Father-Son “Tandem” Suspension

Third Eye Perception Suspension (ThirdEyePerception.com) just hosted a touching tandem suspension for their good friend Joey, who has been with the team since their “very rocky start”, and who recently become father to a bouncing baby boy… “Bouncing”, literally, loving bobbing up and down in his jumper, so they wanted to set up a suspension for Joey and his son, combining their overlapping loves of suspension. Third Eye tells me,

“We rigged Joey into a modified face down suspension so that he could see his child and hold him while suspending, and everything went as amazing as could be. It was very emotional, and we all enjoyed seeing Joey lecture his little toddler as to not rushing into getting any tattoos or piercings until he was good and ready. Little Ward smiled the entire time and seemed to thoroughly enjoy himself, as you can see from the other photos, he was smiling the entire time and seemed to really enjoy getting some air while attached to his father.”

“The adorable climax was when after detaching Ward from Joey, he fell right asleep with the most adorable smile on his face.”

Joey (and Ward’s mother as well) both have “straight-world jobs” and are completely dedicated parents who “have given the entirety of themselves into making sure Ward is loved and cared for from the moment he wakes up”, but unsurprisingly they still got feedback on this suspension telling them that it was “child abuse” (among other criticisms). The unfortunate reality is that there have been multiple cases where suspension and body modification interests have played a role in causing people to lose their children, usually in the case of things like this being used as ammunition in bitter divorces by one parent against another. It’s sad for there to be any criticism of something like this suspension, beautiful from the conception, to the realization, to the epilogue.

There are more pictures after the break (and I should add that Joey’s scars on his shoulder blades were done by Pineapple of Shaman Modifications in Austin, Texas). If you have the bandwidth, enjoy the video in fullscreen, as it’s been posted at HD quality.

joey-tandem-1

joey-tandem-2

joey-tandem-3

joey-tandem-4

A Moment in Zero Gravity

Christiane and Havve (Wings of Desire/Pain Solution) are in Japan giving workshops and helping spread their expertise as always, and Christiane posted this amazing photo from a suspension demonstration at Vanilla Gallery in Tokyo last night. A beautiful and technically advanced example of the cutting edge rigging they’re known for — I really feel like this captures some space station art moment that should only be possible in the absence of the Earth’s damning gravity.

floating-in-tokyo

So happy together

Me and you and you and me
No matter how they throw the hooks, it has to be
The only one for me is you, and you for me
So happy together

I can’t see me lovin’ nobody but you
For all my life
When you’re with me, baby the skies’ll be blue
For all my life

Here’s Oxi and Supa sharing a moment during their tandem suspension at the Kaptive8 Suspension Krew playground.

Suspension Glory

Following up on the amazing static rigging I posted earlier today, I want to show some more of the amazing work that’s going on in the suspension world — some just stunning technical suspensions have been done at recent SusCons around the world. I want to show you a couple of Lotus suspension variants first. I’m not sure what I should call this — perhaps a “patriotic suspension” because the pose is reminiscent of a WWII bomber art pinup, which I think fits nicely not just with suspensions but with tattoos because it’s a motif that is often seen there. This was done at Suspension MECCA 2012, and the photo is by Rolf Buchholz.

the-patriot

This next lotus variant is more difficult, and also beautifully executed, a double lotus with the bottom one inverted, as if it’s a suspeded reflecting pool or something. The left photo, of the rigging being done, is by Rolf, and the right photo is by Steve Joyner. You can also see the esteemed Havve Fjell (Wings of Desire) doing the rigging in the photo — it’s amazing watching the best minds in suspension get together to create these moments. Now what’s next? Rigging the guy on the bottom traditional lotus style as well, and tossing both of them in a building sized rotisserie? Why the hell not?

lotus-to-inverted-lotus

All that fawning commentary said, I wonder if there is a point where we throw up our hands in a mix of humor and despair and walk out of the room? I mean, can suspensions ever jump the shark? If the asstronaut suspension couldn’t do it (and gosh there’s some fun stuff in that link), how about what Andrii Panchenko calls an “ass duet”, which is just what he’s doing here with his friend, photographed about two years ago.

ass-duet

Well, after 20,000 years or so people hanging from hooks, I figure it’s going to take a lot more than this to knock it out of our genome. I mean look, hang a guy from just one hook, and even the strength of two big guys won’t tear him down it’s so awesome (photo by Rolf Buchholz, Suspension MECCA 2012). Never coming down, never!!!

never-coming-down

Over, Under, Around, and Through

Hello there everybody! Today Supa Grover is going to teach you a whole bunch of things, so you look and listen closely.  Ok?  Here goes.

Around, around, around…  over, and under, and through.

Now, you may be wondering, what the heck does an old Sesame St. sketch have to do with ModBlog?  Well, check out Supa’s latest transformation suspension that he did with Oxi.  To start, Supa and Oxi were rigged up seperately, with her in a 6pt coma, and him in a 6pt superman.

Then Supa moved up and over Oxi, through her rigging, and began to transition her suspension off of her rig plate to a tandem suspension.  You can see above that Supa already had the 6 hooks for the tandem ready before moving into place.  Her hooks were cut down one by one, and quickly reattached to Supa.

Then to finish things off, Oxi detached from Supa so that he could flip himself around.

So what have we learned today?  We learned that with the right people and equipment, almost anything is possible, including a mid-air transition into a tandem suspension.  Over, under, around, and through.

To see the full sequence, be sure to visit the Kaptive8 Suspension Krew Gallery.

Ass to Elbows

When they’re not jumping off of bridges The Sinner Team is hard at work putting together some incredible suspensions.  Take this Ass to Elbow to Lotus tandem suspension.  Ass suspensions on their own are pretty rare, but combine that with an elbow suspension (that’s being used as the tandem point!) and then a lotus, The Sinner Team has really outdone themselves with this one.

Connect Four

4 simple steps to creating a 4-way tandem suspension:

Step 1:  Hook up the top person using 6 Gilson hooks just above his knees, and then another 4 in his torso to hold the rigging plate below him.

Step 2:  Repeat step one

Step 3: Add the last 2 people using a 2 point suicide for both of them, with knee hooks to join them together.

Step 4: Step back and watch the four people enjoy an amazing suspension.

Remember to only attempt something like this in the presence of skilled practitioners and the difficulty level for something like this is astronomical.  One thing to note is that the top person has a secondary harnesses attached as a backup in case of hook or skin failure.

Congratulations to Moscow’s Sinner Team for pulling this off safely.