His full name is Lars Matthew Rieck. Matthew was his fathers name. His father taught him a lot of things growing up. He taught him how to shovel snow, to shave, to drive (unsuccessfully), to use a chainsaw, and to crack a bullwhip all before Lars was 9 years old. He would take him to work with him on weekends. Lars would watch him climb up and cut down trees as a professional Arborist and manage a greenhouse for the state of Rhode Island as a Master Gardener. He made that his career and did that for over 30 years. Lars didn’t start his journey in flow arts until he was 15 years old, but even today he still carries with him everything I learned from him. He taught him to be self-reliant, to learn through experience, and most importantly to be great at what you do.
I started spinning in 2010 and I've picked up 5 different styles in that time.
My journey in flowarts has gone through several phases over the past 12 years, in 2010 I was introduced to glove lightshows where I discovered how to explore creativity through movement. Then 3 years later I learned about poi spinning, and I was determined to learn antispin flowers. After 4 years of spinning poi a friend introduced me to Buugeng manipulation, and I was amazed at the unique possibilities with this prop. I made it my mission to learn Buugeng and then in 2020 I learned about 8 Ring manipulation through a polish performer named Shao. I remember when I picked them up for the first time and realized that I could adapt what I understood from my past experience into 8 Rings. Today I travel all over the US performing and teaching workshops for 8 Rings and Buugeng.
To me 8 rings feels like a condensed form of Buugeng. With Buugeng you can isolate the curve of the S by tracing a large circle with your hand, but with 8 Rings that curve is smaller and a complete circle. They're perfectly balanced and make exploring tech grids and hybrid patterns easier to understand.
I love the challenge of learning something new. I learned everything I know about 8 rings by adapting what I already knew about Buugeng and Poi to them.
There's a feeling of freedom and control that comes over me when I am connected to my props movement. I think you could call that the Flow state.
I really love exploring Hybrid movements, I love connecting two different moves to see how their patterns interact with each other.
Inspired by the negative space between two parallel Eight rings, Double Star is just perfect to play both with the basic shape and ring visuals these two props create together. You can work with quarter, half, three-quarter or full ring shapes and create many unique visuals.
More than simply an eight ring, this innovative design builds upon that magical prop and allows you to create new, breathtaking optical illusions with traditional 8 ring manipulation. Discover a new dimension of eight rings, the number of possibilities are more than meets the Eye.
Handmade with ❤ in Czech Republic.
