Forums > Social Chat > Kato's unofficial confession box.

Posted: 11th Jan 2002
Like i told you last night mate, Hitting myself in the chin and nearly setting my beard alight! ouch

Posted: 11th Jan 2002
i spent many hours lying on the floor in a foetal position clutching my groin, repeating like a mantra, "i'm so sorry boys. im so sorry boys. im so sorry boys"and, i bashed myself in the leg with my beaming poi. there was a dent in my shin bone. there was a red cross first aider guy att he party, and he wanted to send me to hospital, but i kept spinning (after an interval filled with pain and agony)there is no dignity or self respect int he world of the aprentice spinner. or at least there wasnt in mine.------------------Flame on!

May your staff spin fast and your poi always miss your balls.

Posted: 11th Jan 2002
oh yeah, and i singed my lovely lovely beard a couple of times.

May your staff spin fast and your poi always miss your balls.

Posted: 11th Jan 2002
This is a while back now (17th June actually), but it was amazingly stupid...I was wearing a fleece top with a hood and a big front pocket...the kind that you can put both your hands in.Anyway, spinning away when I did something wrong and one of the wicks went straight into the pocket and started to melt the fleece from the inside...OMG! The boyfriend ran to my aid and patted me out in time...but God knows what could have happened...My advice to you, definitely don't wear garments with hoods or big pockets...Yeah, I know, DAH!

Posted: 11th Jan 2002
Ooooh dear.. owwcchhh man... beaming poi's should have some sort of health warning on them..!! Fire in pocket no good neither..Why is it that, despite the miraculous physiological and psycological learning process side of this art; the millions of little connections that are being formed in your brain when you learn a new move, do you have a habit of forgetting how much pain and suffering you go through doing particular tricks...???I can remember one weekend when I made EXACTLY the same mistake three times in a row.. each time smacking myself in the iccletests!! WHY !!, I kept saying to myself. Trained brain type people must have an explanation for this..??------------------Kato[This message has been edited by Mushinkato (edited 12 January 2002).]

Kato

Posted: 11th Jan 2002
uuuummm....under several influences at a party and getting on the roof to spin. It seemed like a good idea at the time, Till i had a moment of clarity and i realized where i was at. I sat down, and slowly slid out to the edge of the roof where serval of my friends coaxed me to just drop to the yard and bust my ass bone. The entire time i had glowsticks wrapped around my hands. Everyone has hit themselves in the face.Super'

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear--not absence of fear.


- Mark Twain

Posted: 11th Jan 2002
Carrey (and anyone else out there who wants to read my ramblings), Not just baggy stuff but don't wear fleece to spin. It's warm but goes up quicker than parrafin/kero! Remember shell suits?In terms of fire safetyMan-made fibres (eg. nylon, teflon, polyester) = badCotton or wool = goodI confess I have spun in stupid clothes before too but we all learn our lessons. ps. we must meet up soon for a spin - you still free this weekend?------------------Life in the circus ain't easy but the folks on the outside don't know yeah well the tent goes up and the tent goes down and all that they see is the show and the ladies on the horses look so pretty and the lions are looking real mad and some of the clowns are happy and some of the clowns are sad. Welcome to the freakshow.. here we go (Freakshow by Ani di Franco)

"I don't take drugs. I am drugs" - Salvador Dali

Posted: 11th Jan 2002
confession time huh:bruised legs from learning those btb moves..ring any bells to ya'll? busted nose from spinning beaming poi.set my trousers on fire during a btb weave one time...I to had the lit fire poi in side my front pocket of my hoody( like how did that happen?)i remember my first paid gig infront of a few hundred adults and kids.. as i stood there dangleing my lit poi by my side 10 kids all shouted "oi mister! your on fire" lol out right dumbness of myself haha.sure i will think of more stupidness soon..looks like this is going to be a funny thread...pkdown with that one hand behind the head butterfly kato, spiral cant wait fer "PIP2" see you there!

Posted: 11th Jan 2002
Well I found out one thing recently. NEVER EVER try to spin wearing a puffy sleeved renaissance shirt. I was out with a group a few weeks ago and wanted to show off some new moves and found that the shirt kept catching the leashes. It was not pretty, believe me. I'm really starting to think that their is a reason that every fire spinner is wearing minimal clothing, and it not just to look sexy. Oh one more thing how does everyone else explained to friends and coworkerscoming into work with round bruises all the time?------------------Blessings to all, Peter "In motion, move like a thundering wave. When still, be like a mountain.Rising up, be like a monkey. Land swiftly and lightly like a bird. Be steadylike a rooster on one leg. One's stance is as firm as a pine tree, yetexpresses motion. Spin swiftly and circularly like a wheel. Bend and flexlike a bow. Waft gracefully like a leaf in the wind. Sink like a heavy pieceof metal. Prey like a watchful, gliding eagle. Accelerate like a gusty wind." Wushu Proverb

Blessings to all,
Peter
When you find yourself in the company of a halfling and an ill-tempered Dragon, remember, you do not have to outrun the Dragon ...you just have to outrun the halfling.

Posted: 11th Jan 2002
My confession...."Did you see the wind grab the sucker right out of my hand? Damn, I never knew that a wind could carry a staff sooooo far!" [image]https://www.homeofpoi.com/ubb/images/icons/wink.gif">[/image]And the ever popular"I meant to do that." -Which is how the off the boob direction change came into effect.Of course I am never serious but it is good for a laugh.As for explaining bruises...I just blame Whipping Boy! (not that the lizards/snakes where I work really care anyway!)------------------Pele Higher, higher burning fire...making music like a choir...https://www.pyromorph.com

Pele
Higher, higher burning fire...making music like a choir
"Oooh look! A pub!" -exclaimed after recovering from a stupid fall
"And for the decadence of art, nothing beats a roaring fire." -TMK

Posted: 12th Jan 2002
Ha ha ha.. " I meant to do that "..... Pele, I know EXACTLY where you're coming from on that one!!Dunno about everyone else, but I think one of the key components to putting on a good 'show', is wiping out gracefully; making it look like its supposed to be part of the show..?? The untrained eye will never notice and trained eye will (depending on thier own level of ego) hopefully think something like.. 'Hmm, nicely covered up'ps: I think I'm gonna invest in one of those protective thingies that guys put down thier boxers.. I dont want to have to confess to any more jewellry bashing episodes.!!------------------Kato

Kato

Posted: 12th Jan 2002
Hey, PK Kato, PIP2 yeah.... maybe we might get a few extra confessions for the box! ------------------Trance the sacred spiral dance.Love and LightSpiral

Posted: 12th Jan 2002
yeah i may just come up with some bizare move to bewilder you all with and end up doing myself some damage! erm maybe a double leg wrap on my left leg whilst my right leg is wrapped behind my head then i'm gonna follow through with a behind the head butterfly...nicely takeing my head of my shoulders while you all sit and laugh.hehePK

Posted: 12th Jan 2002
I should be to embarrased to write this, but I'm not. Instead I can't help laughing everytime I think about it and remember the faces on people watchintg me that day. It was last summer. A friend of mine who have played fire for a lot longer than me manage to get in thouch with a small international circus. At the time they needed more female performers for their tour in South East Asia. My firedancing friend got in and convinced them that me and her would make a better show together than she alone. They trusted her and welcomed me to the circus - before they had seen me perform..Uhmm, well we made our coreography and got ourself costumes, looking like twins. The only thing was that she had short hair and I had long.. ok, lets wear wigs, looong beautiful natural looking wigs. Not very clever! Then the day came when we got to meet the other people in the circus (Professional clowns, magicians and a great puppeter from fragglerock and The muppets,I was the only one with no experience) The plan that day was to do an introduction kind of thing on a Thai Tv show. Well, our show was not very successful that day. Eeehm, you see my chains got caught in my beautiful wig and offcourse it caught fire. As calm as I was, trying to not panic (cause that would make me look even more unprofessional) I tried to get my chain out of the wig and put the fire out. But before I knew it my friend threw(!) her pois away and tried to help me. One of the clowns allmost jumped on me and pulled my wig of. -And as if that wasn't enough my friends pois landed near the lady from the tvshow's purse and burnt it a bit. well done! We learnt a lot that day and now I am very careful when I choose clothes to play fire in. I could have said "I meant to do that" or "You asked for fire, didn't you?" but I think even the untrained eyes could see that burning my wig was not something I planned. My advice: No Wigs!

Posted: 12th Jan 2002
Learing poi was very painful in the first few weeks, especially when trying to nail new moves. In all I have hit myself in the balls 4 times (you never forget each time). Hit the back of my knee with the beaming poi along with the thigh, and the right hand side of my nose the bump is still there and I'm inclined to think it may be fractured. I set fire to myself practicing with fire-poi last year sometime. All I could hear was "phil your on fire" then I dropped the poi and ran around like a headless chicken. .. great fun

C'mon baby light my fire

Posted: 13th Jan 2002
Lisa... sound advice there girl..Beaker.. watch those balls man !!Brothers and sisters.. I feel I have only one confession to make after this weekend. I dont feel like I have sinned or let ego take a grip, but if I am guilty of anything, its loving it too much.PK,Spiral,Loola,Simon,Paul and dear old Cantus (who wasnt actually there but did get a glimps of me Zenning out whilst dancing afterwards).. I want to thank you all for a superb evening of spinning at mine. To quote Katinca again, I am sitting here (Sunday evening in the UK) with a grin on my face and a HUGE sense of warm fuzzies all over my body !!So.. my confession is really a question. Can you love something too much ?? I know you can to the exclusion of reality or people and things that matter.. but I dont feel thats the case here. I have never experienced anything quite like this...... and I feel like I never want it to end.------------------Kato

Kato

Posted: 13th Jan 2002
Have you ever noticed that when you have an injury your staff/poi seem to gravitate to that spicific point?I went to a concert friday night and after getting knocked around the mosh pit for a few hours I decided to take a break and lean up against the stage and just enjoy the band for a while. No sooner then when I put my elbows on the stage I got slammed hard in the back, and I bruised my ribs very badly, I may have even broken them, either way it really hurts to breathe right now. Had I been less intoxicated I may not have tried to spin later that night, but I was totally wrecked and spun anyway. My wicks kept hitting the exact same spot where my ribs were bruised. I have *never* hit myself in the ribs with anything before, ever; not poi, or staff, or ropedart, or chain whip, or even three section staff, never. But that night I couldn't stop. I ususally catch it in the knees or the back of the head. Sometimes with the chain whip I'll hit myself and have absolutly no clue how I did it. But friday night I came home to spin and with in fifteen minutes I was on the ground just struggling to breathe. I suppose I'll have to roll up a couple of T-shirts and tape them to my side to absorb some of the impact.------------------If you love something, set it on fire.

Jesus helps me trick people.

Posted: 14th Jan 2002
i was doing a horozontal butterfly above my head a while back when disaster struck, my mind wandered off in the direction of vacantsville (i blame the reefer) and one of the poi wrapped round my neck and burnt the end of my nose, left a nice wee burn as i recall. never have i heard so much hysterical giggling from a group of 'friends'. the people where i was working at the time (looking after the intellectually handicapped at a vocational centre) were quite used to my monday morning stumbling red eyed into work with various burns to my anatomy, some of them even had a go at my poi without fire! all of them laughed at me.. aaahh yes those were the days when life was simple, work by day, fire by night.i have to say though, we probably dont have nuthin on the wahines back in the (stoneage) days with the poi!

Posted: 13th Jan 2002
My confession....and I am going to say...I knew better before hand!There is a standing rule in theater that you never change anything about you right before a show, and I didn't pay it any attention. My thought was, 'This isn't a play, and it doesn't matter if I change my look'...so I went and got a long awaited for haircut (which I really like btw).Then there is this long standing self safety rule of my wetting my head down for a performance. Yup. I *always* do this. Yeah.So I get ready for my show yesterday with my new hair cut and I realise the top layer of the haircut is too short to pull back at the nape of my neck, as I had planned. Great, well, I just figured I'd pull it up to where it would hold it back since you know falling hair is no good for fire eating and breathing! I go, do my shows and it starts...I begin getting the chains temporarily caught on my hairstyle. No biggie, hair is wet, chains fly off easily....I meant to do that! Yeah, well so later I had to talk to the event organizers, the fire marshall, a reporter, a circus anthropologist, tra la la....and forgot to check the dampness of my hair. Guess what? My hair caught on fire. **Never**, and I mean **NEVER** has anything even remotely like this happened to me before. PWB stood there dumbfounded (my trusted safety) and I knew something was up cause the crowd did that collective gasp thing. I looked into the row of darkend windows behind me, see this HUGE damn flame up the back of my head, drop to my knees, grab the back of my head with my right hand (poi still going in my left), it immediately dies and I stand back up and finish my set completely non-challantly, except for that little wink to PWB to let him know I am alright. I still got an amazing response from the audience, who seemed to think it was part of the show (after all I light my skin, my tongue and such on fire...why not my hair right?).My hair, is actually all still there,except for a few ends. I have no burns and I know I was damn lucky! I think the dry ends of my hairstyle went up and then went out when it hit the damp twisty part but still. I remembered to wet my hair after that for each set!!!!!Moral of the story and my confession...even the pro's like I try to be, the ever aware and caring safeties like PWB, and those safety concious like me (being the "safety Nazi mod"), fu--s up every now and then....though I have had a very long and esteemed track record to that point, and technically I still do......no casualties! So, what do you think? Can I write this up under the..."Uh..yeah...I meant to do that" category. After all I can just say I was testing the flaming Pele act, done once but with alot of flare! ------------------Pele Higher, higher burning fire...making music like a choir...https://www.pyromorph.com

Pele
Higher, higher burning fire...making music like a choir
"Oooh look! A pub!" -exclaimed after recovering from a stupid fall
"And for the decadence of art, nothing beats a roaring fire." -TMK

Posted: 13th Jan 2002
And...i singed my left eyelashes (not eyebrow) and my right eyebrow (not eyelashes!). I think i did it during a nose breaker or fire breath but have no idea how it ended up being opposites as such!

Pele
Higher, higher burning fire...making music like a choir
"Oooh look! A pub!" -exclaimed after recovering from a stupid fall
"And for the decadence of art, nothing beats a roaring fire." -TMK

Posted: 13th Jan 2002
Thailand 1992/3 ,at one of the blackmoon parties they (hold?) held on koh phan`gan - on the mid2week between full moon parties-but on the other side of the island - a couple of months into poi -with fiery hot bits - the poi locally bought and based on a screw - screwed through the chainseveral months pass,wick gets less,screwpointybits begin sticking out - big arc into my shin ,try to pull it away and pull my leg forward,realise it`s screwed into my leg-so i had to grab it and unscrew it out of my leg-mmmmi`d like a dessert please... err to take my mind off it...which reminds me...first nice poi`er to approach me back then to share her knowledge- was an oz lady called i believe kyla reid from the bay area...would be nice to hear if she`s still an energy in this world...may you live in interesting times,realise they are such...and join in hugs to all...xxx...kato -soz i missed out on your gathering-i was sister collecting from an airport-'knee pads' and a 'box' didn`t make it onto this years christmas list then ?swoop swoop ------------------swoopedinandswoopedoutagain...orange...xxx...

swoopedinandswoopedoutagain...orange...xxx...

Posted: 13th Jan 2002
that was byron bay - in australia for Kyla Reidto avoid mix-up...woowoo`s ------------------swoopedinandswoopedoutagain...orange...xxx...

swoopedinandswoopedoutagain...orange...xxx...

Posted: 14th Jan 2002
While practicing the overhead butterfly, I was trying to do it woth more than 2 beats overhead and discovered a new move...the "skull crusher", when my arms got tired and the poi shifted direction, the two poi heads came down at the same moment and hit both sides of my head (on the temples since I have short chains)leaving me with two nice looking soot smudges and a splitting headache....luckinly they were not lit at the time![This message has been edited by Flambabe (edited 14 January 2002).]

Posted: 14th Jan 2002
Right, have just had a very stupid day:(though not all my fault)Decided to learn the quad windmill (quad corkscrew but vertical?) in my lunch break - not a good idea. I managed to whack myself right accross the face with metal loop bit that attatches poi to chains and sliced eyebrow open. Not pretty, not clever, and not to be repeated.I got the move, though and am v. happy. However, on top of that, as I made my way back after lunch someone opened a door into my face and smashed my nose pretty bad - big nosebleed and big bruises . Had to go back to class looking like I'd been in a v. nasty b!tch fight!

Geologists do it in the dirt................

Posted: 14th Jan 2002
Going back to when I first started spinning.. about end of June last year.. I was on a beach in Rhodes for two weeks doing nothing but a two beat weave forwards to backwards. At the time it was like.. WOW MAN.. thats soooo cool !! As I got more and more confident with these fantastic moves people kept approaching me with comments like.. 'wow, you must be really co-ordinated' and 'boy, that takes some skill'. 'Are you a professional performer?' was the best one.. heh heh..The more confident I got, the faster I got; and faster and faster.......and fasteretc etc.....and then WHEEEEEEEEE !!!!! One of the tennis balls flew off the end and went freakin MILES into a crowd of unsuspecting and, up to that point, highly impressed spectators. Fortunately for me nobody got hit !!Who else has ever been in a situation where you not so much wipe out, rather you 'lose one (or both) of your toys in mid-flow, whilst being watched by a crowd, and find yourself standing there like a complete prune wondering where the hell it went..??Embarrasing is the understatement of the milllennnium.. (spellin.. who cares..??)------------------Kato

Kato

Posted: 14th Jan 2002
Oh.. and incidentally.. theres something else I'd like to confess. (in retrospect)I can laugh and joke about the times when I was a rank beginner at all this spinny stuff. As I got better at it, I started teaching others the basics; like so many of us do. The one thing I had to keep a grip on was *remembering* what it was like when I first started. Sometimes back then I would let slip and fail to see *why* somebody else couldn't do what I was trying to teach them.The most important thing to remember, in my opinion, is never to forget the beginners mind.At the end of the day, you teach best what you most need to learn yourself.Amen ------------------Kato

Kato

Posted: 14th Jan 2002
And this one time, at band camp........

Jesus helps me trick people.

Posted: 14th Jan 2002
Pele...If it can happen to Michael Jackson, it can happen to anyone, he's just lucky the plastic in his face didn't go up as well... ------------------Charles (INFERNO)newdolbel@hotmail.comhttps://juggling.co.nz

HoP Posting Guidelines
* Is it the Truth?
* Is it Fair to all concerned?
* Will it build Goodwill and Better Friendships?
* Will it be Beneficial to all concerned?

Posted: 16th Jan 2002
I think I've upset someone and I want to apologise. I gave a sarcastic reply to a perfectly legitamate question on the poi moves section and I it was taken the wrong way.I did not want what I said to be taken as bragging, or for the person who asked the question to think *I* thought they were bragging. I wasnt bragging and I know they werent either.I feel really bad and Im sorry. It was only supposed to be a bit of fun. ------------------Kato

Kato

Posted: 17th Jan 2002
Well, I got super drunk one night....decided to play with fire staff (I AM INVINCIBLE!). I was getting jiggy, twirling like a mad man on turbo, and, when I hit myself in the forhead, the black carbon from the staff got implanted into the wound and now I have something similar to a prison tattoo...on my forehead. I think it has fadded slightly but it may be there for a long, long time.I didn't sling off the excess fuel on my fire poi one time (dumbass!), I zigged when I should have zagged, and now I have a silver dollar (maybe a little bigger) size scar on my back.Nut shots, lots of nut shots. (luckily none to bad, but even a gental tap hurts like hell) ***looks down at nuts*** "I'm sorry boys, next time I promise I'll wear my cup" ...and that is the worst part, know that you have a cup in the next room, but you weren't wearing it and now you are laying on the floor, hoping you can still have children. I think thats about all of the stupid stuff I have done, but if I manage to pull off another grand, stunt of stupidness, I'll let you know.

we eat and we drink and we smoke and we try!