Class follow-up: Tying & Flying: Self-Suspension
This material accompanies Shay’s Tying & Flying class, and is not intended as stand-alone material.
Begin with intention—why self-suspend (or self-tie in general)?
Safety
Do not ever self-suspend alone—have a spotter!
Communicate expectations with your spotter before you begin. This form can be a good starting place!
Have an appropriate cutting tool within reach.
Nerve damage is a significant risk to be aware of for bondage in general and suspension in particular.
Self-suspension tends to be dynamic and involves lower-risk ties (for example, a hip harness versus a TK) with a shorter duration. However, your body awareness may be altered. You may get stuck in a position for longer than intended or strain yourself trying to self-rescue.
Learn to identify different kinds of nerve pain: numbness, burning, sharp, cold, tingling.
Upline attachment
“Always be more than one fuckup away from disaster.” —Topologist
Upline tie-offs:
There are many different and perfectly valid upline techniques.
There is a trade-off between speed and security. Generally, speedier tie-offs (like quick-release techniques) are less secure, and very secure tie-offs take more time to tie and untie.
Are you more concerned with falling or getting stuck?
Other factors include aesthetics, how soon you want to adjust the upline, whether it’s a primary or secondary line, and the risk of rope jams.
Body awareness
Be aware of health issues and warning signs—see bondagesafety.com
Ask your doctor if you have any questions or concerns.
Pain is entirely mediated by the brain and is your body’s somewhat paranoid guess about how much danger you are in.
Distinguishing between warning signs of damage and intense but not harmful sensations is a crucial skill for being in rope. This skill takes time to develop and can vary widely between individuals and within the same person across different times and situations.
Cumulative damage also plays a role in many injuries.
Cultivate mindfulness and monitor your body on an ongoing basis.
Err on the side of coming down sooner rather than later.
“It is a defining characteristic of human sensory and motor systems that they habituate with repeated use”
Intro sequence (with chest and hip harnesses and uplines in place):
Tie a single column on the thigh with a 30-foot piece of rope.
Attach the chest upline to a carabiner, ideally on a ring or rigging plate, at a comfortable standing height.
Attach the thigh so that it is parallel to the ground (or higher if that works for you).
Tie this in a way that creates separation between the chest and thigh lines so that you have space to run the hip line between them.
Run the hip upline in between the chest and thigh lines.
Put weight into the chest and thigh to push and pull the hips up.
Tie off hip upline, optimally at the same height as the chest or just below it.
Use your non-dominant hand as a brake to tie this off under load.
Move the thigh cuff down to both ankles.
Check the hip line before (optionally) unclipping the chest line.
Clip the chest upline to the hip hanger, then hold onto the hip upline and slowly lower into an inversion
To come down, clip the chest line back onto the ring or rigging plate.
Lower in reverse order, untying the chest last and using that upline to fully and slowly lower yourself to the ground.
Remember to start getting down before you are overtired! As they say in Alice in Wonderland, you can always have more, but you can’t very well have less.
