Getting ready...

About to get pierced. To speed the process up I agreed to get 5 piercings at once, instead of having them inserted individually. So two sets of 5 piercings instead of 10 sets of 1 piercing. Yeah, it hurt, a lot. The pain wasn't spread out, but it was across so much of my body that I couldn't concentrate on one area, so it worked to my advantage.

Breathe in... breathe out... breathe in... breathe out... OUCH!

All set and ready to go now. Six on my back, one on each calf, and one on each thigh. They pierced me with 10ga needles followed by 9ga hooks.

Moved out to get rigged up now. They'll thread the rope through each hook, then adjust the tension.

Before we even started the lift, they checked with me to make sure my left and right sides had equal tension.

I got over it, and started yoyoing .

I soon found out it was really hard to throw the yoyo. I didn't have the full range of motion with my arms that I was acustomed to. My perspective also made it kind of hard to work with.

I started to get the hang of it after a while though

We were in a big karate dojo out in Warren.

Ya-harrrr! Attack of the flying Tom!

While I was up there, another guy did a suicide suspension.

My back, after an hour of being up there.

My legs bled more than my back.

That's gnarly!

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Not really for me, but I'm glad you enjoyed it. What prompted you to mimic a side of beef? (sorry, I had to say it)

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“I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.”

“Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.”

It perked my intrest when I found out about the ritual; both in the academic sense (I'm studying anthropolgy, and tend to concentrate on body modification and culture/subculture/counterculture interaction) and in the "hey... I wonder what that feels like sense". As near as I can tell (there's very little out there on the history) the whole thing dates back to Native American rituals. Of course, they'd probably fast and take peyote too, but that's another matter all together.

I finally moved out in Feb and, feeling more like an adult, decided to do it for my 21st birthday in July. Kind of a rite of passage if you will. Also, I wanted to see if I could actually do it. I wanted to know what it felt like to be up there. For many people, it's a very spiritual experience. To call it lifechanging, for some, wouldn't be inaccurate.

So I started emailing groups about a month back, and got a reply that this group, based out of ohio, would be in town at the end of march. I signed up and the rest is history

Honestly, I really liked the whole experience. Don't get me wrong, it hurt. A Lot. I didn't like that. But it wasn't about the pain, it was about the act of transcending the pain, of going "yeah, this hurts, but I'm still going to do it". The entire time I was up there it hurt, but after a short time, I was able to push it all to the back of my mind.

To me, it's kind of an ultimate act of discovering who you are. After I went through with it, I was like. "Woah, I did that. I did that". Everything else seems so small in comparison now. I know I can accomplish amazing things. How can you know who you really are without testing your limits? You do it all the time, in school, in sports, in everything you compete in. There's no reason why I should limit my experiences to the normal range when there's so much more out there.

Would I do it again? Yeah. Not a superman style though. I'd probably do an angel suspension (two vertical hooks (Left and Right) on the top of the back, then 3 sets of angled hooks below those. The ropes form "angle wings" when you look at it).

I should also mention that I "fasted" for a 4.5-5 days or so up until the susupension. The first two days I only had a few pieces of fruit, some beans + rice, and a chai-tea shake-thing (chock full of vitamins and nutrients) to eat. After that I stopped eating entirely, save for the chai-tea thing. That was more difficult than the suspension itself. At first I started doing it because it was part of the old tradition (and any weight I could drop quick couldn't hurt). After the second day though, it became a test of my self-discipline. I didn't physically feel the pain of not eating anymore, but I really, really missed it. With the suspension I only had to wait and it would be done to me. Granted, there's a whole lot of stuff going on mentally during all that... but it wasn't like the fasting where I thought about food 24 hours a day.

But yeah, I'd do it all again. By no means it is something I'd recommend for everybody. There's no numbing or anything, you take the pain as it is. It wouldn't be a rite of passage otherwise. On another note, oddly enough, I didn't get an adrenaline rush at all. After my heart stopped racing from my nervousness I was very calm about the whole thing. The endorphin rush afterwards though... well, suffice to say that was a lot of fun :-D

Xan~ $100. Thanks for the offer though ;D

I'm thinking about getting decapitated with a rusty hatchet.

Eh, perhaps not...I couldn't do the fasting portion.

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“I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.”

“Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.”

And you sure got old(er) fast!
Soon you'll be telling kids to get of your.. you know.. lawn!

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