Fire Jumping pushes limits of sport
Fire jumping is a sport that originated in Ancient Persia and emerged from a Zoroastrian religious festival. In recent times the practice has spread to other parts of the world, specifically through Iranian immigrants.
It has been transformed from a religious festival to a cultural event with fire jumping now becoming a sort of sport where individuals have contests to jump over fire. This sport may become the next big extreme sport but it may get banned due to health and
safety risks. At the moment though it is an exciting and slightly dangerous activity that people take part in when they are in a festive mood.
This slightly crazy sport has its origins in an ancient Persian traditional festival called Nowruz. The festival lasts for thirteen days and has been practised as part of the Zoroastrian religion for almost 3000 years.
It is still part of many religious denominations’ yearly festivities, such as Sufis, Ismailis, Alawites, Alevis, and people of the Bahá'í Faith. The festival marks the first day of Spring and the start of the Persian New Year. The religion the festival comes
from follows the practice of worshiping fire and so there is a heavy significance on fire in the festival and the different traditions surrounding it.
The traditional name for the fire jumping part of the festival is called Chaharshanbe Suri. The tradition included people going into alleys and setting bonfires alight and then jumping over them. The practice was meant as a way for the jumper to transfer
their pain, sickness and weakness to the fire while taking strength, heat and light from it instead.
A traditional song is sung while participants jump over the flames. Over time, as Iranians migrated to different countries around the world, they spread their cultural and traditions as well. The practice of fire jumping can now be found in America, Afghanistan,
Albania, India, Turkey and the United Kingdom.
One place where the practice has spread out of the Iranian community to a wider audience is in America. In Southern California, revellers gather in beaches all along the State to take part in very interesting and strange competitions.
California has extremely strict fire codes and people are not allowed to even light fires on their own properties, so fire jumpers go to the beaches where lighting fires are permitted. Once at the beach, people construct bonfires and music is played to set
the mood. Then one by one participants jump over the fire and the event is done all night long. People at these events have started to get a bit competitive and they set limits to see who can jump over the highest fire possible. This inadvertently leads to
injuries and numerous people get burned because they try to jump over a fire that is too high. Even though they do not suffer serious injuries they still require trips to the hospital.
The sport of fire jumping can spread in popularity and maybe even one day become a legitimate sport with proper competitions taking place around the world. There are a lot of extreme sports that people participate in and fire jumping can become the newest
one as long as a few guidelines are followed.
As with other extreme sports, which require safety equipment to be worn before a person can take part in them, fire jumpers can be forced to wear flame retardant clothing and then jump over the fires. There can then be many different variations of the sport,
the possibilities are endless, from fire high jumping, to fire hurdles to even holding world record attempts for the highest fire crossed.
Will fire jumping really take off or will it remain a traditional activity? Well that depends upon whether people take to it in large enough numbers. The other problem standing in the sport’s way is government policy. Health and safety regulations are very
strict and even though people are free to jump over fire if they want to, it becomes a whole different matter when it becomes a sanctioned sport.
It may pass regulations with the proper type of safety equipment worn but it is unlikely to become a proper sport anytime soon. It looks like it will continue to be a once a year festival activity that people take part in.
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