RopeMarks and the Shady Lady are very excited to pay a visit to Vienna for a weekend filled with tying with bamboo, bamboo and have we already mentioned… bamboo?
After two days of doing this workshop, we anticipate (and hope) that your tying and bottoming skills have leveled up in terms of theory, technique and dynamics with your rope partner. Most likely you will go home feeling inspired by what we have practiced, and take an enriched rope toolbox with you for your future tying adventures.
During the workshop we will start with bamboo basics, such as what knots to use when tying onto bamboo, as well as Kinbaku Elements™ to tie arms, legs and wrists to bamboo. Following we will incorporate these elements in some static and dynamic suspensions. Finally, for the grand finale of this workshop, we will go through some suspension kata (sequences) that incorporate floating bamboo. We will incorporate some dirty elements throughout the workshop: dirty in the sense of sexy, but also in the sense of nasty or mean. Let’s make kinbaku dirty again!
Next to tying with ‘extra’ bamboo, we will also be tying on bamboo (so, not on a single point). Most ties and exercises are set up for you to follow along at your current level, but we will encourage and support you to join for the full kata’s, to go beyond your comfort zone and level up! At the bottom of this text we describe some general characteristics of RopeMarks’ and the Shady Lady’s teaching and tying style, so you can decide whether that resonates with your own rope style and desires in rope.
You will need at least 12 pieces of rope intended for Japanese rope bondage.
Rigger/model partners interested in joining the workshop should:
- Be confident in a takategote that works for them, preferably RopeMarks’ style gote.
- Be confident in a futumomo that works for them.
- Have experience and confidence with basic suspensions.
- Preferably have experience with suspension transitions.
- Share our view that rope bondage is edgeplay and comes with major risks, and have a general understanding of what these risks are and how they can best be mitigated.
- Be able to communicate with and check in regularly with their partner.
- Be aware of the mental/physical capabilities/limits of themselves and their partner.
| Who’s RopeMarks?
RopeMarks, also known as Bob Roos, is a Dutch rope artist who specializes in Japanese rope bondage, also known as shibari or kinbaku. Professionally he began studying and perfecting his craft in 1999, under the lineage of the late Akechi Denki (明智伝鬼) and Naka Akira (奈加あきら) in Japan. While RopeMarks’ work reflects the traditional techniques taught by these leading kinbakushi, he has also developed his own unique and distinct style. RopeMarks is widely recognized as the foremost Dutch expert in Japanese rope bondage, and is highly respected in the global kinbaku community. He has taught workshops and classes around the world including, but not limited to, Europe, the United States, Russia and Japan. Using the name RopeMarks Ryū he provides real, fun, hands-on, courses, classes, lessons and workshops in Japanese rope bondage worldwide. |
Who is the Shady Lady?
The Shady Lady is a slightly perverted lady who has been tying regularly with RopeMarks for the past 2,5 years, and her passion for being in rope is still growing each day. She sees rope as a means to surrender to her partner (and to herself), to enter a shared space of hyperfocus and eroticism with her partner, to play, to push mental boundaries and to discover what exists inside of her beyond the everyday experience of the self. Although both partners have separate experiences in a rope session, a good session for her creates a spark that moves beyond these individual experiences (1+1=3). She likes Japanese aesthetics, semenawa, authentic dynamics between rope partners, BDSM elements mixed with rope, fun and laughter during tying as well as the darker desires that can be expressed in rope (and no, the latter two are not as contradictory as they sound!). |
What is the teaching style of the RopeMarks Ryū?
There are a few characteristics that are typical for RopeMarks’ style of teaching and tying:
- Teaching is built around Kinbaku Elements™: patterns, positions and techniques you can use as essential building blocks to construct your ties and be creative and original while doing it.
- RopeMarks’ tying style is heavily inspired by Japanese bakushi (mainly Naka Akira 奈加あきら and Akechi Denki 明智伝鬼) and builds further on traditional techniques and aesthetics. Yet, he never simply copies and pastes, but creates his own ties based on ties and bakushi that inspire him. He will therefore pay ample attention to historical context and background behind certain Kinbaku Elements™. The motto is: know and honor history to shape the future of your rope experiences!
- Most exercises are built up in a way so that participants can practice at their own level. Stay on the floor, go for the suspension or join us for multiple dynamic transitions. We will also offer smaller elements that allow you to make a tie more or less challenging.
- Reflection on the reasons for why you make certain choices in tying and modeling is extremely important. We are not a fan of a ‘monkey-see-monkey-do’ approach, which is why we focus on discussing the pros and cons of the choices that always have to be made during the tying process. Actively thinking about the “why’s” in rope stimulates a more safe, sane, well-informed, sustainable, critical, personalized and consensual attitude in riggers and models alike.
- Kinbaku is a means and not an end. We encourage focusing on the intentions of both parties and on pragmatic techniques for embodying those intentions to create a satisfying experience for both parties.
- Active and responsible rope bottoming is a skill that does not always get the attention it deserves. The Shady Lady focuses on how rope bottoms can develop their bottoming skills: how they can distinguish between bad and good kinds of pain, how they can communicate effectively with their rigger, how they can critically think along with the rigger on how ties can work best for their body and how they can find out what kind of rope they like to receive. It always takes two to tango!
- RopeMarks likes to tie dirty, which means that he likes to tie in ways that ask for endurance from the model (semenawa), as well as that he likes to incorporate sexual and BDSM elements in tying. RopeMarks and the Shady Lady personally like their kinbaku to be playful, dynamic, erotic, aesthetically pleasing, challenging and slightly dirty and perverted.
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