Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
Last month, someone called police to inform them of “fireballs” visible in the vicinity of Sweet Home Liquor Store.
What the responding officer found were three persons practicing fire breathing – which isn’t against the law. The three, Cody Sanders, Byron Wolfsong and Jenny Wright, are all associated with the Gypsy Circle belly dancing studio, which moved in next door to the liquor store.
All three have been practicing fire breathing together for the past couple of months and are planning to offer fire breathing classes as part of the Gypsy Circle’s program.
Sanders started fire breathing last summer after corresponding on-line with a fire breather in Washington state and learning the basics of the art.
Wright and her husband, David, visited their old friends Byron and Julie Wolfsong, who own and operate Gypsy Circle, last year. That led to them moving to Sweet Home about a month and a half ago.
“My brother has been fire breathing for 15 years,” Wright said, and she is an experienced fire dancer and teaches it at Gypsy Circle. Fire dancing is dancing with torches or other flaming devices. She was part of a fire dancing troop in California.
“Julie and I started belly dancing together,” she said. That was about six years ago. Julie Wolfsong moved to Sweet Home a couple of years ago and started teaching the art locallly.
“I actually researched it on-line, did a lot of looking around,” Byron Wolfsong said. Looking at photos from accidents, “I learned what not do first.”
When Wright moved to Sweet Home, the three of them started breathing fire on the spur of the moment.
“I’m going to be teaching the fire dancing,” Wright said. “The fire breathing is Cody’s.”
“I’ve always liked playing with fire,” Sanders said of why he got interested in fire breathing.
“I’d go with, ‘He’s a freak,'” Wolfsong joked.
“It’s out of the norm, something you can enjoy and people enjoy watching,” Sanders said. “It elicits an ooh-ahh response.”
The first rule of fire breathing is: Don’t try this at home. The practice is extremely dangerous and may be fatal if a practictioner lacks proper instruction. Experts emphasize that fire breathing can harm not only the performer but, because it’s fire, bystanders and nearby flammable items. Experts warn that the first steps of learning fire breathing should be taken only under the instruction of an experienced person who fully understands the dangers.
Wolfsong said the art is not only impressive to watch, but affects the performer as well.
“Fire also brings on an altered state of awareness, like the firing range or meditation,” he said. “Fire breathing focuses the attention, and “you enter your own world.”
When he started fire breathing, he started by using water to practice blowing into the torch, Sanders said. To breathe fire, he partially fills his mouth with lamp oil and blows a mist through or over the torch, like playing a flute or blowing over a drying model.
The lamp oil “is not really that bad a taste,” Wolfsong said. “It’s just slimy.”
The three caution against using a variety of substances, such as alcohol, gasoline, scented lamp oils or white gas.
And they emphasize “please do not do this at home,” Wright said.
If interested, they ask that people call.
Fire dancing classes have about a half dozen students. Classes for fire breathing have not started yet, but the three are planning to start having weekly meetings.
For information, call Wolfsong at 367-7750.