Fire Twirling (beware! large pics)

[Raiyuu]

[color=DarkGreen][font=Trebuchet MS]I've been wondering if anyone else has experience of this slightly unusual hobby. I personally twirl a [b]firestaff; [/b]five feet long, red galvanised-aluminium, rubber grip, breaks down easily into three pieces. Each end has a [b]wick [/b]- basically a fat wad of Kevlar wound round and screwed into place. You douse the wicks in paraffin and set them alight, then twirl the staff.

No, I am [b]not [/b]a wannabe majorette, before you ask. It's on fire, therefore inherently manly :animeswea

I also have friends who spin [b]poi; [/b]similar Kevlar wicks, only mounted on the ends of cords and swung around the body. They hurt less than a staff if you whack yourself in the head, but it is possible to get tangled up in them, which can lead to hairy moments when they're alight.

I think these arts - poi in particular - have a fairly popular following in New Zealand. Poi orginate from Maori courtship rituals. I know I had to order my firestaff from New Zealand, as I wanted a collapsible one.

Here are some examples of what can be achieved with a firestaff, a Summer evening, a big field and a camera with a long-exposure function:

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If you go [url="http://photobucket.com/albums/a374/firecrew/"]here[/url] you can see more photos taken by myself and my friends, and if you go [url="http://www.homeofpoi.com"]here[/url] you can find lots more taken by actual professionals.

So: does anyone else do anything like this?
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[Sapphire Flare]

No, but that looks pretty awsome. Not to mention it would make a very useful tool if someone got in your way... :animeswea

Not that I would do it of course. ;)

But anyways nice pics I'll check it out.

P.S. How do you spin it without burning yourself or it going out of control?

[Baron Samedi]

[size=1]That's pretty cool. Nice gallery you have there. I don't do anything like that [in regards to fire-twirling or juggling or anything] but I always have a degree of envy for people who can. How long have you been practicing for?[/size]

[Roxie Faye]

[color=#9933ff]Wow. That looks really cool actually. I'm curious to know how long the exposure was - 30 seconds, a couple minutes? The pictures came out great. It makes me want to try even more. Eheh. ^^;;;;;

Is it easy or difficult to twirl? I'm also guessing there are a LOT of safety procedures involved, so erm... no one gets burned. ¬_¬[/color]

[Goodbye, Face]

I've played around with that stuff before, my neighbor's a big pyro so we just go out somewhere at night and mess with fire. We were skateboarding once and we set up two mini-ramps and a box of flaming material between them and I ended up falling in the box. I have a picture of myself almost completely on fire... I had it on a website but it got taken down after about a year of not being touched. The picture (yes, an actual photograph) is hanging on my neighbor's wall. I'll have to get it.

[elfpirate]

[font=Comic Sans MS][b]I've never tried that with anything but real sticks/torches... it's probably really similar, though.

I've been fascinated by it since I was little--like 7 or 8 years old--when I first saw someone doing fire-dancing in Hawai'i.

I've thought a couple times of turning one of my sets of nunchucks into torches that I could light and spin, but haven't yet.

I'm sure I have enough control with those to not set myself ablaze-- and if not--it'll be my own stupid fault if I get burned-lol.

It's a fun hobby you've got there, to be sure. How much does a firestaff cost, anyhow?
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[Goodbye, Face]

[quote name='elfpirate][font=Comic Sans MS][b] I'm sure I have enough control with those to not set myself ablaze-- and if not--it'll be my own stupid fault if I get burned-lol. [/b'][/font][/quote]

That's why you bring friends with lots of thick blankets to smother the flame immediately. As for using sticks and torches, that's all I've used, but the guy I was talking about has two staffs, he told me how much they cost before but I forgot.

[Raiyuu]

[quote name='Sapphire Flare']How do you spin it without burning yourself or it going out of control?[/quote] [color=DarkGreen][font=Trebuchet MS]You practise a lot without fire first, lol. And it still sometimes goes out of control, especially if you're throwing and catching - the eye is naturally drawn to the bit of the staff you can see, i.e. the bit that's ablaze, and you have to concentrate to make yourself grab [b]between [/b]the two flaming fireballs. Sometimes you don't concentrate hard enough and then you drop it.[/font][/color]

[quote name='Baron Samedi][size=1']How long have you been practicing for?[/quote] [color=DarkGreen][size=2][font=Trebuchet MS]I got the staff around April 2004, lit it for the first time last Summer. I haven't practised a lot since then, but I had a couple of School Fayre-type events where I just practised for two hours straight, which brought it all back. It's like riding a bike :animesmil[/font][/size][/color]

[quote name='Mistress Roxie][/size][color=#9933ff']I'm curious to know how long the exposure was - 30 seconds, a couple minutes?[/quote] [color=DarkGreen][font=Trebuchet MS]I think for most of the photos the exposure was about ten seconds. Some of them were shorter, like Adam's burnoff, and others were longer, like my pinwheel (the top picture in my first post).[/font][/color]

[quote name='Mistress Roxie][/color][color=#9933ff'] Is it easy or difficult to twirl? I'm also guessing there are a LOT of safety procedures involved, so erm... no one gets burned. ¬_¬[/quote] [color=DarkGreen][font=Trebuchet MS]The basic moves are pretty easy - what's difficult is stringing them together with good flow. You have to be constantly thinking about what trick you'll do next, otherwise you'll stall (i.e. the staff'll stop moving) and you'll lose rhythm and flow, and it won't look any good. Also, contact moves - rolling it around wrists/shoulder/legs/neck - are hard.

There are lots of safety procedures; it's recommended you keep a bucket of water and some fire blankets on standby. In practice we tend to cut it down to a) wearing tight clothing so the firey wicks don't get snagged when they're spinning around you at high speed b) tying back long hair and c) dousing your hair in water [b]before[/b] starting. Hair is the most likely thing to catch fire, but to be honest, paraffin doesn't burn with a particularly hot flame. Getting a poi-string wrapped around your leg and the burning wick being held against your trousers would be a hazard, but if it just bounces off you, you'll get away with a sooty mark.
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[quote name='elfpirate][/color][font=Comic Sans MS][b']How much does a firestaff cost, anyhow?[/quote] [/b][color=DarkGreen][font=Trebuchet MS]I think mine was about £60, but you can get them cheaper. Mine's really [b]nice, [/b]so I paid more for it, but you can get rigid wooden one-piece ones for less. [url="http://www.homeofpoi.com"]Home of Poi[/url] is the best place to look, although you get a significantly nicer selection if you live in New Zealand.[/font][/color]
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[Pumpkin]

[SIZE=1][COLOR="#CC3366"][b]I thought I've seen these tricks somewhere..and then I realized it was in a music video I was watching last night. Don't know what the band was called, but they go out in their car at night and go in a field to play with the fire. I always thought that looked cool. Wish I had the patience to actually do that, for sure I'd get burned.

I'm not sure if these questions have been asked before, but who introduced you into this sport? Or how did you learn about it? Who was the first one who taught you? Or were you just self-taught? This is quite interesting. Especially because I know no one that has done anything like this.
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[Raiyuu]

[center][color=DarkGreen][font=Trebuchet MS][img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v629/SheriffMatt/crew3.jpg[/img]

[/font][/color] [left][color=DarkGreen][font=Trebuchet MS]Adam, the guy on the left, got into fire-poi first, goodness knows where he got the idea. He got Mike - second from left - into it too, and he got me into it. I didn't want to just jump on the poi bandwagon so I started doing staff, and Adam took that up too, some time later.

I'm pretty much self-taught. I started off with the online tutorials on Home of Poi but once you have the basics down, it's best to just run with it and make stuff up; that way you develop an individual style and some signature moves that no one else does.
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[Samsquamch]

[COLOR=DarkRed]Well, I've never done anything like that but it looks pretty cool. I had a friend who could do it though, but not quite the same. He had two chains with a small flame-resistant ball that he would dip in a flamable liquid and then light, he would use them like nun-chucks and it looks AWESOME. One of the funniest tihngs I've ever seen came out of it. (Keep in mind, my freind is the accident prone person on earth)

We were up in BC at a sky resort and a local strip bar was holding a cometition for Male strippers to come on a ladies night, so he wen't (I watched because it was so incredibley funny) As he was dipping the ends in the oil, he was about five minuits late, so he rushed on stage before letting it drip dry and about half of it wound up on his chest. Now, when he lit them up, he spun them around for about 5 minuits, when finally the ball went to close to his chest and he... Wen't up in flames. I would have helped put it out but I was laughing so hard. I got the whole thing on video. (He recovered with minor burns, but he was rolling around completely on fire for about 10 min)[/COLOR]

[Zhara]

[COLOR=Gray][FONT=Garamond]Wow, that sounds really neat! I used to do flag-twirling, and I loved it. But then I quit the organization I was in, and my school doesn't do flag twirling. So it's been a while since I've practiced. But twirling a flaming stick...I think my parents might just kill me.[/FONT][/COLOR]