I am quite spoiled when it comes to suspensions. His were all designed for the high-flying rig, to be comfortable and secure, while flying in 30′ arcs through the air from 15′ high points. We did not do much experimenting until very recently, with uncomfortable ties, and even less with transitioning. He had worked on these with the engineer a bit more, she having different experiences and preferences with suspension. Lately, though, he has been wanting to expand his repertoire, and has been learning a variety of new ties.
This past week, both on Wednesday and on Friday, we played around with transitioning between various positions, using the chest-loading harness he’s been working on, a new waist harness we picked up at Snowbound, the futomomo I’ve posted about a few times, and simple single column ties on thigh and ankle. It was mostly quite painful and challenging, but also a lot of fun.
My body posed a new challenge that he does not encounter with the engineer. Anyone who has ever been to our flogging class knows that my shoulder blades stick out quite sharply. We found that this makes the two-stemmed chest harness a bit trickier to tie, without the knots landing right on the blades. He had to raise the top bands of the harness up quite a bit, which forced the kunukis into my armpits. Wednesday, this caused some nerve issues in the arm that was down, but on Friday, it was not as much of a problem. The change was possibly due to the clothing I wore Friday which protected the area a bit more than the lack of a barrier on Wednesday. I also have fairly thin arms, so we had some issues keeping the bands off my nerves on the outside of my arm, as well. Again, on Friday we seemed to have sorted it out a bit better. Practice makes perfect, or at least better each time.
I really enjoyed getting to experiment again. Trying out new things, challenging myself and adding to his skills.
