Fire Dancing

I just bought my first set of poi and am learning to fire dance. When I imagine myself whirling and twirling about, resplendantly ablaze, I get the best tingly feeling in my stomach. Just where did my appetite for this develop? Well, I'll tell you because I'm so nice.

A long time ago, three years ago or something, a friend of mine had a set of poi. I picked them up after watching her do some tricks. I took to the art like a ducky-poo takes to water-ooo and fell in love. Unfortunately, at the time she wasn't able to teach me and I didn't do much to follow up on teaching myself.

Two weeks ago, Robin and I went to a Candle Light party. We ate some food, drank some wine, ordered some votives and had a fantastic time. I found out before the show that several of the attendees were also FIRE DANCERS!! We got one helluva show, complete poi spinning and fire-finger dancing. Polly, the grad-student-kick-ass-chick-fire-dancing-beauty, will be teaching me the basics and not-so basics. She's probably one of the sweetest people I've met, saw my utter love for this art and immediately said "yes" when I asked her to teach me. That night, she handed me a set of poi and I went to town. I remembered the "moves" I had learned before, she showed me some better technique to use, and off I went. I ran into her yesterday and got her number so we can meet up once a week or so for practice. Yay!

I've seen plenty of fire dancing through my rave days. I've seen poi with lights, tails, feathers and beads (OUCH!!). This is the sort of art that you can look at and appreciate, but until you're "in the fire", you CANNOT believe what it's like. First of all, it's warm. REALLY warm. The night of the candle party, it was slightly raining and pretty cold. Polly asked if I'd like to stand facing her while she whirled and twirled the fire. I thought I'd still be a little cold, but hell no. I was surrounded by spinning fire and I've never felt anything like that before. It's better than drugs. It's better than flying. NOTHING can compare to that sensation.

As a natural born performer/ham/gimmeattentioner, this will become my dancing milieu. I cannot wait to show all of you my fun new tricks. Expect to see a lot of it when we go camping this year. And before. And after. And forever!