FIRE EATING AT THE CRUCIABLE (a short rant)

[The Pretty Good]

just for the record. In that video what is happening is the fuel in his mouth is burning faster than he can get it out of his mouth. If you try to light lamp oil on fire it will not light. "Coleman" fuel will go up whenever it gets the chance. God forbid if you have a mouth full of fuel. But that would not be a good time to panic. If this does happen keep your friggin mouth shut. No one knows that you have a mouth full of a very flamable liquid. If you keep your mouth closed and calmly walk off stage, put out the fire with the wet rag you have brought with you. You will get away with only second degree burns. Also for those who care, the fuel will be absorbed through the soft tissue in your mouth.

[The Pretty Good]

and you will get the "fire eater madness".

[jester]

Pyro. You are so right.

Yes, a lot of accidents are down to us and most of them could have been prevented.

I think part of the problem with fire sports is that in some ways it seems too damned easy.

A young person sees a really spectacular effect, then discovers that it is actually far easier than they would imagine, well the temptaion to just go and do it is there. But if they are not a performer, then they will have to learn the hard way between doing stuff in rehearsal conditions, and doind it live, on adrenaline, in front of an excited audience. You can teach them the mechanics, you can't teach them the years of experience required to pull it off safely.

And that is where the danger lies. While some people have the discipline, the will power and the determination to perfect the art, other people just want to show off and look cool - straight away.

Pyromancer is obviously an artist. When I fell of my unicycle I was "showing off." The thing with unicycles is, people do have to work at them for quite a bit before they can start doing the more dangerous stuff.

That said, the danger is so obvious with fire, it does tend to command respect that there should be fewer accidents caused by laziness and routine.

Unfortunately, Stupidity has a life force of it's very own.

[firegirl]

Originally posted by The Pretty Good
and you will get the "fire eater madness".

interesting.
what, (and - i know i'm going to be sorry for asking,) is "fire eater madness?"

personally, i always keep several water drenched towels hidden about the stage when i'm doing fire stuff - for exactly that reason. and, it's true - though i've never experianced it - that one of the first things which you are supposed to do in a blowback situation is close your mouth. but, i think for most of us (were it to happen) it would be hard to maintain that sense of calm required to remember that - which is where many of the larger accidents occur. from the fuel which is still in your mouth.

yet another reason i don't do fireballs - EV-AH, PERIOD.

did them a couple of times - heard a bunch of horror stories & realized that there is quite enough weird stuff i can do (including slow dancing with a broom) that is funny, spectacular looking (from audiance perspective) and entertaining w/out putting my life that on the line.

a story of my own fire stupidity:
it was shortly after i'd learned how to do suspends (which is a gimmick which takes some practice...) up until then i'd just been doing tongue transfers and extinguishes in my show... well, i felt confident doing the suspend to add it into my ren faire show (we were performing in louisiana...) talked about it with my then partner - we worked out the timing & decided to add it into our three "pub shows" (which were on a covered stage - far less windy.)

what i didn't keep in mind was that i had three shows on an uncovered stage BEFORE that show. and, it was october in lousiana - hot, hot, hot. and, these shows took place at 10 am, 11:30 am and 12:30 pm... bad sun times.

and, i was bad about keeping myself hydrated.

by the time i finished our first three shows of the day i was "fuel drunk."

i had a short break in between the 12:30 show and our 2:00 pm "pub show"... i ate some lunch and HAD A BEER (which a patron bought for me & i was stupid enough to think i'd be rude to turn it down.)

go to the show - am not only fuel drunk - but, slightly tipsy from the beer mixing with coleman, no water and little food.

start the show.

things move swimmingly along for the first portion of the show... we get to the point where we've added in the suspend... i start the trick - have the torch in my mouth and all the sudden my (then partner) puts a rag over my face...

now - i was sensible enough to just CLOSE MY MOUTH around the torch... as that was pretty much our saftey protocol - that if someone puts something over you - you must be on fire - close your damn mouth.

what had happened was this: i had not shaken out the torch well enough before lighting it and i'd dribbled flaming fuel onto my face... which ignighted my face... which - because i'm a fire eater & am used to low burning flames touching various points of my body - i didn't feel immediately. but, heather saw it and put me out.

the audiance saw it, too...

apparently (i had close friends in the audiance that day) it was one of the coolest looking things ever seen... people actually thought that was the trick.

it was not.

i wasn't hurt (thank god...) i had some minor burns around my mouth (which made for a lengthy explination to the date i had later in the week... "no, baby... really, those are fire-eater burns..." but, haven't we all had to explain that at some point or another?) and, my eyelashes were burnt off (which pissed me off most of all - as i have very pretty eyelashes...) and, my eyebrows and little wispys of my hair were singed.

it could have been so much worse.

and, it leaves this lesson: don't EVER do fire eating when you're drunk on fuel or something else - you have to be dead fucking sober to do this stuff...

anyhow... that's my "i burst into flames and all i got was this crummy t-shirt" story.
peace out,
k

[The Pretty Good]

Well Its really more of a theory. Just having that fuel in your mouth sometimes for minutes at a time. If it was hard alcohol you would get drunk...mabee. So its entirely kinda possible if you are in a show where you do a blast several times a day for 10 years. I wouldnt be surprised if it had a long term effect.

[jester]

It's not hard to observe the effects of too much alcohol in your mouth over a prolonged period of time. And that is at least digestable.

I think putting any kind of fuel in your mouth is unwise and parrafin gives you yellow pooh.

I know. I was young once.

[firegirl]

Originally posted by The Pretty Good
I wouldnt be surprised if it had a long term effect.

oh... it does... it fucks up your immune system, kills your liver at 4X the rate that drinking does... give you the runs... eats the lining of your stomach... potentially can give you cancer... it's not a good "long term" career plan. most fire manipulators who do torch and blows stop in their mid- thirties...

hm... i'm 32... three years left... hm...

[jester]

I once met a fire blower who had a small metal "carberetta" that he placed in his mouth. This contained the parrafin and he blew through it.

He made it himself. I tried but could not get the thing to work and ended up with parafin in my mouth anyway.

Has anyone else seen one of these?

[firegirl]

nope, never seen one...

it sounds like one of those "i made it myself and i'm the only one who has one" thing-a-majiggys...

much like the thing you could hook to your thumb which would hold a wooden match & there was another thing which you could hook to your middle finger and when you snapped your thumb and middle finger together it lit the match... it was actually a pretty cool little thing which made for an interesting and dynamic way to light torches.

*snaps under torch, torch goes ablaze*

it just looked cool.

[Ivan Bellari]

just a theory

perhaps it's best to learn how to breathe fire properly instead of relying on gimmiks...gimmicks fail ... if you want to breathe fire , that is.

if yer gonna do it.. do it properly ...

but.

if you don't think it's safe enough for you.. don't do it.
if you are not willing to pay the price... don't do it.
if you are not willing to practice .. don't do it.
if you can't make it unique to you .. don't do it as a performance.


i was at a buskers fest.. the first time i saw leopard man he was trying to get a specific juggling trick down... now i know how to juggle .. so i was offering him tips, suggestions, and ideas ...

until now i didn't realise how much of an ass i was..

there's a message in there somewhere...



just an opinion ....

[The Pretty Good]

Ah the ol head on fire trick. Friggin awesome Ivan.

[Ivan Bellari]

any praise makes me blush

but thanks ...