Starting on Nov. 21, TJ Poi Club alumni will be hosting a Poi workshop for beginners via Zoom from 1-3 PM every Saturday.

“Poi has had a pretty drastic impact on my life. When I came to TJ Poi was something you didn’t get anywhere else,” TJ Alumni Grace Weisman-Fleischer said. “It immediately formed a community for me and my friends who were learning to spin.”

By joining Poi, Weisman-Fleischer found a community at TJ. She hopes that the workshop will help other students overcome their doubts about the club and enjoy positive experiences with Poi.

“It’s kind of like one of those things, it’s a restricted club where people don’t really want to join it because they’re, you know, ‘that’s stuff too complicated for me, I’m gonna get injured I don’t like it.’ And I’m trying to break that concept,” Weisman-Fleischer said.

Grace acknowledges that the workshop will encounter difficulties due to having to teach such a physical activity like Poi through a digital screen.

“You’re gonna say ‘Hey, your right arm is a little bit too high’ and they might move their left arm because the screen might not be mirrored properly,” Weisman-Fleischer said. “We’re probably going to have to make adjustments after the first session based off of unforeseen things that come with going virtual.”

Despite the complications that come with having to teach Poi online, Grace and her fellow instructors are determined to successfully hold the workshop.

“We had one planned for May in the spring. Of course, COVID shut that down,” Weisman-Fleischer said. “But it’s something that I realized, especially because of the physical and mental wellness benefits, that the community could really use something like that.”

Should the workshop end up being a success, Weisman-Fleischer aims for the current Poi officers to continue holding workshops in the future.

“My hope is that the current Poi officers will be able to continue in-person ones. That’s the ultimate goal,” Weisman-Fleischer said.