The essence of Kinbaku

Level: All levels

Class style: Lecture, demo, and hands-on

Japanese rope bondage (Kinbaku or Shibari) has become very popular, and its popularity keeps growing. However, it can be a little intimidating and frustrating to start because of how intricate and involved most ties are.

If you’ve been trying to learn Kinbaku/Shibari and you’ve been struggling with the challenge of memorizing the steps of various ties, this workshop is for you. You will learn how to improvise as you go along and tie your partner without needing to remember steps.

If you've already been practicing Kinbaku, this workshop will introduce you to a whole new approach of free-form tying that will make every play session unique.

This workshop will help you cultivate connection with your rope partner and create beautiful and hot rope experiences without having to memorize complex ties.

We will focus on creating intimacy between tying partners, and the importance of enjoying the tying process, and not just focusing on reaching the end product.

We will also discuss how rope and strawberries are related!

The techniques taught in this workshop will greatly help you as you continue to learn more about Shibari.

These techniques include:

• Rope bottoming skills

• Rope handling

• Understanding and achieving flow while tying

• Tying with focus on your play partner

• Ichinawa (AKA ippon nawa) translates to “one rope”. It is a technique that focuses on the tying instead of the end result of a particular tie.

The workshop will also cover Aisatsu Shibari as an application of these techniques.

Prerequisites

Note: These building blocks will be covered during the workshop. However, previous familiarity with them will increase the benefit from the workshop.

To get the most out of this workshop, a person who will be tying should to be familiar with the following building blocks:

• Single-column tie

• Joining 2 ropes

• Half hitch

• Munter hitch (nodome)

• Creating an inline cuff (e.g., a hojo cuff)

What to bring

• 3 pieces of 25’-30’ 5-6mm rope. Natural fibre rope, especially jute, is highly recommended.

• A small blanket for warmth (recommended).