She used to get hurled into cars and shipping containers, but the biggest impact Michelle Smith makes these days is when she’s teaching freestyle staff spinning.

Staff spinning is the twirling, throwing, catching and otherwise manipulation of a four-foot staff known in martial arts as the Jo. It is a technique that movie-goers will recognize.

“Black Panther had some pretty bad-ass staff skills in it. If there’s an action movie and the hero has a stick, that’s where you’re going to see those skills,” Smith said.

Last week, Smith was at Dancer’s Edge in Lacombe, teaching them to kids during the studio’s stunt camp.

Before, she was a Red Deer-born baton twirler who took her acrobatic talents to the circus, then to film sets in Vancouver as a stunt double. Her filmography includes work in T.V. shows on the CW Network like Smallville, Arrow as well as movies like Percy Jackson.

Most notably, Smith was a stunt double for Gina Carano as Angel Dust in the movie Deadpool.

Her stunts were mostly wire gags. She’d be hooked up to a line, flung and slammed into things.

“Every time (Carano’s) getting thrown into a Sea Can or a car, that was all the stuff that I did. She wanted to do it but liability wise, the actor’s not allowed to do a lot,” Smith said.

A common question that Smith gets is, what’s the craziest thing she’s ever done on set.

She shares a story from the T.V. show, Continuum, where all she had to do was take a “tumble down the hill.”

Except, the hill was the side of a mountain. Her job: jump, tackle the stunt man, pull him down the hill, land on his right side, get up and shoot him with a gun.

“All I could see was across the ravine, the ambulance they had ready for us just in case. And there’s the paramedic with his stretcher ready to go. I’m trying to find something else to look at,” she said.

Smith makes light of the situation but the job came with serious risks. Last year, a stunt driver died on the set of Deadpool 2.

“We prioritize the work over our health and our safety. There’s a lot of prestige that comes with working in the film industry,” she said. “There’s a lot of ego around it. When you get trapped in that, it’s easy to forget that we all have lives to live.”

She said performers once felt unsafe to voice their concerns for fear of losing work but also that the industry is changing. Smith said the younger generation of filmmakers realize that they can get more out of their talent by keeping them safe.

Culture change looks like putting mats on the floor if the ground’s not in frame, or double checking to see that a rig is set up properly and if needed, axing a stunt altogether.

As Smith’s in her mid-30s, she said it’s taking longer to recover physically. Coaching staff spinning, movement, and incorporating it into fight choreography is the progression of a career the body can only endure for so long.

“To be in stunts, you have to be tough. You have to have quite a high pain tolerance because when you hit the ground, regardless if you have pads on, it still hurts. And you gotta get up, you gotta do it again. Do it again, doesn’t matter how much you’re hurting,” she said.

“I’m trying to make staff spinning something that’s cool and modern and something people want to do. The great thing is, people do want to do it. My classes are full all the time.”