The Gora Fire Contact Sword is a fire sword designed for contact moves. Contact tricks are moves where you aren't holding onto the sword with your hands. If you've never done any contact staff we wouldn't recommend learning contact with a sword as tricks are a bit harder with a sword than with a staff. If you're already a contact staffer then transferring your skills to a sword will take a little practise but shouldn't be too difficult. This longer variant of the Gora contact sword is 126cm (49.5") long (including the ball-weight) but has 1m of usable length. For the Shorter version of this sword, see the 1m fire sword from gora. At the end of the handle is a counterweight made from a 500g (1.1lbs) steel ball covered in a soft under-layer with a durable rubber over-layer. These layers protect both the sword and your head from damage! The counterweight accounts for more than half of the sword's overall weight. This has the effect of bringing the sword's centre of gravity into the middle of the handle and making contact tricks possible. The weight distribution means that contact sword tricks look magical to the audience as they are unaware of the counterweight and how it shifts the centre of gravity. The core of this contact sword is made from 7075 aluminium which is strong, resists bending and is light weight. The blade is 69cm (27.1") long and covered in high quality wick giving you a burn time of around 4 minutes. Separating the blade and the handle is a circular silicone guard that helps to shield the handle from the flames and heat. The handle itself is 59cm (22.5") long and wrapped in a grippy handlebar tape that should resist the slippery nature of fuel. The handle is tapered and features two balance points; one for when the sword is fully fuelled and another for when the sword is dry. This sword is NOT suitable for combat. Impacts with other swords may damage or bend the blade. Due to the size of the flames on this prop and the difficulty performing contact moves with it we recommend only people experienced in contact staff / sword use this item.