Touching the Flame
There is a very distinct sound produced when wind meets flame and for a few moments it is all that you hear. The crowd fades, the ocean quiets and all that you see is fire. All that you hear is the roar as it passes around you.
Its called Fire Poi. Two chains (one for each hand) with a weighted end wrapped in kevlar or cotton, soaked in fuel, set on fire and spun around in weaves and patterns. It is an art form that started sans-fire with the Maori people of New Zealand and has since spread to every corner of the world. From the rainy streets of Ireland, to the beaches of Vietnam you will find it. Here on the island many of the local Thais practice it on the beach outside of restaurants or bars to attract patrons. For them it is all about flash; they spin as hard and as fast as they can and since this more commercial version was the form I was most familiar with it never really had any draw for me.
About a month ago one of the Thai diving instructors that I work with here named Off was having his birthday party on the beach outside the dive shop. Eventually he started playing with the fire chains and absolutely blew me away. It was slower and rhythmic with an extreme technical difficulty. The way he moved the fire around him was nothing short of artwork. His girlfriend Sussi went after him and was just as impressive. It was so hypnotically beautiful that it gave me a new respect for the practice and inspired me to try it. I bought a very cheap pair of chains to practice with and on and off over the course of a few weeks I worked through the most basic maneuvers on my own. Eventually, after enough smacks taken to anywhere the chains would reach, my left hand begrudgingly excepted it’s new more complicated tasks. Last night on the beach in front of a crowd with Off and Sussi I lit them up for the first time.
There is a very distinct sound produced when wind meets flame and for a few moments it is all that you hear. The crowd fades, the ocean quiets and all that you see is fire. All that you hear is the roar as it passes around you. And in this moment I learned that there is a very real calm to be found in so much controlled pandemonium. The flames focus your attention so singularly on the motions that there is nothing else. The rest of your mind is allowed to breath and you can forget everything, living only in the moment.
There were a few inevitable mistakes that broke things up and when my fire was almost done I spun them out. There were a few black residue marks on my arms from the hits and my pants smelled of fuel, but I was unscathed.
So I did it again.
-Tyler
Starting Fresh
As you’ll notice the frontpage is now clear of that massive block of entries and pictures that took so long to load. I’m still looking for a way to display it elsewhere, but I’ll have to figure that out later. I wanted to start fresh with a plain old news update.
I’m still on the island of Koh Tao in the gulf of Thailand and I am well on my way to finishing my dive master course. It looks now that I will be here through August despite my flimsy plans to be moving on. This means that I will be heading back to Malaysia early next month to get a new visa for Thailand and hopefully when I get back I will be able to find work as a dive master and do filming work on the side for extra cash. Then I’ve also got a t-shirt project underway that could provide additional income, but you’ll hear more about that later.
With all of this I can hopefully start to at least sustain myself completely here if not save a bit of money. Its going to be extremely tight and there is no question that next month [i]will[/i] make or break my existence here. If things don’t play out exactly right I could be making that dreaded Statesward journey back to job hunting and $4.10 gas. I’m going to do everything I can to prevent that, but should it be inevitable I suppose I can take comfort in the fact that I was able to drag this thing out for a full year per my original intentions. And what a year its been…
But speaking of “inevitable”…
Before and after, about 19 years.
-Tyler