When it comes to suspension hooks, gilson hooks are known for being pretty damn tough.  Of course if you put one in front of Supa and tell him it’s a strong hook the first thing he’ll say is “challenge accepted!”  So with the help of his Kaptive8 Suspension Krew family, Supa went balls to the wall and did everything he could to break one.

Here’s how the hook looked when Supa was finally finished with it.

What’s important to note here is that 99.9% of suspensions won’t actually involve the amount of stress that Supa put on the hook here.  You can also see that even with Supa trying for a hook failure, he was only able to bend it, not break it.  You can see more of Supa’s efforts to break the gilson in the Kaptive8 Suspension Krew gallery.

Single point suspensions are inherently risky.  The risk factor increases when performing a single point nape suspension.  Simply due to its location, any error could result in permanent injury, so please don’t attempt this unless supervised by trained professionals.

This was sent in by Piercing Pete from The Hanged Man Suspension Team.

When it comes to modifications, there is always an element of risk involved.  Obviously with some there is more risk than others.  Piercings can reject, tattoos can fallout, scars can get infected, the list goes on.  These of course are all “what ifs”, but the potential for problems are present with every one.  When it comes to the world of suspensions, the risks are higher, but the rewards can be greater.  With people pushing the limits of suspensions all over the world, it’s important to remember to be safe.  There are a number of resources and organizations dedicated to promoting safe practices when it comes to all types of suspensions.

Now with that all said, there are times when things may be set up safely, but if the suspension is inherently a risky one the potential for something to go wrong is still heightened.  Heck, even when everything is set up perfectly for a suspension that would be considered “easy” by practitioners, that doesn’t mean the element of danger isn’t present and things should be monitored closely.

In the following pictures you’ll see The J-3-D performing one of the riskiest suspensions, the single point elbow suspension.  I’ve gotten in touch with members of the suspension community that assured me that while everything is good with the rigging, this type of suspension is extremely dangerous to do, and should not be attempted unless there are a number of experts present.  So have a look at these images to see exactly why this suspension is so risky.

The rest of the images you can see by clicking the “read more” button.

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