Safety, theory & first flames
- Fire-breathing essentials: gear and good practice
- The body: breaking the movement down
- Air, water and rhythm: drills solo and in groups
- Introduction and first flames
- Talk time: open Q&A
Fire-breathing lessons
Learn to breathe fire.
Fire breathing is never harmless. Burns, swallowed fuel, inhaled fuel: the risks are there at every session, so every course starts with them.
Definition
Fire breathing means atomising a suitable fuel from the mouth, in very fine droplets, towards a lit torch. The torch is metal, with a Kevlar wick.
TrainingRigourSafety
Those are the three prerequisites. Learn with an experienced teacher: it is the surest way to avoid accidents, burns and bad habits.
Four ways to learn
- 01
Private lessons
One-to-one or in a small group, at your home or your venue, in the Paris region or further afield.
- 02
Groups and companies
A supervised taster for a team, an away day or a group of friends, to discover the technique safely. I have run corporate workshops with Popin the City.
- 03
Advanced
For practitioners: flame direction, sustain, movement, tricks, fire katana, working as a group.
- 04
At conventions and online
Festival workshops since 2017, and online lessons to keep training between sessions.
Water and air first
You never start with fire. The breath is trained with water and air until the move is clean and the reflexes are right. Only then comes the flame, and even then, slowly.
“For every flame, every trick, you need to choose the flame, not suffer it.”
Instagram caption, May 2019, introduced as “maybe the best advice I can share”
In other words, I decide what the flame does: its length, how long it lasts, where it goes. If it does exactly that, it’s because I meant it to.
At workshops
Instagram stories
2018 Roztoč Fest
2018 Phoenix Fire Convention
2018 With Zerg
2019 Bruges
2019 Corporate workshop, Popin the City
2019 Artemisia
2020 Workshop with Ludivine
2021 Water drills, Artemisia
2019 Safety first
The programme
4 levels
Levels 1 and 2 are required to start. The programme isn’t set in stone: it adapts to your background and level.
Application, refinement, movement
- Flame shapes, each drilled until it is automatic
- Moving with the flame: walk, half-circle, full circle
Going further: group work
- Breathing together: placement and movement
- Live analysis and feedback
Research & development
- Tricking time, solo and in groups
- Working for photo and video
- Choreographing a fire or street show
- Live analysis and feedback
Where and how
Paris, or where you are
I’m based in the Paris region, but private lessons, solo or in a group, can be arranged anywhere in the world.
Important
Lessons are closed to minors for health and legal reasons. The same applies to pregnant women and people with breathing issues or serious health conditions.
What to bring
- 100% cotton, denim or natural-fibre clothes (ideally a cotton hoodie)
- No synthetic clothing at all
- A 100% cotton tea towel
- Water and snacks, and a proper meal beforehand
- A change of clothes
- Hair tied back
Workshops taught
- 2017
- European Juggling Convention, Lublin (Poland)
- 2018
- Fire Life Fest (Ukraine), the Convention nationale française (French national convention), Roztoč Fest (Czech Republic), Phoenix Fire Convention (Germany), Graülich Convention Feu (two days), a workshop co-run with Shade Flamewater, private masterclasses
- 2019
- Bruges (Belgium), corporate workshops with Popin the City, Artemisia Fire Gathering (Italy), Phoenix Fire Convention
- 2020
- Online workshop during lockdown, Rendez-vous Hoop, private lessons
- 2021
- Artemisia Fire Gathering
“Passion is born from sharing and passing it on.”A line I’ve been writing since the start
Let’s talk
fire.
A lesson, a shoot, a show? Send the date, the venue and the idea, and I’ll reply with a first technical assessment.