah. Um that's like some of the applications, even with um if you've ever seen uh I don't know if it's Chinese, but the uh there's like a rope dart. You know what a rope dart is? No. So it's basically a long poi, really, really long poi. So long, so so long that you can actually wrap it around your whole body, but they would basically have instead of a ball at the end, they'll have a kunai or a or a dagger at the end. And so when they're fighting, they someone with a sword is not gonna be able to hit them because they're you know two arms or three arms length away from them, and so they can swing it around and whack them with it uh from long distance.

Tom

So that's that's rope dart. That would suck to fight, dude. Oh my gosh. You know that move when like you switch direct direction with the poi? I can imagine they're doing that kind of that kind of move. You stall it in their in their face or something? Yeah. This is so random, but I don't know if you ever watched Dragon Ball Z. It almost reminds me of like these Dragon Ball Z people, would they would have a tail that would come and like mess people up? It was it'd be scary. I don't know. Certain like TV shows and stuff have have tails that work like that. It's almost like a giant tail dude, like a s or like a scorpion's, you know, tail dagger. Scary, man. I would not want to fight that. Well, that's just random. Um, I don't know. Is it what about like this the the spirituality side? Usually at the end of the conversation I ask a question like, what do you think the meaning of life is? Um so I'll ask that one, but then also maybe speak to I don't know, like how Poi has brought you some sort of level of spirituality, you know?

Brennan

Um, sure. Um, I think that it wasn't just poi. I mean, I think Poi gave me an outlet to relieve stress and to learn about how I teach other people and get into flow state, and it really like the best way that I learned how to teach people was was to know how I learn myself. And it it helped me in school, um, it helped me with a whole bunch of different things. I think when it comes to spirituality, it's like just knowing that I can go and spin poi and be with myself and be in a place that I feel relaxed is the most important thing, I think. And it's it's definitely helped me grow as a person. It's helped me meet new people, it's helped me um in combination with psychedelic drugs, it's it's been a whole experience. Um, so that's that's one thing that I kind of have gotten out of it over the years. Do you was just learning how to be with myself and that's yeah.

Tom

Do you believe in like a god or something? And and do you believe you're in you connect some higher higher energy source when you're when you're doing something like poi or psychedelics or does that play a factor?

Brennan

I think in short, yes. Um I don't know what it is. Um you know, there's a whole bunch of different theories out there, religions, whatever it is. But I think that like sometimes when I s have spun poi in the past, it felt like I was taking inspiration from something that I hadn't seen before, you know? And the connection that I got with the people watching, it felt like they also saw that I was expressing something that was outside of myself. And so if that's what God is, then yeah.

Tom

Yeah, man. I I don't know what it is either, and I don't pretend to know, but I feel like it's definitely you're channeling some higher knowledge or power or something, dude, in those moments. Because we talked about all these moves, but like once you really start kind of flowing as it's called, you know, you these moments in between moves, like these these, like you're saying, patterns and just certain ways of expressing yourself, they it's greater than the sum of the parts. Like, you know, if each move was two points, if each move was two points and you did like five of them, it wouldn't be ten points, it'd be like twenty or fifteen. It just it creates something bigger than all these parts, and and we're talking about geometry and math and shit, like it just doesn't add up. There's some extra element there that I like I don't know what to what to call it either, but it is I don't know, it's it's a it's a greater energy than just what like I am as a person, you know. Crazy. Okay, meaning of life. What's the meaning of life? And then we'll call it a day. Oh god.

Brennan

The meaning of life? Uh yeah, I got it. We're here. So the meaning of life is um live your life to the fullest. Um do what you love. Don't worry about what people think about you. Um and if uh if you end your life at you know at the end of your life, if you feel fulfilled, then you did what you were supposed to do. And if you don't, then um you still did what you were supposed to do. So the meaning of life is to just be here and um I think uh there was a quote from I forget if it was Alan Watts or something like that, but it was a basically a quote that said, um You know, people thought this life was a journey and a pilgrimage with a purpose at the end. And when they finally got to the end, they didn't realize that the purpose was actually to sing and dance while the music was being played. Um so that's kind of how I think about the meaning of life. It's not so much about the ending or your goals or getting there, but to enjoy the journey.

Tom

And I guess express yourself along the way, too. Hell yeah, man. Well, that's a great place to end. Uh, thank you so much. I I learned so much from you over the years, and like we like I mentioned, I don't know if we've ever even talked this much um because there was a lot of just mentorship that happened non-verbally, but thank you so much for helping me and then for you know talking talking about this really, really cool subject. I out of everyone who was in that, and I love all those people, but out of everyone who was there, I I remember thinking, I w I hope that um Brennan can can do the interview and and you were you know you were down to do it. It was it's been awesome. I'm glad that you were the one to have to my podcast.

Brennan

Yeah, and if you ever want me back to talk about anything, feel free, or if you just want to hit me up. If you if you're around town, you know, Northern Virginia, hit me up, whatever. Yeah, I think you might even still have my phone number, to be honest.

Tom

Yeah, I've been hitting you up on Facebook, but I might have your your phone number. Either way, I'll get it after this. But yeah, dude, I'll um we should do one of these in in uh in person, and that way we can just talk about anything. You know, I was super I was super excited to get a poi episode, but next time we can just talk about, you know. I I forgot you were an ISAT too, so we can talk about a lot of stuff, you know.

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Tom Driver

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