FIRE HINTS for discerning beginners

thought this might be a handy little thread after some of the hard learnt lessons ive had, or almost had. all the adivce relates to parafin, or lamp oil, only. also, i use chain poi with a normal wick (ie not stacked or monkey fist).

first off, clothing
1 > make sure there are no loose threads. ripped clothes are not funky when they cathch light mid burn. this happened to me the other week when i was wearing a pair of ridiculously ripped trousers (stupid me) and my 'saftey' just sat drinking her beer shouting, youre on fire when the threads caught fire. not cool. this is especially relevant if you do alot of under the leg stuff.

2 > typically i do alot of wraps with fire, on arms and legs, and i have found that cotton is the best stuff for upper body. acrylic could melt onto you skin. i wear a tshirt under a longsleeved top. for why, see below point 1. jeans or reasonably thinck cotton does the trick for trousers.

3 > wear a cap backwards, or a beanie/hat if you are worried about your hear or head. my philosophy is better safe than sorry, and i have long hair, so i never spin without a cap. if you have a beard, be careful about those buzzsaws. a lot of spinners you see in vids here and on hop dont wear a cap or hat. if you are sure you know what you are doing, then its a question of fashion. if you aint sure, remember that lady luck is a fickle friend.

4 > the clothing you use should allow you to move freely and not feel restricted. baggy clothes can get in the way of some tricks and when your poi hit them, they can then spin off in an unplanned direction, effectively changing the planes of the poi. if you are going for it at speed this can mean you hit yourself with a lit, heavy poi head which has a great velocity. saftey aside this will mess up your performance, if you have an audience. it could cause the chains to tangle, and more difficulties etc. again, its a matter of practice and preferance, but eliminating the possibility of something going wrong leaves you less to worry about.

some tricks not to do when you first light the poi
1 > wraps: two reasons for this, first is that if you soak the poi for a long period of time there is alot of excess fuel in the wicks. when you wrap the wick on your arm for instance, a load of hot fuel will be pushed out of the wick and onto your clothes or your skin. this will not necessarily burn you, but putting fuel on your clothes is best avoided.
second reason is that when you light the wicks the chains will be hot and if you do bare skin wraps, you might get burnt. after spinning the chains round for a while the air flow should cool them down. i do wraps only when im fairly sure the majority or the parafin has burnt off the wick, or after about 2 - 3 mins of spinning. i make sure two layers of clothing separate my bicep from fire.

2 > buzzsaw: much the same reason here as 1. poi kevlar full of fuel, fuel flies off, into face, not pretty. also, the toxic fumes, whcih are far thicker when the poi are first lit, from the liquid you are using can get in your eyes and this hurts like hell.

3 > any trick that involves the poi colliding, or being in danger of colliding near your face or hands. an example would be hyperloops. (hardly a beginner move i know but....)do not practice moves like this with the poi lit. i use sock poi to practice much more than i use fire, but if im gonna do a burn i make sure i have used chain poi for at least half an hour that day just to adjust to their weight, the feel of them and their momentum, which is very different.

other advice
1 > If you spin for long enough something will go wrong somewhere. its a matter of probability. make sure that you guard against that probablility by doing whatever you feel will decrease the chances of inflisting pain on yourself and or others.

2 > practice with fire poi loads. unlit. make sure that you 100% confident of the trick you are going to do before you do it with fire. spinning fire is not the time to invent new tricks. if you havent been doing a trick for long enough, just dont try it with fire. i managed to wrap a poi round my arm the other week while doing a butterfly turn (which ive been doing for a while with lit poi no problems) and couldnt unwrap it. this led to much ugliness flailing round (again, safety was a useless muppet engaged in conversation with someone, while drinking beer). that wasnt in a performance thankfully, and i didnt burn myself, but it could have been nasty. and this leads on to my next point........

3 > always always always have a saftey standing there with a damp t shirt or whatever. and make sure you prep them for what to do if tings go wrong. they might have to run towards you while you are furiously spinning, unaware you are alight and thats not pleasant for them coz you could clock them one with the poi.
agree on something to shout to alert you they are on their way. they need to be close by, standing up, looking for whats going to go wrong. if they dont know, you need to tell them. best is if they have seen you practice and so you can say, if i mess this up, you need to be on alert.

make sure your saftey is not a pissed muppet who will be drinking beer or smoking a spliff while you are spinning, staring at the pretty patterms. position them away from the crowd, if you can, so people dont start talking to them. make sure you pick a decent person to be your saftey, not someone who will sit drinking beer and shout 'youre on fire'. also make sure they know where your stash of fuel is, so they dont smoke a fag and throw it into a tin or parafin thats near a tree....

remember that its not only you that the saftey needs to watch out for, but people who decide to come up real close to you with a camera, kids who run up to you and start asking questions, people who go and start their car and drive it through the area you are performing in... etc.

5 > use a saftety loop round your wrist. well, there are a few issues here. first of all, it doesent allow you to let go of the poi if something goes wrong. but then again if your poi fly off your hand and into your audience... well, its personal choice this one. i use throws with my fire poi, so i dont use a loop, but i did once really fk up, and i sent the poi very very close to the audeince. they all thought it was intentional.... thankfully, again no one got hurt.

the end
ive been very lucky in spinning. ive never had an accident that has resulted in injury to me or anyone else, but ive come close. and that was mainly because i didnt do the very very very simple things that we all know we should do when we spin fire, but often think, nah, it wont matter, itll be cool. 99% of the time it will be, but when that 1% rears its ugly head....
peace and happy spinning