How to make Catch Cans

Catch cans are a way of minimising the damaging effects of using wick and fuel on grass. Fuel of whatever kind is seriously bad for plants and soil etc. After dipping your fire poi in the fuel it is safer for you and kinder to the environment if you do this spinning off into catch cans. You may as well get familiar with them because if you ever do fire indoors you are gonna have to know how to make and use them. So... heres how to make catch cans, please use them and show others how to.

You will need the below materials :
Two bean cans
A hammer
A biggish nail
Some climbing rope.
Set of pliers
A bit of time

To make the catch cans

Open the cans, empty the contents, crush down the sharp lip with some pliers or a metal file if you have one. Wash them out and bang a nail through either side of each one, thats two holes in each can. You may find this easier to do without crushing the can if you do it before emptying and opening the cans. It will b a little bit messier this way though.
Open the cans
Pierce both sides
Thread rope through

Try to make the second hole directly opposite from the other hole you made, it helps with the balance later. Flatten the sharp edges that the nail leaves on the inside of the can with the pliers, we dont want even small cuts on our hands when dealing with fuels and the black stuff on fire heads, I still dont know what it contains for certain but I know its not good for you.
Make a long turn
You're done!
Make another!

When attaching the rope snip off the excess after the knot with scissors then melt. One catch can is now complete, make another one then read below for how to use them. It takes a little practice until you get the hang of using them but its nowhere near as hard as getting used to some of the most basic moves that we do.

Grass is cool stuff, its perfect for fire spinning, its either grass or sand thats gets the name for best surface to spin on but being from England Im kind of a fan of grass :) It makes energy and food out of dirt, water and sunlight lol, If we could do that we would just be laughing. Yeh anyway, give the stuff a break eh ? Make yourself some catch cans.

They are cool for use on stage too, it still gets a little slippery after using them but less so and it dries up quicker between sets. If you are on a large stage, use these and move around a lot, do one burn then stop for minimum 5 minutes. By the time you go back, the floor will be grippy again. A must for anything near a safe stage fire performance in my opinion.

Using the Catch Cans

Using these things couldnt be simpler, just place them on the floor and unravel the ropes. Dip your fire heads next to your cans. Now place your fueled up fire heads into the cans and grab your rope. Lift the rope and your chain together then hold all three so that the bottom of each fire head is at least an inch above the bottom of the can. Then go and spin them and stall.
Head at top of can
Hold rope and chain.
Spin then stall.
Place on floor.
Let go of rope only.
Spin Fire :)

Make sure that when you finish your catch can spinning, you stall the circle on a downwards beat as in the example. Also when you are placing the can onto the floor you need to beware of your fire head dipping into the fuel in the bottom of the can, its no big deal but it does make the previous efforts pointless to a certain extent. The whole process will be a little tricky the first few times but after that its just easy, a damn sight easier than any one of our poi moves anyway.

Congratulations. You have just contributed to responsible fire spinning everywhere, please show other people what your catch cans are and what they are used for. Fuel is terribly bad for soil, bugs and small mammals that eat the dead bugs when your gone. Its also makes for a safer fire spin and its the kind of practice that will give us all a good name.

Thankyou for making the effort.