For more information on suspension visit – http://www.suspension.org/

Much of the content you see here on Hook Life comes from within our community.  Whether it’s a personal experience or a piece written about another suspension, these blogs  are generally written by someone involved in our world.  However, today’s post is a bit different.  Dr. Dominik Muench of Blacksun Productions submitted a beautiful film documenting WayLay Suspension Force and was kind enough to give his perspective as a self described bystander:

[Filming] was pretty amazing and a bit overwhelming. I’ve got a few piercings and about 80 hours of tattoo work on my body so I’m not completely new to body modification, but this was a whole new level. We picked a nice quiet spot by the river in the middle of the rain forest, set up all the gear and then the girls got their hooks put in. I was surprised how calm and easy the girls took it, considering how big the hooks were and how deep they had to go in. Even just as a bystander I thought it was a pretty amazing experience because its not something a lot of people get to see and I’d assume most people would have a pretty wrong image of what actually transpires. There was no blood, the girls didn’t even flinch and when they finally got suspended they seemed almost ecstatic and overcome with joy. It was really amazing to watch.

Dr. Dominik Muench is an ACS award-winning cinematographer & glamour photographer who has worked extensively throughout Europe, Australia, Thailand, Indonesia and India. Accredited with a Doctor in Creative Arts on Digital Camera Technology, Bachelor and Masters degrees in Film & Television from Bond University, Gold Coast, where he also tutors photography students, Dominik offers a vast array of services.

These days it seems that a new suspension video seems to appear almost daily.  Sadly, most of them are low quality cell phone videos often held vertically with little to no editing.  However, every once in a while a little gem will appear.  On Tender Hooks is a prime example.  Big budget?  Large crew?  No.  This film was shot, edited and produced by one person using a Canon 600D and a 13-inch MacBook Pro on a budget of £500. ($800)  Although the piece focuses on suspension, it delves deeper giving an inside look at both personal relationships and the director’s own journey into suspending for the first time.

On Tender Hooks – Teaser Trailer from Kate Shenton on Vimeo.

The film is not yet available for purchase or download.  For more information on where the film will be screening please visit the main website – http://www.on-tender-hooks.com – After the break a a quick clip of Kate’s first suspension.

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Dave Navarro is becoming a regular guest here on Hook Life as he continues documenting his personal experiences with body suspension. In his latest outing, he and Steve Truitt performed a suspension on the balcony of the Hotel Chelsea, which has long been rumored to be haunted. For those of you who don’t know the history of the location, feel free to check out a bit more about it here. But first, here is what Dave had to say about his suspension there:

Steve Truitt and I stepped onto the balcony at 4:30 AM in an attempt to avoid any attention. He had set up the rigging earlier in the evening and all we had to do was throw the hooks in my back and get me up. Out in the morning cold, days after Sandy swept through, there was a calm stillness about the city and in the hotel itself. The place is supposed to be haunted by many of the spirits of past tenants. I consider myself an open minded skeptic, yet I swear I could feel them. So it was me, Steve, a few friends and possibly others we weren’t directly aware of. Steve threw his hooks and we got up.

Of course I have had many times at this hotel in the past. Jane’s used to stay there and I have spent countless nights in different rooms throughout the years with an assortment of friends. Some nights I recall more than others, but they were all good. Sex, drugs, music, and blood letting were common occurrences, regardless of who I would visit. One can’t even begin to imagine the levels of inspirational and sometimes destructive energies that residually dwell within this sacred building… Shrine… Temple. Just about anyone who has spent any time at The Chelsea could write an encyclopedia worth of stories. Naturally, this place just felt right.

I don’t know if it was the company, the height, the cold, the hour, the history, the ghosts, or a combination of all of these things, but this night was my best experience with suspension so far.

This post was shared with us from Dave’s website. Be sure to stop in there as well to keep up with what else he has going on.

In a previous post, we took a look at Dave Navarro’s first suspension. Each person’s experience with suspension is so unique, and even with talking to them about it, it’s impossible to capture the personal nature of what it was for them unless it comes in their own words. Luckily, Dave has recently taken a moment to write on his website about the long journey that brought him to finally take the leap to try it, and is letting us steal the post to feature on here as well:

I first became aware of suspension in the early 90s. There was a bookstore in Silverlake called Amok Books and one of their bigger selling titles was a RE Search book called Modern Primitives that was published in 1989. This is where I learned about Fakir Musafar. (He has experimented on his own body with body modification techniques such as body piercing, tightlacing, scarification, tattooing, and suspension, and has documented, shared and taught others as part of his life’s work making him an underground icon in BDSM, kink and fetish communities. – Wikipedia) I was instantly intrigued by Fakir and his practices. I read as much as I could find on Fakir and quickly found myself at different happenings in Los Angeles. Art shows, both visual and performance, conventions, odd book store openings, fetish community gatherings… Whatever I could find. It was at this time I learned of Ron Athey and had the opportunity to meet him at one of his performances. (Athey’s work explores challenging subjects like the relationships between desire, sexuality, and traumatic experience. Many of his works include aspects of S&M in order to confront pre-conceived ideas about the body in relation to masculinity and religious iconography. – Wikipedia) These guys were both inspiring and fascinating to me through their penchant for performance and seemingly super human powers.

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This was written and sent in by Jussi, telling us about the suspensions they did in Iceland recently. The photo are fantastic, and who better to describe the experience than someone who was there firsthand. Thank you Jussi!

On September 2012 me and Sakari from the Finnish Supersankari Suspension team flew to Iceland to attend the Reykjavik Tattoo Expo. We also had brought some suspension gear with us. The plan was to perform a little guerrilla suspension somewhere near Reykjavik.

On Sunday 16th we went to search for a point to suspend from in Þingvellir National Park. A local tattooist had mentioned that there is definitely a place where we could perform the suspension there. After searching for an hour we had nothing, and the idea was to take some photos of this beautiful waterfall in Almannagjá canyon before heading back to the city. Right next to the waterfall I noticed a spot that could be used for suspension, and rock formations at this place made it easy for the rigging. The problem was that it was a very touristic place, so we had to wake up early the next morning.

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From Eden Thomson of Skindependent Suspension:

There is something very special when people experience their first suspension. I think a lot of it has to do with the satisfaction and sense ofaccomplishment gained when you let yourself go and your feet leave the ground for the first time. Seeing this on people’s faces is one of the most rewarding things about suspension for me as a practitioner. At our most recent Sunday Sessions, we had the pleasure of suspending Chelsea in a 4pt suicide for her first time. Below is what she had to say about her experience:

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Often when we see a celebrity doing anything that is out of the norm or that might be somewhat shocking to the general public, it is easy to assume that it is simply a stunt to gain a little attention or a moment in the spotlight. I suppose it is a good lesson about making assumptions when we get a reminder that, although in the public eye, these are people with the same desires and feelings that we all have. For Dave Navarro, who recently performed his first suspension with Steve Truitt and Chris Glunt, the interest in learning more about suspension has been with him since first flipping through the pages of magazines and books which featured images such as Fakir Musafar‘s famous chest suspension photographs. It is a start into the world of body suspension that many of us are very familiar with, and it eventually led to him crossing paths with Steve at a performance they were both booked for. The suspensions Steve put on obviously had quite an impact and further fueled Dave’s interest in it; he later brought them on board to work with Jane’s Addiction as part of the live performance. Through this time together, Dave was able to begin asking questions about suspending, and later made the decision to try it himself. With their friendship and history of working together, I am sure the question of who to have put him in the air for the first time was an easy one. In this video by Todd Newman, and the accompanying photos by Ashes Wednesday, we get to see Dave go through a process we are all pretty familiar with as he moves from nervousness to happiness and everything between.

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The trees swing slowly, while some fifty people move around them in a busy and joyful mood. I came from Italy to Croatia, not a big deal of a trip, but nationalities are many here: Norway, England, Serbia, Slovenia, Netherlands and Germany.

Somebody is setting up kitchen service, somebody is literally tying up trees in climbing ropes and other sturdy and reliable high altitude equipment; all the other people are softly enjoying the lovely weather, lying on the grass. The gentle sound of the breeze is broken by jokes and laughs in an ever changing English, painted in so many different accents.

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Often when I come across photos of people suspending that I would like to feature on Hook Life, it involves hunting down the photographer, the suspension team, the suspendee, or all three. Along with that comes getting permission to use their photos, as well as asking question after question to get all the details I need to write about the who, what, and why that needs to go with the photos. Well, luckily for me Russ Foxx was nice enough to make my job easy by not only putting me in touch with Kelsi Jane, the stunning young lady he suspended for these photos, but also sending me the experience written in her own words. I always hate to ‘warn’ people that photos contain nudity, because I personally don’t think that it’s a bad thing, but for those of you browsing through Hook Life at work, this is your notice that the photos feature a beautiful suspension that was performed nude.

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We rarely get the opportunity to post experiences on here, but sometimes it’s nice to have a reminder of the impact we have on the lives of those that we suspend. I think it also sheds some light for those who haven’t been through the experience of body suspension to see what it is we get from this amazing practice. Thank you so much to the Skindependent Suspension team for sending this in and to Jessica Webb for this beautifully written account of her suspension with them. I’m so glad you took so many positive things away from this suspension. It looks and sounds like you had an incredibly time. And now, without further ado, here is her 8 point angel suspension captured in her own words.

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