Johnny Coulon, 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 in Toronto, Canada, in 1889, was a professional boxer who rose to fame not only for his impressive boxing career as a world bantamweight champion but also for a peculiar vaudeville act that earned him the moniker “The Unliftable Man.” Despite his small stature (around 5 feet tall and weighing about 110 pounds), Coulon mystified audiences and even strongmen, wrestlers, and later, legendary boxers like Muhammad Ali, who were unable to lift him off the ground.

Coulon’s boxing career spanned from 1905 to 1920. He became the world bantamweight champion in 1910, holding the title for four years. After retiring from the ring, he transitioned to the vaudeville circuit, where his “unliftable” act became a sensation.

The act was simple; the tiny Coulon would first allow himself to be lifted by his “opponent,” typically a big heavyweight boxer, wrestler or weightlifter. The opponent would initially have no difficulty at all hoisting the smaller man into the air, especially as Coulon would tense his body into a straight vertical line and bear down upon the lifter’s wrists, effectively assisting in the lift.

Coulon would then apply his special counter-grip, in which he lightly seized the would-be lifter’s right wrist (over the pulse-point) with his left hand and placed his right index finger on the left side of the lifter’s neck, near the carotid artery. The results were always the same; regardless of how much he strained and struggled, the lifter couldn’t budge Coulon from the floor.

In 1920, after refining the act by touring American music halls and saloons, Coulon departed for Paris where his apparently “occult” abilities attracted a great deal of media attention. This was the height of the post-Great War Spiritualism craze; a time of peak popularity for seance sittings and interest in the “world beyond.”

Naturally, many people felt compelled to try to duplicate Coulon’s abilities, and it was reported that, for a time, no work was getting done in Paris because the smallest staffers at every office were being press-ganged into “Coulon lift” experiments.

For years, Coulon’s trick was a source of great fascination and speculation. While some attributed it to occult powers or unusual strength, the truth lay in his masterful understanding of leverage, body mechanics, and a bit of showmanship.

Skeptics like Harry Houdini recognized it as “hokum” and a matter of leverage, and later explanations confirmed that it was a clever application of physics and knowledge of the human body, rather than any supernatural ability.

“It’s hokum! It’s the principle of the fulcrum and a matter of leverage,” Houdini said. “Coulon is in stable equilibrium and his subject isn’t. Coulon keeps his subject at arms’ length to get the best advantage of the leverage. Furthermore, the trick has been played before!”

It’s likely that the scientific committee and other observers had been misdirected by the notion of “occult energy,” and perhaps also by the position of Coulon’s left hand on the lifter’s “pulse point,” into overlooking the fact that Coulon’s right forefinger pressed firmly into his opponent’s sensitive vagus nerve at the moment of the attempted lift. Simultaneously, Coulon’s right elbow was effectively aligned with his own right hip.

This pressure exerted a force of counter-leverage – invisible to the eye and probably not even noticed by the would-be lifter in the midst of his exertions – which effectively put the lifter in an impossible position. The greater their exertion, the stronger the counter-leverage via Coulon’s skeletal alignment and the greater the painful pressure against the lifter’s vagus nerve – a sensitive pressure point, regardless of size and muscular strength.

Experiments demonstrate that the left-handed “pulse point” grip was largely a matter of misdirection and showmanship; the liftee’s left hand can be limp at their side and the lifter still won’t be able to hoist them, as long as the liftee’s right hand and arm are properly aligned.

Even an exceptionally strong and aggressive lifter, who might be able to “fight through” the painful nerve pressure, would find Coulon impossible to raise due to the alignment of his elbow and hip. Extreme force would simply lever Coulon’s upper body slightly backward over his own center of gravity, breaking the optimal vertical line alignment and making him even harder to lift.

Thus, by setting the rules of the “test,” Coulon was able to combine an insurmountable leverage advantage with a painful disincentive to being lifted.

The general public eventually tired of the novelty and Coulon retired from show business, opening a successful Chicago gymnasium. For many decades thereafter, he would challenge visiting heavyweights including boxers Muhammad Ali and Jack Johnson to lift him into the air, and no-one ever managed the trick.

Johnny Coulon, “The Unliftable Man,” passed away in 1973, leaving behind a fascinating story of a boxer who mastered not only the ring but also the art of illusion.

(via Spookology)