ihung.org

Something that’s been discussed for at least a decade in the suspension community at large is some sort of umbrella organization. Ideas have ranged from a dues paying union to a non-profit org to a hierarchical group with skills tests and levels. Nothing has really come of any of this talk except for a lot of ideas, until recently that is!

It started on some forums on facebook, then spread to some private forums, some collaborative google docs, and a lot of email. The major outing of this was just before the APP Conference in Vegas this year, when Allen publicly invited practitioners and other interested parties to a crack of dawn meeting one day at Conference. Nothing much is set in stone, other than the name, at this point as it’s in it’s infancy. Here’s the video from that meeting, which will fill you in on the (minimal) details:

Thanks to the working group for getting this ball rolling and you can be damn certain that ihung will be as involved in the creation of this entity as we possibly can, and if you want to be involved or give input, send an email to ISA@suspension.org

My housemate was watching a show on Netflix called Medicine Men Go Wild when I happened into the room for Season 1 Episode 2: World of Pain. The episode involves the two brothers (apparently doctors) traveling around Asia interacting with people who are undergoing immense amounts of pain (by Western standards), such as broken ribs, an infected and removed fingernail, Thaipusam, and Indian flesh suspensions! Obviously, the latter two were of interest to me. The doctors are quite down to Earth dudes who really become involved in their research, going so far as to receive cheek skewers at Thaipusam and one of them takes a hook in his back from some “rationalists” in Bangalore. The rationalists evidently travel around and perform what we’d call ball dances and vertical back suspensions while not entranced or meditating, in order to show others that there is nothing mystical about these acts of pain.

I couldn’t find the suspensions anywhere online to link to but I did find a short clip of one of the brothers receiving the hook in his back.

Note that I “get” what the rationalists’ message is, but I can’t help but feel that there is something more to suspensions than just the physical, but that’s more of a face to face conversation.

I want to take a quick moment to point everyone to a post over on suspension.org about a member of our community, Stanislav from the Sinner Team. He was injured BASE jumping to assist a suspendee in a free-fall suspension. So, hit up http://www.suspension.org/hooklife/base-jumping-accident/ to read the full details, and then send some cash via paypal to thesinnerteam@gmail.com to help cover his hospital bills.