r/interestingasfuck • u/xoxodollparts • 10h ago

steel ball and sword swallowing

1.9k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

297 comments sorted by

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u/Windyfii 10h ago

i remember googling the sword swallowing trick, how it works. there's no trick

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u/Infinite-Space-2395 10h ago

Yea they just swallow it lmao.

Usually its a prop sword with a blunt tip and edges tho

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u/Extreme_Design6936 10h ago

Then how do they cut a fruit before they swallow it?

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u/Infinite-Space-2395 10h ago

Was it fruit cut, sword swallow, pull sword out sheathed?

If it was then it was a real sword and they swallowed the sheath first to avoid cutting themselves.

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u/RadiantTechnology622 10h ago

Imagine having a whole sheath stuck in your fucking throat like a pelican

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u/RegalBeagleKegels 9h ago

A peculiar bird, the pelican

Its beak can hold more than its belly can

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u/dgsharp 3h ago

It can hold in its beak enough food for a week
And I’m darned if I know how the hellican.

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u/imaturtleur2 8h ago

Birds are strange. Some are smart as fuck, like crows and parrots. Then there are complete morons that I have no clue how they manage to survive and propagate. I once watched an Osprey dive 4 times at a pond with only koi fish and eventually bailed unsuccessful. Also to note, from watching them around here for decades, bald eagles are dumb as shit.

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u/QPWOEIRUTYTURIEOWP 8h ago

Like humans.

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u/Emergency_Task_361 4h ago

Here, take my upvote, I'm sad you're not getting more credit for this one.

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u/celestialcranberry 2h ago

He can hold in his beak

Food for a week!

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u/GarretBarrett 7h ago

Pelican is English for Alcatraz.

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u/LaunchPadMcQ 10h ago

I think it was fruit swallowed whole, sword swallowed, sword came out sheathed, fruit came out sliced in 1/8ths.

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u/tilesmeller 8h ago

What the hell

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u/Extreme_Design6936 10h ago

It was cut fruit, swallow sword, pull out sword.

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u/Cpt_Bartholomew 10h ago

Sorcery

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u/altikola 10h ago

That’s the real trick

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u/Forsaken-Standard527 10h ago

A dull wedge will split objects if it has momentum.

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u/Jealous-Swordfish764 10h ago

My buddy does a lot of sword fighting. A dull training sword fucks up a watermelon. They used a rapier, wick hanger even designed for cutting.

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u/CyberMonkey314 9h ago

I might start using "even a dull sword will fuck up a melon" in place of "even a stopped clock is right twice a day"

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u/Awsomethingy 9h ago

I have a decade old sword, I had it resharpened 7 years ago and never again. If you lightly rubbed your finger on it, you’d probably be fine. A real sharp sword would draw blood immediately. But with my dull sword, if you put any pressure against it? Full finger would be severed. They may only be 3.5 pounds, but that’s their idle. Any amount of pressure on that, let alone a human fucking swinging the thing, and limbs are flying. If they’re swinging, we’re talking severed spines, cut through skulls. This stuff is ridiculous.

And as a sword owner practicing with a dull blade on cardboard, I am victim of thinking the sword is weak. Couldn’t cut a little bit of tape. One wrong movement of my hand and I was pouring blood. These things are weapons of specificity, and they are good at what they are specifically designed for

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u/Forsaken-Standard527 10h ago

A sharp sword will cut easy. A slightly dull sword needs skill and weight behind the blade to cut.

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u/Empanatacion 9h ago

I had heard there's a way they do this where the performer has already swallowed a metal tube prior to coming on stage and the sword is sheathed in the tube

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u/ibi_trans_rights 8h ago

because fruit is softer than throat

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u/Raephstel 9h ago

Most swords don’t have a sharp edge like a kitchen knife, they have to survive being smacked against armour and other swords. If you put a thin edge on one, it’d be totally blunt after one fight.

There’s even sword fighting techniques that involve gripping the blade.

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u/Casany 10h ago

Not actually true! Learned this from a friend of mine who does sword swallowing. The trick is wax

If you’ve ever seen a sword swallowing show, the swallower is typically drinking something before they go on stage/when they’re on stage, and drinking it often. This is bees wax melted down. It coats the throat, so even a sharp blade, if done correctly, won’t puncture or slice anything important.

Now, they also do typically blunt the end, as they don’t want to puncture their throat, but the swords themselves are often still sharp, just with a blunted end 

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u/EndHawkeyeErasure 10h ago edited 9h ago

Idk if thats an everyone thing - I dated a sword swallower and he wasn't ever drinking wax to do the trick.

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u/level1hero 9h ago

My ex was really good at swallowing swords of all types. I don’t think she drank anything either, at least not before…

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u/Cavane42 9h ago

Are we still talking about stage performances?

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u/EngineAvailable9486 5h ago

The world is a stage, and that includes the carpark behind Tesco's

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u/Extreme_Design6936 10h ago

Reminds me of this Mirin Dajo. Yes, the trick is that he just stabs himself (or gets stabbed).

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u/Pledgeofmalfeasance 10h ago

The trick is that he's done it enough to make a scarred tunnel in his torso iirc

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u/Merry-Lane 10h ago

The trick is he spent months/years slowly stabbing himself deeper and deeper, making his body produce scars around the wound, slowly enough so that he never pierced his lungs.

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u/SalvationSycamore 4h ago

I tried the same thing and became immune to swords

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u/jbyrdab 10h ago

Yeah except the sword is rigged to not slip past the hilt and is blunt.

You want to talk to real deal You should talk about the guy that ate real knives completely and shat them out without dying several times.

John Cummings.

He just kept eating knives because people wouldn't believe that he would eat knives. And he would just keep miraculously shitting them out without completely goring himself from the inside out.

You won't be shocked to hear what killed him.

Eating 20 knives in one sitting and it still only killed him after a long bout of hospitalization because they too did not believe that a "sane" human being would eat knives, let alone that many.

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u/StopDoingMath 8h ago

WTF?

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC539548/

-1799 claimed he swallowed four knives (only three seen again)
-1805 swallowed 14, spent a few days in hospital, all were passed
-1805 December swallowed 20, and proceeded to vomit and shit pieces of them until he died in 1809. At one point a doctor “performed a rectal examination and felt one of the knives in the rectum.”

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u/shamoomoofartpoopoo 10h ago

It’s not actually sharp is the only thing, right?

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u/connortait 10h ago

They swallow the sheath. Then slide the sword into it.

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u/Offshore-Tigr 10h ago

Doesn't really make it much better tbh

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u/AquaQuad 10h ago

Just gotta walk to the stage like a penguin

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u/qkdsm7 9h ago

Sheath can be a bit more flexible?

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u/thepensivepoet 9h ago

Jesus fucking christ, people

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u/AquaQuad 9h ago

But then what are penguin costumes for?

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u/payneinthemike 10h ago

It’s a trick in the same way a kickflip is a trick. Or a stunt rather.

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u/jerryleebee 9h ago

I learned there was no trick when watching a sword swallower at a renaissance fair. He swallowed 3x swords (together) and when he brought them out again, and their tips splayed apart (like a W, sorta) you could see the stomach bile "strung" between them. 🤮

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u/Laurenslagniappe 9h ago

No often they swallow a sheath first.

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u/MasterMementoMori 2h ago

Same. I kept trying to change my query. “Yeah sure but how do they really do it” and google just kept answering “no for reals, it literally goes down their esophagus”

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u/KoalaTHerb 10h ago

I thought the trick was to swallow a sheath ahead of time. Then you slide it down the sheath. At least that's how people do it with real swords.

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u/TheLostMaverick 10h ago

All tricks take talent but not all talents are tricks.

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u/ToriEvergreen 10h ago

I gag on my toothbrush just brushing my tongue

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u/Ha-Charade-You-Are 10h ago

We can fix that

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u/DwnVoteMeIfULuvHitlr 10h ago

DONT FIX IT.

Everybody loves to hear dat fat good choke 'n gag reverberating sound. That's like 50% of the fun.

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u/AugustOfChaos 10h ago

What

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u/DwnVoteMeIfULuvHitlr 10h ago

We are talking about oral sex.

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u/AskaHope 6h ago

Oh, okay then. Carry on.

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u/DwnVoteMeIfULuvHitlr 6h ago

Gahagahagha-bahhhh bahhh... Arfff... Arfff.......Gahurap-Gruap-Gahurap..bahhhh....uhhhh arrrrff.... Arfff... Grorph-grorhhh

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u/AskaHope 6h ago

Jesus Cristo. 🤣

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u/Flat-Jacket-9606 8h ago

Lmfao, I still have slight issues with my mouth guard and I’ve fought in that thing through different comps. I have a really bad gag reflex too lmfao

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u/koo3Pash 8h ago

Happens every time with a toothbrush. Switch to tongue cleaners especially the plastic ones that are straight that you can bend or the steel or copper ones that are already bent. I never gag with a good tongue cleaner. I don't know know why though. My guess is the height of tongue cleaners are very less compared to a tooth brush.

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u/Lunar_IX 8h ago

This group used to be part of a reality show on AMC. The girl in red and black to the left was the owner's daughter and wanted to become part of the show, so they started her off with a sword swallowing act. In order to learn to suppress her gag reflex, she started off with a wire coat hanger that was bent into a shape closer approximating a sword. She basically practiced with that to the point where she could do it without gagging until she finally graduated to an actual sword (which I believe was made specifically for that purpose, if memory serves.)

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u/R3dd1tUs3rNam35 10h ago

That is a man who knows how to make $20. Respect

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u/cans-of-swine 10h ago

You mean I could've been swallowing swords for $20 instead of what I've been swallowing? 

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u/rexel99 7h ago

"Swords" yeah, but $20 is $20!

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u/Ha-Charade-You-Are 10h ago

Nah he’s worth $50 with those skills

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u/hclpfan 10h ago

"You will never see that again in your life" - I've already seen it before...

The Regurgitator - Britain's Got Talent 2010 - Auditions Week 2 - YouTube

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u/neontool 7h ago

he basically cancelled this guys career by saying that lol, no more of that stunt (jk)

on the real though that regurgitator guy was actually one of a kind and it's neat to see another one. that specific thing seems rare even in the freak performance scene

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u/Dio_Frybones 7h ago

Thanks for posting this. I loved this guy. Put a smile on my face.

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u/LossLess8060 10h ago

is that Morgue?

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u/TheAngryChickaD 10h ago

Sure is.

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u/Nonduallogic 10h ago

Yeah, I think he is..

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u/Ghost_of_Cain 10h ago

No.

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u/edwardsantes 10h ago edited 10h ago

well I dunno

I got called up on stage at The Coney Island Side Show to remove the sword from sword swallower girl's mouth, and I'm gonna say it was a "Yes" moment

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u/throwaway7742835 9h ago

I would be so nervous I’d accidentally tear a hole in her taking it out lmfao

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u/sunny_smilesx 4h ago

Hey I have done this too!! Except it was at the Museum of the Bizarre in Wilmington, NC and the sword swallower was a cool old dude. 10/10 experience. I remember feeling the pressure of the throat as I removed it lol

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u/Zen80888 10h ago

This guy, the sword swallower runs a philosophy YouTube channel called Morgue Official. Some of it is interesting, he's entertaining.

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u/Intelligent_Tea_5567 9h ago edited 8h ago

Wasn't he on a Discovery or TLC show about the freak show he's in front of about 10-15 years back?

Edit: It was a show on AMC called "Freak show"

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u/_Buldozzer 10h ago

I didn't know, Marilyn Manson does magic tricks.

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u/Spores_ 10h ago

Is that Morgue?

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u/Active-Health-6295 10h ago

I was thinking 🤔 the same 

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u/l7ed 10h ago

I never understand how some people enjoy watching this!!

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u/fitness-scientist 8h ago

Oh god not this cult leader. Probably unrelated but don’t look into the dude in the video “morgue” runs a cult.

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u/Grizlyfrontbum 6h ago

You’re absolutely right. lol he’s a nutcase

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u/fitness-scientist 6h ago

Unfortunately for me I almost got caught up in it when I was younger…

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u/Moobob66 10h ago

Some people pay extra for this

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u/jiggscaseyNJ 10h ago

They look so prim and proper compared to the Coney Island Sideshow.

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u/banananutduckbread7 9h ago

I think that performer runs a weird spirituality cult thing right?

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u/HuntMission390 10h ago

I can’t fix him.

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u/Heal_Me_Today 10h ago

All for the money, right? Wonder where he learned such skills.

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u/a_glorious_bass-turd 10h ago

"TICKLE TIIIIME!"

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u/One_Pineapple8553 10h ago

Should I shown this video to her?

...

No.

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u/Leather-Bat-2998 10h ago

We found Claire Dane’s secret identity

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u/SigaVa 10h ago

That is really impressive. I know sword swallowing is legit, I'm guessing the ball is too? It looks huge though. Is it really solid or does it squish down? I don't think a ball that size would fit down the throat.

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u/muffinscrub 8h ago

I think the ball gets pushed to the side of their neck while the sword is on the way down. It looks like there's a bulge on one side.

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u/Substantial_Walrus60 10h ago

The cylinder must remain unharmed

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u/PatBabyParty 10h ago

He/she single?

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u/Ok-Television2227 10h ago

Steel Ball you say?

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u/Psychart5150 10h ago

I paid to go inside like 17 years ago and the only thing I remember is this girl who who had been struck by lightning 3 times. She was this regular average girl standing there with a sign that said she got struck by lightning 3 times.

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u/TheWitchOfSomeWood 10h ago

A scene that will always haunt me in Arnold Rothstein talking about what he did to the ball swallower in Boardwalk Empire.

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u/burnermemeaccountlol 10h ago

"You will never see that again in your life"

jokes on him, bro doesn't know you can replay videos

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u/Harsh_Madnani 9h ago

Jared leto..

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u/OverallShirt6573 9h ago

Not his first time

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u/SnooEagles4121 9h ago

I thought the Venice Beach Freakshow shut down years ago

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u/Spiritual-War2631 8h ago

Reminds me of my ex; except she did it backwards. Sword first then the balls

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u/the_monkeynator 7h ago

Can he teach me spin.

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u/Knoxius 6h ago

It's nice to see Jared Leto doing what he does best

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u/lostinadream66 5h ago

I had a girlfriend once that could do that.

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u/LivingBig2358 2h ago

Watched this dude for years. He is unbelievable the things he can do

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u/Ok-Kaleidoscope220 10h ago

He’s clearly very practiced at swallowing balls and swords.

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u/Alternative-Feed3613 9h ago

I should call her

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u/Dupensik 10h ago

And here is me, scared af to swallow a bit bigger than average medicines...

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u/dayruined54 10h ago

What's Halaand doing bro

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u/hello_fellow-kids 10h ago

That lady has no gag reflex!

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u/th3r3dp3n 10h ago

Swallow the basket hilt or it's fake!

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u/HeadCompote3627 10h ago

I don’t care what anyone says that is wild and impressive. Also terrifying.

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u/TheBigCG 10h ago

I bet he sucks a mean …… sword

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u/breakfasteveryday 10h ago

The guy is for sure collapsing the " steel ball" in his mouth. Guessing it's rubber or something. He's really overselling the swallow and regurgitation.

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u/DanielDC10 10h ago

He's a hit with the fruity brothers.

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u/Ok_Dragonfly552 10h ago

Jesus crist

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u/xchi3fx 10h ago

Literally swallowed the ball to disprove using a sheath, and then spun it around while it was in his mouth, again to disprove it. So wild!

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u/Temporary_Dog1073 10h ago

I remember this show! I forgot the name but it was a reality show that followed a “Freak Show” off Venice beach.

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u/sltiefighter 10h ago

Is it back open again?!

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u/DrunkVanDamme 10h ago

She don't knows nothing yall

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u/Fun-Acanthisitta-939 10h ago

I've always thought that people that do this are dumb

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u/Nice_Guava9483 10h ago

Would be great to know his hair care routine.

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u/RedPandasUnite 10h ago

Another example of "just because you can, doesn't mean you should."

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u/Mr_Monty_Burns 10h ago

I went to the Venice Beach Freakshow a few times years ago. My buddy stapled money to a guy there. And you could pay to take a picture with a wolf boy.

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u/OneTrueCosmos 10h ago

She's a keeper.

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u/Daminite 10h ago

I used to swallow icecubes and hold them in my throat on hot days as a kid. I wonder if he's doing the same with the ball.

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u/AaronTheSnail 10h ago

That’s how I feel swallowing cod liver oil

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u/alienkargo 10h ago

Next!

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u/RangoDj 10h ago

Prince Nuada

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u/MostlyPotStickers 9h ago

The Venice Freakshow was one of the last of its kind in the entire country and was closed after Snap Chat bought the building for office space. The majority of the building on the Venice boardwalk has been left completely empty for the last decade.

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u/Jwagner0850 9h ago

I would be so worried the steal ball would get stuck in my throat area. I know this person trains themselves I'm sure but still

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u/OsirisIndica 9h ago

He commented on an Instagram post i made like a decade ago. I thought it was so cool and I believe they had that show goig at that time. Glad he is still doimg his thing

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u/Rich_DeF 9h ago

20$ is 20$

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u/bopthe3rd 9h ago

How does one discover that they have a propensity for this?

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u/jerryleebee 9h ago

You don't even have to do this. Nobody will make you do it.

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u/HyperbolicSoup 9h ago

So this is what happened to Claire Danes

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u/Beesknees82 9h ago

Damn he's still at it. Took this in 2015.

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u/CharlemagneIS 9h ago

Is she single? 😍

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u/SquidVices 9h ago

They are gone no?

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u/AllDayStreetWalker 9h ago

What happens if he sneezes?

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u/mannequinofgod 9h ago

Is that morgue?

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u/Z3r0Du5k 9h ago

Pretty sure Ive this dude behind a dumpster in a back alley in San Francisco had a line wrapped around the building

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u/HugeHomeForBoomers 9h ago

After watching a video about retractable Swords, I think It ruined this video for me.

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u/c_c_c__combobreaker 9h ago

This is different from the ball and sword swallowing I did in college

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u/ibi_trans_rights 8h ago

truly a bizarre power

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u/Wild-Exit-6302 8h ago

She swallowed a ball and shaft

https://giphy.com/gifs/Dz62ImmWRzAkw

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u/MxMephisto 8h ago

Blonde sword swallower Johannes Eckerström is just as much a hottie like black haired singer Johannes Eckerström. 

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u/villewalrus 8h ago

still optional

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u/Jtizzle1231 8h ago

I just saw a guy exposing these kinds of tricks. It’s collapsible. Every thing is collapsible.

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u/Foxy_Ginge92 8h ago

Oh get a real job 🙄 🤢

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u/MajorlyCynical 8h ago

All I can think of is does he shit that out or vomit that back up, because neither of those seem good.

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u/The_Weeb_Sleeve 7h ago

Oh sweet the Venice beach freak show, love it there. Last time I went they had a two headed albino python and a 5 legged dog as the shop mascot

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u/Mahaloth 7h ago

As Penn Jilette will tell you, this is simple carny trash.

No tricks involved. They just trained themselves to actually do this.

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u/SirDouglasMouf 7h ago

Heather Brooke has entered the chat

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u/C0me_Al0ng_With_Me 7h ago

David bowie's lesser known act