Reflections on requests for sword-swallowing instruction...
Updated: Oct 3
At least once a month (sometimes several times a month) I receive messages from strangers asking about sword-swallowing instruction. Most are polite and curious. But occassionally, they reveal a very different attitude toward the work.
Recently I received a message that began:
“Hi Frank, My friend gave your contact to me. I am very interested in learning sword swallowing. Do you offer mentorship opportunities?”
My name isn’t Frank. Frank is another well-known sword swallower. They had simply copied and pasted the same message they’d already sent him.
I replied pleasantly, introduced myself, and asked the obvious question: Why do you want to learn sword swallowing?
The answer was that they had an opportunity to perform next year with their partner, and adding sword swallowing “could really add to the number.”
They went on to say they had read my article “Read this first if you’re interested in sword swallowing,” but were uninterested in the simple preparatory tasks outlined there. They were “solely interested in learning the sword swallowing.” Their ten-year career in the industry, they felt, demonstrated sufficient commitment. They preferred to pay my subscription rate plus the fire-safety workshop rate for private instruction.
In other words, they had already decided what they wanted to learn, how they wanted to learn it, which parts of the process they were willing to participate in, and what they thought it was worth.
That’s not how apprenticeship works.
Imagine someone who has taken karate at the local YMCA for ten years walking into a Brazilian jiu-jitsu gym and declaring:
“I’ve been doing karate for ten years, so I’m pretty experienced. I only want to learn this one particular submission because I have a fight coming up next year. Here’s what I’m willing to pay and which parts of the training I don’t think I need.”
Or someone deciding they want to climb Everest but don’t want to train, learn to climb, get in shape, or understand avalanche hazards.
Or showing up at a skydiving school and saying, “I don’t really need all that training. I just want to strap in and jump.”
You’d probably assume something was off.
Yet when it comes to sword swallowing, people often treat it like an order at a drive-through window:
“I’ll take the sword-swallowing special, hold the prerequisites.”
Sword swallowing isn’t something you add to your résumé next to aerial silks, acro, balloon twisting, and face painting. It isn’t a checkbox. It doesn’t happen on a deadline.
It is a discipline. A brutally difficult and potentially life-altering one. It requires patience, perseverance, focus, humility, and the ability to become comfortable being uncomfortable.
That’s why I have a process — to get to know the person.
I require prospective students to take my fire-handling workshop first. Not as a formality, but because it tells me almost everything I need to know before I ever hand someone a sword. Fire doesn’t care about your feelings. It forces an immediate, honest response. When instinct screams to flinch or panic, can the person override it? Can they employ the mind in a way that overcomes matter rather than letting matter dictate to the mind? That is the exact skill sword swallowing demands, just with a different object and a different kind of pressure.
Commitment shows itself in what people are willing to put in, not just what they’re willing to ask for.
So yes, fire handling is a prerequisite.
And here is the part that surprises people most, because it runs against how most of society operates:
You can’t just pay your fee and start training. And you don’t get to decide when you’re ready to begin instruction.
I do.
If I’m going to commit months or years of my time to teaching something like this, I need to believe you’re willing to commit to the process.
If you want to learn the sword, you have to be willing to learn the process that gets you there.
And while I’m not interested in helping you check sword swallowing off your list.
I might be interested in helping you become a sword swallower.
If you’re willing to start with the fire-handling workshop, do the preparatory work, and let the process decide when you’re ready, then I’m open to the conversation.
If you've already decided how the training should go, I’m probably not the teacher for you.
(For the full checklist and the thinking behind it, see these two posts:
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