Glowsticking
DDRKirby(ISQ) - 4-29-11 - Glowsticking - Kimball Midnight Breakfast
What is Glowsticking?
Most simply put, glowsticking is the art of dancing using glowsticks.
Sadly, it is an often misunderstood art form. If you show someone a glowstick, chances are their reaction will involve talk about "raving", or even the use of drugs. Although glowsticking emphasizes the ideals of the rave scene and the two are obviously closely intertwined, "glowsticking" refers to the art itself. Hence, I won't say I "rave" because I have never been to a rave. I'm more of a "backyard glowsticker", so to speak.
You can visit glowsticking.com to learn more about glowsticking.
The best way to see what it looks like is to look at some videos. So without further ado, here are some of my all-time favorites:
Freehand
Glowsticking.com Freehand: Jin & MadRaverRai @ Crobar
Stringing
Glowsticking_com_Glowstringing_Jstudd_1.27.06
Glowsticking.com Stringing: Wil 5.02.05
Meetups and Compilations
Glowsticking.com Meetups: Naperville, IL Winter Meetups 2006
There's many more that I'm sure I'm forgetting, but that should do it for a sampling.
My Videos
All of my glowsticking videos are available on YouTube as one organized playlist, ordered by date:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=7370F1FBDB60B9CD
Freehand vs. Stringing
There are two main forms of glowsticking--freehand and glowstringing.
Freehand is probably what most people imagine when they think of glowsticking. However, concepts such as tracing, threading, tosses, taps, and stalls make freehand into more than just repeated figure-8 motions (the single most overused freehand technique).
Glowstringing (or just "stringing"), on the other hand, involves tying strings to the ends of the glowsticks, thus enabling wraps, spirals, string manipulations, and generally all sorts of crazy things that look really, really cool. Glowstringing developed out of poi swinging, and shares many of the same moves and concepts, yet has taken on a life of its own and created many other unique concepts. Plus, it's a lot more flashy using bright glowing objects. =p
I used to practice both freehand and stringing, but I've since become a pure freehander (once in a while I'll do some stringing just for the heck of it, though). I've just progressed farther in freehand, and I like the style better. Plus, there's too many stringers nowadays anyways, and it's really difficult to distinguish yourself...
Glowsticking Philosophy
I used to care more about the different issues that would come up on glowsticking.com--battling, PLUR, spreading glowsticking in schools, etc. But now I'm largely indifferent. As I said, I'm sort of a "backyard glowsticker" and don't really make much of it, and don't frequent the gs.c forums anymore either. I still think PLUR is "neat", but don't really make -that- much out of it. I think you should just glowstick if you want, however you want, as long as you're not a butthead about it. So uh...don't be a butthead.