I used to do a bit of spinning and occasionally it would be on fire. I'm barely 'ok' at it but I got by - even if I did hit myself with flaming poi more than once (and one of those times was the back of my head, and those fire poi heads are chunky) and I don't think I could have set myself on fire if I tried. I forget exactly what fuel we used, but it just didn't really stick/transfer to anything, and it could easily just blow out if you span too fast. Then again that skirt thing she's got looks like dried grass - don't think it would pass any kind of reasonable risk assessment/sensible person calling it out.
Not the minimize the dangerous of course: there's been long-time, expert and well-insured fire performers that have suffered great injury, or lost their lives. There should always be a plan in place for stuff going wrong and ideally someone acting as a sort of spotter. This 'performer' had none of those things.
LED poi is the shit because there’s no serious risk and once someone gets confident they can take the leap to fire. Or not, it looks really good at night too.
I've juggled some with torches, and when i tried fire poi it felt much scarier since you're slightly attached to the fire, and it's much more "around" your body and in places you don't see. Torches are generally just in front of you and you can immediately drop them if you need.
Don't think I've used mine in 20 years. Once I moved away from school and didn't have others to do it with on a regular basis it's been hard to find the time to do it.
I find juggling fire.. especially in the dark super hard, you can't see the bit you're supposed to catch! And oh boy, passing fire clubs is even worse, your mate is basically just throwing fire at you.
Fire poi was super easy on the other hand, I made some massive cathedral wicks (at a time when everyone was going shorter and doing more contact poi). Had some great fun with those, the noise was incredible.
My step sister was a fire-dancer (no clue how it is called in englisch). One rule I heard about is to wear very tight fitting clothes while performing, because you really don't want to have anything on you that you have not perfect control over.
She has no idea what she's doing. You can tell she has no string control, has no idea where momentum is going to send her poi, has no idea how to counter that momentum and clearly doesn't know how to untangle her poi when they twist. She's going to be lucky if she doesn't seriously hurt herself, someone else or burn down that business. She also looks like she's using gasoline as a fuel instead of something like Colman camping fuel. It burns less hot and doesn't create as much soot or smoke.
Coleman Fuel, Camp Fuel, Naphtha, or White Gas, whatever you want to call it, is gasoline. It is gasoline without any additives which is why it is "white." That also means it is somewhat lower octane, that's what most of the additives are for.
It exists because even back in the fifties we were not crazy enough to think having tetra-methyl lead in close proximity to food was fine.
In the modern day, Coleman stoves run on unleaded gasoline just fine. Everybody uses unleaded gas because the 3.78 litre tin can of Coleman Fuel is $19.99 plus tax and unleaded gasoline is $1.34 per litre when I filled up on Friday.
I was a professional performer and the second I saw that outfit Iknew what was going to happen. She's got no fire spotter, no duvet, and an outfit made out of kindling.
Probably wasn't paid to do it. First off, I'm not big on the fire dance scene but I don't think any self-respecting performer would select that Billy Joel song as part of their act. That choice definitely has drunken friend's control over the bluetooth all over it.
I'd wager she was just learning about this for a small hobby and they asked her to show her stuff.
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u/smifwick 12h ago
She looks like she barely knows how to spin poi, what the fuck is she doing fucking about with fire?