Prague Shibari Festival, Sep. 2023

Hello beautiful rope aficionados!

The Shady Lady here, part-time secretary (RopeMarks is a busy man!) & rope model for RopeMarks. Here I will write a little story about what we have done at the Prague Shibari Festival (PSF), which took place two weeks ago (in Prague, duh!). PSF is an awesome weekend-long event where six rigger-model duo’s (including us) have gathered to teach workshops to participants who came from all over Europe and beyond! We have taught three two-hour workshops, and were lucky to be the closing act for the performance night. We performed in 30 degrees weather, which made the whole experience even hotter ❤️‍🔥. Lucky for me, RopeMarks also included some elements in the show that helped me cool down 😏 .

1) Our first workshop was ‘Strappados and Armbinders’, where we practiced doing a variety of armbinders in safe and sustainable ways for different body-types and intentions for play.
2) In the second workshop, ‘Deconstructing and Constructing the Gote’, we provided many surprising insights and historical context on what a TakateKote is, what it is-not and why it is an essential element of Japanese rope. We discussed and practiced different variations in which it can be tied, and what the (dis)advantages of these ways are.
3) In our third workshop, ‘One Bamboo, Multiple Positions’, we have practiced a suspension sequence, built around RopeMarks’ Fat Leg Spreader tie, where the upper legs and hands of the model are tied to a bamboo, and most of the model’s weight is resting on a waist rope (which is one of my personal favourites ❤️).

All in all a great weekend for us to meet with other rope lovers, follow workshops ourselves, do some sight-seeing in Prague and return to the Netherlands full of inspiration.

Pictures of the performance are yet to come, this entry will be updated when we receive them.

RopeMarks also teaches monthly group workshops in Amsterdam (sadly all sold out for this year). They will return in 2024, he also does private tuition, which you can book here: https://www.ropemarks.com/ryu-home/#signup.