Fire eating and body painting

I just went to the Face Painting & Body Art convention in Orlando, FL in early January.. I do body painting as well as fire dancing (bodyart.firepixie.com) and had a really great time. One of the highlights was that I got to teach a fire eating class to a student who flew down from New Jersey to learn fire eating.

We normally do a 3-day class but for people who don't live in the San Francisco area, that can be a huge commitment, so we do offer an "intensive" class for out-of-towners. Mike, my student, seemed to have a great time and he did a fantastic job, getting some really dramatic extinguishes of the torch by the end of the class. He was a fascinating guy - does fire walking and martial arts and we had some great conversation while we played with fire.

It was a fairly surreal experience - we were out by the hotel pool, and kept being interrupted by crazy characters wearing full body paint! It was really fun to be able to combine two of my passions like that.

Mark Reid, a master body painter and instructor at the convention came out and watched for a while.. and told me he'll trade some body painting for some fire eating lessons at some time. Mark is a fantastic artist - I hope he's serious! I want to make that happen!!