So, in lieu of some actual demos (I know, I know!) here’s some great reading material in the mean time:

Books

• By far and away the best set of books on shibari are Complete Shibari: Land & Sky by Douglas Kent. Sadly you can only get them via his own site based in Canada so shipping is slooooow to the EU but well worth the wait. If I could get them stocked here I would! Great pictures and a really simple instruction guide.
• My second favourite book is Shibari You Can Use and whilst it’s mostly in greyscale it has a nice variety of ties and is well laid out.
• Midori has a great book but it does have a lot of words in, so I’d put it down as a coffee table item.
• If you’re into knots rather than shibari/kinbaku then you can’t go wrong with the Two Knotty Boys.

Web

Well, the web is a big old place but both Informed Consent and Fetlife have very active rope communities and groups if you want to discuss things with like-minded kinksters. Both also carry listings for local rope events, which brings me onto…

IRL

Get out there and play! I can’t recommend Peer Rope type events highly enough, especially the London one which is now held monthly. Midori also runs many rope classes around the world including several Dojos.

I’d love to hear any of your own suggestions in the comments too.

As was rightly pointed out in my last post (gotta love peer review!), storing rope for any length of time in a chain can be bad for the rope and introduce kinks (in the rope, not in oneself). I do thing rope chains are the best method for washing your rope in a machine though, just make sure to undo and dry under tension.

For long-term storage the rope coil is your best option – it keeps the rope flat and also allows you to get at the bight end of the rope and start using it right away.

1) Find the bight of your rope:

2) Run the rope through your fingers to the ends of the rope:

3) Holding the ends in one end slide your other hand about 1ft / 30cm down the rope towards the bight:

4) Drop the ends of the rope so you’re now holding another bight with one hand:

5) Slide your now free hand down the rope stopping at the dangling ends (should be 1ft / 30cm as before) and let go of the other end:

6) Repeat the hand over hand process building up coils:

7) Stop once you have a couple of feet / one metre left (I have left mine intentionally long):

8) Grab the loose end and start wrapping around the coils:

9) Stop wrapping with a few centimetres left:

10) Put your finger under one of the wrappings:

11) Wrap around once more, make another bight near the end and hook that through with your finger:

12) Twist the wrappings and the hooked-under end in the direction of the wrappings to tighten. You should be able to chuck the coil on the floor without it springing open:

13) To undo, simply pull on the bight and the rope will unravel:

In the third part of our rope bondage tutorial we cover the basics: rope types, storage and care

Rope Material Selection

There are a great variety of rope materials on the market, both natural & synthetic. The image to the left shows white cotton rope at the top, a flat-weave nylon in the middle and some 6mm hemp at the bottom.

Synthetic ropes have the advantage of being cheap and relatively easy to get hold of and some even come with a “flat wave” that causes the rope to lie flatter against the skin. Materials include polyester, multi-filament polypropylene (MFP) and nylon. The biggest disadvantage with synthetic materials is the burn speed: it requires very little speed of rope against skin to potentially cause rope burn.

There are as many natural rope materials as there are synthetic: hemp, jute and cotton are the most common. All have various pros & cons.

Don’t be limited by “traditional” materials and use whatever takes your fancy; bungee cord, webbing straps and even medical rubber tubing can all be used. Just be sure to check the burn speed of a new material by pulling it quickly through your hands first. On balance though, I personally prefer hemp & jute.

Rope Anatomy

You will often see references to the “ends” & “bight” of a rope: Japanese-style bondage is mostly done with a doubled up length of rope so your tying is done twice as fast! A loop formed at the middle (or anywhere else) of a piece of rope is called a bight. The dangly bits that have been whipped or knotted are the ends.

Rope Care

Be sure to look after your rope, keeping it clean & dry between sessions. Whilst this is common sense to a certain extent this is especially important for ropes made from natural materials. Hemp & jute will deteriorate rapidly if left damp and will benefit from an occasional oiling with jojoba, tea seed, hemp, mineral or mink oil.

Wash your rope in the machine inside an old pillow case if necessary and if the rope has been exposed to any nasty pathogens just throw it away and buy new.

Between sessions neatly bundle your rope in a coil.

Part 2 was going to include both a write up of safety aspects and some basic ropework, however I found that there was more than enough ground to cover from the safety side and that it probably warrants a post all of its own.

Environment

As well as being in the mood, it’s important to be comfortable when playing, so consider:

• Room temperature: a barely clothed submissive restrained in one position for an extended period can get cold, so bump up the heating a notch or have blankets to hand. The converse can be true in summer or if you have a plaything clad head-to-toe in latex.
• Lighting: avoid candles as they can get knocked over by rope ends whipping around. Use “LED tealights” or similar for atmospheric lighting. If you live out in the sticks and are prone to power outages have a flashlight to hand, but you probably do this already.
• Hydration: tying and being tied is thirsty work, so have water on hand in either a bottle with a sports cap or a glass with a straw; it’s not always easy for the submissive to sit up and drink. Be aware of how long it would take to unpick your rope in case of the need for bathroom breaks.
• Have a clear head: avoid intoxicating drugs, including alcohol.

Potential for harm

• Know your submissive: do they have any medical conditions or injuries that you need to be aware of? Do they wear contacts? It might be useful to use a tool such as RACK or Jay Wiseman’s checklist to discover any potential issues. It goes without saying that you have explicit consent to tie someone up.
• Physiology: rope bondage is designed to be constricting and can press on both blood vessels and nerves. Be particularly aware of tying directly over joints (instead tie either side) and places where nerve bundles run close to the surface such as the brachial plexus (clavicle / armpit) and the median nerve (bicep / tricep). You should always avoid tying around the front of the neck where a rope could constrict arteries and the trachea, in fact, I’d go further and suggest you skip the neck area entirely.
  As the dominant person it is your responsibility to look after the well-being of your submissive, so regularly check the temperature and colour of the submissive’s extremities. Cold, white fingers are an indication of impaired circulation and you should immediately loosen and check your ropework.
  You will not be able to tell by sight and touch whether you are causing any nerve damage. Check in with your sub from time-to-time and get them to tell you if they have any numbness or tingling, especially in fingers. Which brings us onto…
• Communication: agree on a safe word – e.g. “banana” – something that you are unlikely to say in the normal throws of passion – that will immediately bring a scene to a halt. An alternative system is the traffic-light method (green=more of that please, amber=not so great, stop doing that and do something else, red=we’re stopping everything right now). If your submissive is gagged and unable to speak or you feel that verbal communication could interfere with a scene use hand squeezes (one squeeze=good, two=bad or similar) or give the sub something to hold that they drop at the sign of trouble.
  On a related note, it’s important to have a post session discussion about what went well, what didn’t – nothing too heavy, but be honest. Don’t expect everything to go perfectly the first time you try it!
• If things start to go wrong: don’t freak, don’t panic, be cool and slowly unpick your rope. If you need to untie fast make sure you have a pair of safety scissors / EMT shears to hand. It’s much better to throw away a bit of rope then have a damaged sub.

First of all, let me just say that I’m not a shit-hot-rope-top, as the fabulous Midori says. I’m not Japanese and I definitely don’t speak any Japanese (my funny name, Loki, comes from Norse mythology by the way). Whilst I have a preference for Japanese-style rope bondage, I’m sure there are many practitioners of this ancient art that will cringe at my feeble attempts.

The most important things in rope bondage for me are:

• That is must be safe – Japanese shibari / kinbaku has its origins in military restraint where things like tying around the neck are considered acceptable. Obviously not something you want to be doing to your beau.
• That it’s sensual & sexy – there is very little point if neither the top or bottom are enjoying it. It can be pretty dull to simply lie someone down and spend half an hour tying a beautiful and intricate rope body harness if there’s no build up. The very act of doing the tying should be a kind of sensual foreplay in itself; drape the rope over the submissive’s body, let her smell it, blindfold him with it, tease them, tug them around with the rope so they can feel dominated… you get the idea.
  The flip-side of this is that if you want to really get into the art of tying, especially tying fast, then you need to practice and learn from books, magazines and your peers. Sometimes you can get away with tying on yourself but eventually you’re going to need something to play with :)
• That I get tied up! – the point of rope bondage is ultimately not to be able to move very much and not to escape (although it is fun trying). You will see many amazing pictures of ultra-lithe models being shaped into the most beautiful positions – how long do you think they are held like that though? Just long enough for the photographer to do his work :) Your submissive needs to be relatively comfortable for a reasonable amount of time, yet kept right where you want them.

I have no idea how many installments there will be but if there’s anything you’d specifically like me to address, give me a shout.

Next time: rope basics & safety.