Akiesha Rice dug her fingernails into the table as the man kneaded the skin at the top of her back, his focus zeroed in on the red punctures at her shoulder blades.

Lying face-down on a Sunday afternoon while her skin was twisted, squeezed and rubbed, she realized this was the painful part.

Not the day before, like Rice had expected, when two steel hooks were inserted into her back and she was lifted about 10 feet off the ground by the cables of a large rig. That was a rush, something that freed her endorphins and gave the 17-year-old a story to tell back home.

The man’s attempt to smash out the air bubbles where her skin and muscle had separated – this hurt, but still …

“It was worth it,” Rice said.

Rice and her 33-year-old mother, Michelle Morrison, became first-timers in the world of body suspension at the second annual Phunk-N-Ink Tattoo Convention at Grand Wayne Center this weekend. A practice that can be traced back to some American Indian and Hindu cultures, body suspension is when someone is pierced by hooks in various parts of his or her body and lifted using cables.

For some, it’s a spiritual rite, while others do it for the thrill or just to do it. And it’s something that – even in a subculture that embraces ink wherever you can fit it, piercings wherever you can put them and the pain that comes with both – is still regarded as somewhat obscure.

“Even in this industry, it’s underground,” said Spartacus Durant, of the Aztlan Arts Tattoo Studio in Dallas, who brought his body suspension rig to the Phunk-N-Ink convention and gave Rice and her mother their introduction to a new world.

Part of a tribe

When you start going up, the first 15 seconds are the strangest, Morrison said.

You feel light but a little awkward. After that, though, you feel attached to your body in a way you never thought. It’s a weird kind of freedom, she said. You don’t feel the hooks stuck in your body, you don’t feel your skin being stretched. A sense of calm comes over you.

“I don’t know how to really explain it,” Morrison said.

Morrison, who has seven tattoos and is married to a tattoo artist in Franklin, Pa., called her family well-grounded but more open to new ideas and new activities. She and her oldest daughter were interested in body suspension, saw the rig this weekend and decided it was the right time to try something new.

“Nobody at home does this,” Morrison said.

That’s the norm in many places, according to Durant.

He’s been doing body suspension for about three years since seeing it done at a show in San Antonio. With a heavily tattooed head and a history of facial modification, Durant said he’s a man who wants to try anything new that interests him.

After his first attempt at body suspension, he was hooked, so to speak.

“It will change your world,” he said.

Now, Durant, also a tattoo artist, brings rigs to conventions and even performs body suspension shows throughout the country. He said more and more people are seeing videos of it online and hearing about it but are still leery when they see it up close.

“Would you try it? Would you put hooks in your back like that?” he asked a couple Sunday looking at some of his tattoo artwork.

For him, the practice is more spiritual in nature. The act itself is calming. It clears his mind, he said, puts him at ease as the adrenaline and endorphins start pumping throughout his body.

There is even a bond between the people he does shows with. They call themselves a “tribe.”

To entertain an audience, they will suspend themselves in various ways that look painful, and they will splice humor with spectacle during the shows. But it’s also a balancing act, Durant said. He knows that to bring the practice to the masses, one must entertain. Not everyone will be accepting.

At the same time, though, he and his tribe are not out to be seen as a circus or carnival act.

“We don’t want to be known as just a sideshow,” he said. “Some of our shows can be very elegant.”

Back to earth

After Rice’s suspension, the soreness felt like someone had thumped her in the back.

Overnight, the air bubbles began forming between her skin and muscle. In a rare worst-case scenario, something like that could cause an aneurysm, according to Anthony Richardson, a worker at Aztlan who was kneading the air bubbles out of Rice’s back Sunday.

“It’s totally safe,” said Richardson, who has been doing body suspension for two years.

Rice wasn’t worried, though, and followed the safeguards she had been told about the previous day.

Everything about the procedure was safe, according to Morrison. After she and her daughter had the hooks inserted, they were escorted over to the rig by workers and security so that no one bumped or touched the hooks.

They were guided the entire way up and were even instructed to say something at any point they were uncomfortable. Everything about it went smoothly, though.

So both Morrison and her daughter were able to go home with a few scabs, maybe a new scar or two, a new experience under their belts and a new story to tell.

jeffwiehe@jg.net