- a San Francisco firedancing troupe -
You’ll see the word "poi" a lot on this site, and on many others devoted to fire dancing. "Poi" is a Maori word that essentially means "ball on the end of a string". When you see a firedancer using what looks like a couple of blobs of fire on the ends of a pair of chains, cables, or other flexible things, that person’s using flaming poi. (The word is both singular and plural, so if you pick up one poi in your left hand, and then another poi in your right hand, you’ve got a pair of poi on your hands.)
You may also have seen people at various events, such as raves, street fairs, picnics, festivals, and so on, spinning these things around that are like bean-bags on strings, usually with streamers trailing back from them. Those are also poi, though not the flaming kind. Possibly the most popular non-flaming, UV-active poi for rave use are a brand called Zuni, made by Infinity Toys. The moves are the same, except that with flaming poi, you want to keep them a little further away from your body. This makes Zuni an excellent way to practice if you want to learn to spin flaming poi. Since Zuni are nice, soft bean-bags, it doesn’t hurt (much) when you smack yourself with them in practice. (And you will smack yourself with them. It’s part of the learning process.)
Far more information about poi, including a brief article on the word’s origins, is available at the Home of Poi site.