Summer Suspension School

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Note – There is an error in the banner above – The suspension school is actually taking place on Saturday June 30th!

Big News! To coincide with upcoming BME Toronto events: BMEfest 2007 and MODPROM 2, BME will also be hosting a small private suspension seminar class for body art professionals only. The class will be led and taught by Allen Falkner (suspension.org/TSD) and assisted by some of the most well trained professional suspension practitioners in the world. Confirmed teaching assistants are Emrys Yetz, Jill Allen, Jon Pett and Jason Shaw with possibly more to be announced.

The Suspension school seminar is a rare opportunity for piercers to further raise their skill level and become a strong and active part of almost any suspension team/event. Due to the nature of the class and that we only have one day to present the seminar, emphasis will be placed on safety as well as the practical discipline and mechanical practice behind how body suspension works as well as an important lecture on the history of modern body suspension.

This is an intermediate/advanced level course, so it’s primarily intended for piercers and people who already have a solid and practical understanding of skin, contamination control, and so on (no suspension-specific experience is needed) but you must already be able to demonstrate a professional understanding of bloodborne pathogens and the principles of infection control.

To ensure that everyone has a complete hands on experience the classes will be kept small, only 15 student spots are available. There is a charge to attend the seminar (approximately $200 CAD) to cover expenses such as supplies, space rental and flying up the instructors!

There will be a few scholarship spots available to apply for as well so don’t worry if you don’t have any money*.

If you’d like to come to learn, please sign the RSVP on the events page and we will contact you as soon as registration opens up. The class will also require a few suspension “test subjects” for the students to work on, if you would like to apply for this please email me** and I will reply with an application form, however there are no guarantees you will be selected.

And finally let’s all remember that “Rome Was Not Built In A Day” and as professionals you did not learn to pierce overnight. It is our goal with this seminar to educate and empower you as body art professionals. This class will not certify anyone to be a solo suspension practitioner but more a very strong addition to any professional suspension team where you will then gain further experience and confidence in your practice.

We are actively looking for sponsors for the event – if you have something you can offer please contact me for our wish list.

If you have any questions please email me at [email protected].

*Scholarship application requests may be forwarded to [email protected] with the email title “Scholarship application request”. You will then be sent the application to fill out and send back to me by June 1, 2007, no later!

**Student test subjects or guinea pig application requests can also be emailed to [email protected] with the subject tittle “Student test subject”.

Broad geography cartilage excision

This looks amazing (procedure by the always border-smashing Howie aka LunaCobra), but I had two concerns about these photos. First, that enough structural damage has been done by cutting broadly across the anti-helix (ie. where you’d place a rook), that it wouldn’t take a lot for the ear to collapse — Howie emphasizes that he’s done a large number of these removals and that this person’s ear was robust and strong enough to heal successfully.

My other concern was that with a removal of this sort that crosses several very easy to penetrate (by bacteria) cartilage folds that by wearing the industrial bar across it during healing that there is a fairly high chance of post-procedural infection.

That said, if you want this particular hole, it’s not like there’s really a better way to do it! Some things simply involve risk, and you either accept them or you don’t do it… In any case, other than accidentally dropping a heavy weight on his ear three days into the healing (yowch!), he’s healing well.

Dizzy – The Egg Suspension

Bastian sent in this video of Zera‘s knee suspension..

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DivX download link for BME members: Extreme2 or Full members

Note – We’ve finally decided how to handle the videos on ModBlog. The Flash movie above can be viewed by anyone for free, but if you’d like to download the higher quality DivX version you’ll need a BME membership (free or paid, full or extreme2) to do so.

BME Newsfeed for May 9, 2007

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