The seven activities for week 1 are now available!
This chapter covers all the basics with tutorials to get started with rope and ideas to practice and explore to improve your mastery of each techniques.
Day 1: Single Column Tie feat. The Somerville bowline
Day 2: Frictions feat. The rope skirt and five different frictions including the famous X friction
Day 3: Improvisation also known as Ichinawa and Ipponnawa
Day 4: Clove Hitch Lock feat. The cross legged pose also known as Agura Shibari
Day 5: Extending Ropes feat. two methods to extend your rope.
Day 6: Cinches feat. The double column tie, the cinched friction and the mermaid tie
Day 7: Coiling feat. The overhand hank
Try it and share your experience and discoveries! Let us know if you have feedback as well.
The getting started section has also been improved with new sections and updated text.
Next stop is Knot and Hitches to be published in February 2019. We’ll combine some classic techniques with some classic body positions while exploring our creativity.
The journey of week 1
It’s been an interesting journey trying to figure out what should be included in the first week. What are the absolute essentials to get started with rope bondage? Everyone has been so generous. I’ve asked dozens of rope teachers around the world, what do you teach in your beginner class? Attending some of them and getting the look from my teacher friends « what are you doing in my 101 class? » Surprisingly enough, I have probably learned more from attending and teaching beginners classes than most of the super advanced stuff I’ve been. This got me started with adding explorations ideas to get other experienced student to expand their journey. There is so much to discover and master in the basics.
Another challenge was to pick one way to start with. It has always been the plan to explore different single column tie, different way to coil further down in Fall. But to start with, better not confuse ourselves with too many things, and everyone seems to pick a different combo of methods. Talking with other, asking why they use a certain method and then trying different ones myself over a long enough period was the process. It took me to what is there now, but the reality is that it is very subjective and picking something different would have been equally valid.
There were several prototypes of the tutorials, I tried the classic step by step, multi camera videos, attaching cameras to my head. The first hand drawn tutorial was eye opening, I finally felt like I had found how I wanted to do, but I needed a space to shoot. I’m still upgrading the rope room, there is a new backdrop in the mail on it’s way here. The reality is that the need for tutorials will be very different as we get into chapters dedicated to soft skills, but the base is so important, I didn’t want to make compromises on this.
I’m just very happy and excited to give those tutorials to the world today. I got so many questions, I knew it could help people. I started feeling guilty it was taking me so much time. This took way more work than I thought. Now I’m free and already jumping in the next week. Each step takes it closer to creating the book I want to read.
After three years of writing, here is the current page count:
Spring: 267
Summer: 91
Fall: 54
Winter: 30
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