THE EDGE

Sword Swallowing

The thought of sliding a sword down your throat, past your esophagus, is enough to make most people hurl. Rachael Williams — a.k.a Frankie Stiletto — felt the same way. That’s why she pushed herself to do it.

“I used to be afraid of everything,” she says. “I have a long history of anxiety of all sorts.”

Stiletto has made her career out of defying her fears. When she was tired of feeling claustrophobic, she learned how to escape a straight jacket.

“What kind of drives me is where oh, I’m scared of this thing, now I have to do it. It’s like a very quirky form of exposure therapy.”

So when the East Dallas resident was befriended by a sword swallower with more than 20 years experience, she knew something else she wanted to check off her bucket list.

The sword swallower lived in another state, so he ended up teaching her over the phone. Something she doesn’t recommend.

“I didn’t even ever meet him until last winter. It was really crazy going, ‘Nice to meet you. Thank you for teaching me how to swallow a sword over the phone.’ ”

Teaching yourself to swallow a sword is all about body awareness, she says. Stiletto taught herself a variety of breathing techniques before even touching a sword.

Muscle memory and body awareness has helped her in the past as well. Stiletto is just three years removed from a traumatic brain injury. The then pre-med student suffered from memory problems and vertigo. She also experienced seizures brought on by certain lighting.

Stiletto started experimenting with muscle memory by juggling, and it improved her cognitive abilities.

After that she was hooked. When she finally did pick up her long, slender blade, she took a slow and steady approach, which seems like common sense, but isn’t always the approach early sword swallowers take.

“I’ve never gotten sick or hurt sword swallowing. A lot of people I know who also do sword swallowing have had a perforated esophagus,” she says. “People get hurt and die all the time. As much as I am a daredevil, you don’t want this big public stunt to be something you can only do one time.”

Stiletto learned how to sword swallow two years ago. She’s one of around 25 female performers in the world who can swallow a sword. Since learning her new skill, she’s performed just about anywhere she can, including circuses, stage shows and even sidewalks.

In April Stiletto made a name for herself by getting into the Guinness Book of World Records. She holds the record for fastest straitjacket escape while sword swallowing. She completed the feat in 47.925 seconds. While completing the task in that short amount of time is impressive, Stiletto also had to train someone to stick a real sword down her throat.

“That takes a level of trust I never thought I would have in my entire life,” she says.

Since then she’s been touring the country and performing on the street whenever she can. She wants to continue at least through October.

Performing on the street is a much tougher environment, she says, than performing on a stage.

“[A stage show has] an established audience. Most people don’t go in and buy tickets and hope that you fail. The street is very different,” she says. “To draw a crowd, to get the first people in a crowd is always a bit of a challenge. But it becomes second nature after a while. The unfortunate truth is in general, most people, they equate street performers with homeless.”

Because of that, many people walk past you trying to not make eye contact, like you’re handing out pamphlets at a mall kiosk.

But street performance shouldn’t be associated with homelessness, Stiletto says.

“It is a very valid way of making a living. I’ve been doing just performance for a year now. Unfortunately people tend to look down on it. That’s the hard part. Even though people want to see. They want to see what’s going to happen when I swallow a sword. That’s why sideshow exists.”

During her tour of the country, Stiletto found an area where street performance is embraced.

The Sunset Celebration in Key West, Fla. is a nightly arts festival at the Mallory Square Dock. The festival features a little bit of everything and brings in thousands of tourists every year.

An official nonprofit was established for the festival in the 1980s, but

Stiletto says the festival is decades old at this point, and the street performers they attract are some of the best in the world.

Which can be intimidating for someone with just two years of sword swallowing experience. Which is why she went. “If you can perform at Mallory Square, you can perform anywhere.”

“They have regulars who have been busking [street performing] there for decades,” she says. “It’s very up close and personal, and if you’re not loud and you don’t stand out you will get passed by.”

Being passed by might have been something that worried Stiletto, or gave her anxiety in her former life. Not anymore.

“A lot of people feel more comfortable when they define themselves with fears. I basically do that, just in a completely different approach.”

Lucha Libre

As a masked wrestler dons his costume he sheds his real identity.

Aski the Mayan Wrestler is a champion of the ring who has held the “Light Heavyweight” title on three separate occasions and a tag-team title twice with the Mexican-Entertainment Wrestling Promotion. When the mask is on, he becomes someone different. Not a guy with a day job. He’s a superstar with a secret identity, and he wants to keep it that way.

Aski started wrestling in high school. He grew up in East Dallas and attended North Dallas High School.

“When I was growing up, there wasn’t a lot of options for somebody in the neighborhood I came from,” he says. “I’ve always been a sports guy, so it’s kind of an outlet, per se.”

Luckily for Aski, he received some good exposure in his early days. He went pro in 2003 when the MEWP offered him his first wrestling contract.

That’s when he started wearing the mask of a luchador.

“I met a few local wrestlers here in town and I started training with them. More and more I started getting acclimated with the Mexican style of wrestling.”

Where American wrestling focuses more on drama — like the backstory behind matches, heel turns and broken alliances — the Mexican style is all about watching freestyle performers sharing the stage.

Born in Mexico and raised there until he was 8, Aski is proud to continue the cultural tradition.

“For me, my heritage is Mexican … Wrestling has always been in my culture,” he says. So when it was time to create his new persona and make his mask, Aski took it seriously.

“The mask is part of the culture. It's a symbol. When you talk about Mexican wrestling, it’s a sacred symbol.”

He and his friend started making mask designs for Aski the Mayan Warrior. Aski wanted his mask to pay homage to his home.

“I definitely wanted to keep true to my roots, to my heritage. I wanted to pay tribute to where I came from. It was dominated by the Mayans and the Aztecs back in those days. It’s more of an homage to my culture back then.

“Back in those ancient times they were known for the way they drew paint around their face.” Aski says he knew the mask had to have that same design. A warrior’s design. Even his name is pulled from his cultural past. In the Otomic dialect, “Aski” means friend. A name he chose because he wants to be known as a friend to all his fans, he says.

Aski wrestled full time for the better part of a decade. He won multiple titles and was able to work with people such as former W.W.E. Superstar Rodney “Redd Dogg” Mack, Jazz; Texas wrestling legend Tim “Killer” Brooks; Dallas Mexican Luchador Mac Reyes; and Dragon Oriental.

He still slips on his mask from time to time, but that’s more for fun than anything else.

“I always said once this stops being fun and I don’t love wrestling then there’s no reason for me to continue,” he says.

So Aski has slowed down a little. At least when it comes jumping off the top rope. This year he started filming his first movie, called “Azteq vs. the Lonely Woods Prowler,” an action movie based on a graphic novel of the same name. For legal reasons, Aski says, they couldn’t get the rights to the name Aski, but the titular Azteq is based on him.

In the movie, the masked luchador protagonist and a local police homicide detective, Chris Longley, head to Fort Lake when the wrestler’s ex-girlfriend is reported missing, and the action picks up from there.

Since the filming of the slasher movie, Aski has been hitting the gym to get into “movie shape,” he jokes. “It’s my very first movie that I’ve been a part of. So far, it’s a lot of fun.”

Aski still finds time for a few matches at the Gaston Bazaar on Buckner. In the last few years, the bazaar has emerged as East Dallas’ premier location to see real luchadors. Aski is one of the bazaar’s founders.

“We just got lucky with finding this place,” he says. “Whenever I’m not on the road traveling all over the state or in Mexico, whenever I’ve got some down time and here locally, that’s the only place I’ll wrestle.”

It’s about being loyal, Aski says. And that’s something a técnico luchador has to be.

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DERBY GIRL

Holly Stevens is tougher than you.

In June, Stevens broke her hand during the second of four roller derby games at the Midwest Derby Fest. She played through the pain, completing the tournament and propelling her team to first place. She was named defensive MVP.

“The hand is pretty decimated,” she said the following week, a few hours before seeing a hand surgeon to have metal pins placed in her hand.

“It got a little gnarly in there.”

Stevens goes by Greta X in the roller rink. She took the name from an Adam Ant song about a cross dresser. “I got ‘sir’ a lot when I moved to Texas,” she says.

She’s been a roller girl for six years, which is a pretty long roller derby career, especially for a woman in her 40s.

Stevens says the game gets pretty physical, which can lead to shorter careers.

“I’ve had broken and separated ribs and broken fingers,” she says while rattling off a list of injuries. This is the third time she’s injured her left hand, the second time she’s broken bones in her hand, and she’s also broken her wrist.

Injuries aren’t the only thing that will cut a derby career short. “There are also people leaving with what we call ‘ninemonth injuries.’ “

But, once you’re addicted to the derby, you have a hard time leaving.

Stevens got hooked when she was just a child growing up in the suburbs of Chicago. Her father was a police officer, and on the weekends his shift would end in the early morning when most children already had been asleep for hours.

Stevens, then 8, would stay up and wait for her father to come home so they could watch one of the only things broadcast at the time.

“We’d always watch roller derby,” she says. “No joke. I’m talking 1 a.m. I would be screaming at the roller derby on televi- sion with my dad.”

As an adult Stevens’ husband encouraged her to try out for a roller derby team while they were living in Detroit, but she never did until the couple made the move to Texas and her friend said she was joining a team.

Stevens joined Assassination City Roller Derby, and she fell in love with the game and her teammates.

“I am so supported by the tribe that’s there. I love the people who are part of derby.”

Today Stevens is co-captain of Assassination’s all-star team, Conspiracy, where she’s a blocker.

It’s her job, she explains, to stop the other team from scoring points. In roller derby, points are scored when the jammer passes opposing team members. Stevens forms walls with the other blockers to jam up the other team’s jammer.

Forming a wall isn’t as easy as it sounds. The team practices regularly and Stevens does cross training individually for five to 10 hours a week. She’s also a trainer for the derby.

It’s hard to imagine having time for much else, but Stevens also teaches art history and welding and is an archivist.

“I’m pretty busy,” she jokes.

Despite all that, Stevens remains dedicated to the derby. She’s even found something to be excited about when it comes to her injury.

“This is the first time I’ll be bionic,” she says. Bionic is the term used for players with metal holding them together.

There is even a team at RollerCon — a worldwide roller derby convention held every year in Colorado — made up of only bionic players.

“I’ve seen team bionic play the non-brokens,” which is a team without bionic players, Stevens says. “I think the non-brokens have a lot harder time filling their team.”