Above the rest: Body suspension

By Whitney Waters

At a party in 2002, Zak Crouch made a split-second decision that allowed him to elevate above all others that night.

Crouch signed a waiver that would prevent him from taking legal action against the people who would guide him through this experience, and within an hour, Crouch was hanging by hooks from the skin of his back.

For five minutes, Crouch’s friends, and his mentors, Holly Durkin and Donnie Keiser, clapped and cheered as he suspended five feet in the air while streams of blood raced down his back.

Crouch, who is the head piercer at Bleed Blue Tattoo & Piercing in Lexington, said despite this first suspension being a blur, it was still exciting and he mainly just enjoyed the fact that he was suspended.

“It was something I’d never done before, something I didn’t know I could do,” Crouch said. “It hurt, but that was part of the fun.”

The party Crouch attended that night in Cincinnati was a body suspension party.

According to suspension.org, the act of suspension is hanging the human body from, or partially from, hooks pierced through the flesh in various places around the body.

Crouch said six hooks were inserted with a piercing needle through his upper back. He said the hooks are usually deep sea fishing hooks without barb, and they usually are eight- to six-gauge hooks, which are usually three to five millimeters thick.

One hook placed properly on the body and through the skin can hold up to 300 pounds, and each additional hook also used can hold up to 300 pounds, Crouch said. The limits to body suspension depend on each individual.

“A lot of the limits depend on how much pain you can take,” Crouch said. “I’ve seen suspensions where one person is suspending from his own set of hooks, then another person suspending from him, then another person suspending from that guy, and then on down.”

Crouch said after suspending, in the area where the hooks pierced his skin, his muscles were tense, but, overall, he was enveloped with a relaxing sensation.

“I was a little wobbly afterwards, but its very possible that could have just been from nerve crash,” he said. “I was just very relaxed, and I just wanted to sit down and chill out. But the area that hooks were put in is just like any other piercing, you’re sore and you’re tense there.”

Along with their backs, people can suspend from various other places on their bodies. Crouch said the most common areas beside the back are the stomach and chest, and hooks can be placed so that people are allowed to sit in an “Indian-style position” while in the air.

To allow someone to suspend, Crouch said the hooks are tied to a metal brace that is designed to allow someone to tie off the hook. The brace is then attached to a block-and-tackle pulley system, which is attached to the ceiling. A rope runs from the brace holding the hooks through the pulley system to a person off on the side who uses the rope to raise or lower a person off the ground.

“It’s essentially the same system for lifting an engine out of a car, just with cleaner materials,” Crouch said.

The time that people can suspend also varies, ranging anywhere from a few seconds to an hour, he said.

“When you are up there, you are in control. Whatever you say to the people holding the rope goes. Whenever you can’t take hanging anymore, that’s when you come down,” Crouch said. “I’ve seen people barely get their toes off the ground and want to come back down.”

Crouch said he has suspended three times, and that this is mainly because there aren’t many permanent places to suspend in Kentucky. He said there are multiple reasons why suspension groups have not emerged within the state.

“Kentucky, in the terms of the body modification world, is kind of backwards and behind the time,” he said. “Another part of that is that the community isn’t here. There aren’t enough people interested to warrant having a suspension group in Kentucky. I love working in Kentucky, and I love piercing in Kentucky, but it’s backwards as far as the body modification scene goes.”

Crouch said a lot of this hesitation in Kentucky comes from people not knowing the finer points of body modification and suspension.

“A lot of people here think it’s just sticking a hole in people,” he said. “Body modification is human improvement. When you wake up in the morning and you look in the mirror and something doesn’t seem right, you go out and you get a tattoo, or a piercing or get something stretched. It’s about taking control of your body on a level that no other animal, no other creature on this Earth can do.”