Spinning and fire breathing

This thread :-

http://www.homeofpoi.com/ubbthreads/show...part=1&vc=1

covers the dangers of Fire Breathing very well, and has links to other useful stuff like Peles 'A season in Hell'

One of the latest replies details an incident where Fire Breathing was taught to complete beginners, some of whom where drunk.

I've also heard of this happening where I am, and I'm sure it will continue to increase.

There have now been many nasty accidents involving Fire Breathing, some causing death and some involving children.

Fortunately, the facts about the dangers have been well discussed here and we are now aware of the toxic properties of fuel, the fact that serious accidents happen even to the most experienced performers etc.

However, none of this is well known to the general public who are prone take the word of those who claim it's safe if done properly.

In this thread I'd like to focus on one simple and clearly put question: -

Should spinners, as a community, disassociate themselves from fire breathing, and, where possible, endeavour to spread awareness about its dangers and basically do their best to discourage it?

Practical examples could be-

when asked to spin at events ask the organisers if they're going to allow Fire Breathing and, if they are, refuse to spin, or at least inform them of the safety issues and point them to the above thread.

if organising a gathering make it known that Fire Breathing isn't welcome.

i.e. not just the kind of education that is already ongoing and spreading the word amongst experienced spinners, but informing those who are most at risk (the non fire community).

I'd be good if we don't get distracted by the side issues- 'it's down to individuals to choose...', or 'nothing in this world is 100% safe...' etc, if only because they've been well discussed in other threads.

thanks dom! youve said everything i was going to say, thus saving me having to type it up.

Sorry, I was a little unclear on the event organisers bit, I was talking about the kind of events that often ask for fire spinners to come along and spin for free at.

There's a lot of this happening in Sheffield at the moment and generally the organisers have got no idea of safety issues.

Most of what I said above was about the majority of Fire Breathers who are not professional performers, some of whom breathe whilst drunk etc.

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Anyway, my answer: No. For several reasons.
As fire spinners it would be somewhat hypocritical of us to pronounce other established performance acts as inherently unsafe. Refusing to perform if another performer is Fire Breathing is disrespectful of their own, hopefully educated, choice of performance.

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Breathing is a lot more dangerous than spinning- far more people have died doing it.

Refusing to perform is not, in my opinion disrespectful. Each of us has the right to decide whether to perform or not, and the right to disassociate ourselves from fire practices that we consider too unsafe.

How do we "dissociate" ourselves from Fire Breathers?

Do we make a group statement that covers every fire spinner in the world? Do we pass an international law? A treaty? Do we thumb our noses and sing "neener neener neener!" at Fire Breathers?

I make a big deal about the fact that I don't breathe fire and I make sure people know why not. But as long as people are educated on the risk and of legal age to be making major decisions like that, I'm not going to stop them.

Firstly, i love seeing breathing. But if i saw it performed with fire only once a year, it would be too often. The long term risks always make me shudder, never mind the immediate threat. For huge fire shows, where there is a real need for it then i mabye could be convinced, although usually dancing is much more beautiful. For me, twirling is awesome, however, drunken breathing (or children! ) is terrifying.
I think if respected fire spinners make it clear that they are 'against' Fire Breathing then it will become much less of a problem. I agree that it is much more dangerous and i have also seen many people (who have never even spun fire) get drunk and breath fire. But they did get there kero from the people who were twirling.
I was twirling at a party two days ago and someone asked if the kero that i was using was what the used to fire breath. I said "no, and thats f'in stupid mate." Good aussie answer i thought. Didn't make friends, but also stopped a few of them asking to use my stuff etc.
So my point is if respected, skillful spinners (and begginers!) frown on breathing then it will lose some of its 'party appeal'. Our opinion at a party does have a huge impact, and i have never seen someone breath fire at a party where there wasn't already fire.

I find myself agreeing strongly with what Dom said.

Personally I am all for the spread of information about the dangers involved with Fire Breathing, but I in no way shape or form think we should be actively trying to put a stop to the practice.

Perhaps the best thing to do is to develope a pamphelet sized PDF file that we can download from HoP or somewhere else that describes the dangers of Fire Breathing in an objective way so that we can print some up and keep them with our fire gear and when we see people who are clearly not mindful of the dangers, we can just hand them a copy and not make an issue of it.

The main problem here is ignorance. Fire Breathing isn't against the law, and I don't think we should be taking it on ourselves to get all high and mighty about it and start policing the practice of it. If you want to do something about the issue, then address the ignorance, but don't infringe on people's freedom. People should be able to fire breath at appropriate times in appropriate places if they want to. But they should also be making an informed decision about it.

Concerning education and informed decision, one of the points I'm making is that the general public are not getting the benefits of it, and won't do so until we start to actively target them, rather than just posting info on HOP.

It'd be interesting if those of you who always post the 'all we can do is educate...' type replies would address this issue, because to me it's starting to sound like a way of avoiding it.

To clarify, articles on HOP/internet of Fire Breathing dangers are great, but have two limitations: -

1. Kids seeing fire arts for the first time and being exposed to breathing by irresponsible people at parties are not going to benefit from them

2. Organisers of the community type festivals prevalent in Sheffield don't have access to these articles

In these situations the main possible source of info is from the fire spinners they are exposed to.

Lastly, there's the obvious fact that, despite the existence of these articles we're still getting drunk breathers turning up at meets, young people being taught to fire breathe at parties etc.

In fact, despite years of 'education' safety considerations at fire meets in my area are as non existent as ever, with NO safety equipment, no plan of action to deal with people who turn up drunk wanting to fire breathe, and, more recently a new fashion in loading up cages with Wire wool and spraying globules of molton metal around with no consideration to the proximity of other spinners.

Wilst I agree that Fire Breathing could damage the name & reputation of other fire performers (eg poi, jugglers) and see nothing wrong with refusing to perform in the presence of Fire Breathers you have to look after yourselfs and why associate yourself with people you dissaprove of? I don't think were quite in a position to lay down the law and claim riteousness.
Many fire poi performers are lacking in the safety department - hopefully you all do this but simply keeping a bucket of water and and old blanket/fire blanket handy to put out any fires and regularly checking your poi for ware & tear could avert a seriouse injury - a flaming poi head coming lose could cause nasty injuries! On top of this I fear many poi users are using poi never built to a high enough standard, before I made my poi I calculated the potential max force generated by the centrepetal acceleration acting on the poi head taking into acout the full weight of a fueled up head and bought swivels and chain of appropriate strength (I used 200lb swivels to be safe) but I often see others with much 'lighter' built equipment and wonder in the back of my mind I f their heading for dissaster - I hope not!!

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So my point is if respected, skillful spinners (and begginers!) frown on breathing then it will lose some of its 'party appeal'. Our opinion at a party does have a huge impact, and i have never seen someone breath fire at a party where there wasn't already fire

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for me it has been the reverse...... unless its me performing, i rarely see firespinners at parties. ive seen way more drunken firebreathers randomly performing with dodgy homemade towel wicks and household kerosene - with no actual knowledge of what they are doing. usually there are no actual firespinners around.

this is probably cos in Oz spinners are a bit more spread out than in uk.

I guess it's different in different areas; my experience has been more like Loopers i.e. I've never seen Fire Breathers in isolation, but they tend to be drawn towards gatherings of spinners.

I'd like to make clear that I do distinguish between different types of Fire Breathers i.e. those who are responsible and put in the time to learn it properly, contrasted with the cliched bearded drunks, and the trash who think it's clever to impress young girls by teaching them to fire breathe at parties.

Sadly, the latter seem to be getting far more common than the former. This, combined with the fact that people often show up when it's pitch black at night, makes it almost impossible to distinguish them in any useful way, until it's too late.

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To those who have mentioned 'stopping' Fire Breathers and righteousness; I wish you wouldn't, I'm blatently not saying we should stop people Fire Breathing, even if we wanted to we couldn't.

I'm just a spinner who's seen way too much stupidity and, due to the recent incidents of Fire Breathing being taught to drunken, and sometimes underage people, think it's about time that some of us start to decide where we stand.

I know I'm not the only person to feel this way and I'm bringing this up for discussion, not only on HOP but amongst spinners I know in real life as well.

The aim is that spinners who do feel this way can get coherent and say that 'if people want to fire breathe, then that's their choice; but we're going to exercise our right to say they're not welcome at our meets, and we're going to extend the current 'education' philosophy to those who really need it- the general public and organisers of events in the areas we live in'.

What's been done up to now is great- useful articles, information about dangers and a general raising of awareness. However, it's blatently not reached all the right people, otherwise I wouldn't have, over the past couple of years, seen 12 year olds Fire Breathing, a drunk with his beard on fire, a friend almost dying from a breathe gone wrong etc etc.

The public are currently totally ignorant about breathing, they literally cannot distinguish between a fire juggler and a fire breather . We've got adverts on British TV featuring Fire Breathing to sell indigestion tablets.

In addition, when the clampdown comes, and it will when more underage people die Fire Breathing, it's likely that the authorities will not distingusih between spinners and Fire Breathers.

But, to me, that's not the main issue- if fire meets are banned in this country I can live with it, I'm so sickened with the slackness I've seen that I barely do fire any more.

The main thing is that people, some very young, are going to die, and I think there's something we can do to prevent it.

I agree with onewheeldave. I don't think it's an issue of righteosnous or being judgemental, I just wouldn't want to have people burning their faces off and filling their lungs with kero at any gathering. Really, I couldn't enjoy myself knowing amateur Fire Breathers are Fire Breathing while I spin. I would agree to turn away Fire Breathers just out of purely selfish reasons.

I fire breath, and the scene here is neglible so anything onewheeldave is suggesting is irrlevent to me. But I would certainly not mind loseing the privledge of Fire Breathing if it meant being sure some drunk wont be Fire Breathing beside of me or people I care about endangering their lives.

For one moment concider that the fire community is *really* small in the performance art world, and only a fraction of them are Fire Breathers. So, who is going to speak with the Magicians? The Buskers? The Rock Stars? The Sideshow Acts? The Circus Performers? The Clowns and Physical Comedians?

In many areas Fire Breathing is illegal without a proper permit. If you truly feel the need to find a way to regulate it, you can always take a writing of concerns and an information packet to your local fire marshal and have him/her ban it from there.

Unfortunately, Fire Breathing is easy, too easy. And people like to see it...too much. And event promoters will pay for even the crappiest fire breather because general spectators don't know the difference, and in truth most audiences *want* to see someone get hurt (not killed, just singed) because it makes for greater suspense in a show. It is sad fact, and is why so many stunt performers are in demand in circuses and such now.

And it is old, thousands of years old.
It is around to stay.
People who want to know the dangers will seek out answers and do it as safely as possible.
Most kids and drunks wouldn't listen to what we have to say anyway, because all they care about is "being cool", it's part of what makes them kids and drunks sadly.

I just try to educate those who want to hear about it, and harbour alot of hope that the others will eventually realize they are being really stupid and dangerous. *shrug* It's all I feel I can do.

Kindest Regards,
Pele

ok, onewheeldave's last post makes good sense to me. If Fire Breathing has developed into a problem in your area, then I don't see anything againt you all taking sort of a guild attitude towards it. Fire performers in Austin and Houston have done similar things (regarding unsafe fire performers) and had some success. If you can get others to go along with you on the issue, it may work to a degree. I wouldn't go around actualy booing them though - that's just asking for trouble. A cold reception may help though.

An I think the health education bit should be brought up with Fire Breathers we see, which is why I suggested maybe we make a pamphlet sized PDF file covering the basic facts about ARDS that we can print up and have with us at events to distribute, making things a little more painless. Even though I have no intention myself of stoppping someone from Fire Breathing, I do think that from now on when I do meet Fire Breathers, I will be having a casual health discussion with them. If even Pele didn't really know the full risks, then I doubt many out there do.

But again I reiterate that if someone is taking a professional attitude about Fire Breathing, I am never going to be one to tell them to stop.

Yeah lets boo them, lets walk over and tell them they're not welcome in this public place with back-up behind us incase there's a tumble. But we don't want to stop them from doing it

The way I see it is that if someone wants to breathe fire, turns up to public meets and breathe, and not cause harm to others then what right have we to stop them in a public place? (permit permitting of course if applicable) I don't agree with letting drunkard untrained/unpracticed folk do it, I don't think it should be pushed onto others, I don't think the tools should be given to newbies, but what somebody wants to do with their own body is ultimately their choice not ours. We can advise, make them aware of the dangers but bascially if your pushing your views onto other and trying to force them to stop because you don't like it them that's on par with minor-facism in my book.

"Hey you fire breather, we don't want you here, please stop while we spin balls of fire around our heads"

Safety first and all that agreed, and you make some very good and valid points Dave, but I think you're taking it a little to far and trying to push your personal views on other members of our free society. Some regulation could work, maybe, but banning or booing or any other negative activity against singluar members by larger groups will only exasperate a situation and push it further into unsafe territory.

On a slightly different note, I've seen it performed and was very impressed, I read about the subject (mostly here) and would never try it. Education is the key, not banning or outlawing. No problem was ever solved by banning, it just makes the rebels rebel even more. You've obviously identified a problem needs to be treated, but treating the sypmtoms won't cure anything.

I don't like the vibe that yelling "BOO" creates. I don't think it's right to make someone feel badly, especially if they weren't aware that Fire Breathing was not welcome.

My view is put up signs up all over saying "PLEASE: NO Fire Breathing. (Eating and tracing OK)"

That way, nobody gets put off. I'd HATE to get booed at when I didn't realize I was doing anything wrong.