I’ve been wanting to make this for a while, and I’m finally getting to it: rope365 in video! We start with the Somerville Bowline.

The video has only the soothing sound of rope and you can get the instructions by activating subtitles (CC) or transcription. I really enjoy this last one as you can click on each sentences to review the same part of the clip over and over.

I plan on keeping the video free but might monetize them when the channel is big enough, please like, subscribe and share with your friends! There is only one video right now, but I intend to progressively add more, starting with the first week of rope365.

The next video should be about frictions, very excited to make this one. Follow me on youtube or other social medias to get notified when it’s live!

Journey Update

So I’ve been wanting to make videos for the longest time, before rope365 even existed. I made my first tutorial in 2013, a chest harness for self suspension, then a hishi chest harness, these can still be found on my fetlife profile. These videos were quite important in my journey because they are the reason I got invited to teach abroad for the first time, and the people I met on those trip defined everything else.

Afterward I tried to make more tutorial videos. Several cameras with edit. Go pro first person. I have a lot of videos I never posted for two main reasons:

  • I was never satisfied with the quality. The lighting, the sound, my own voice with my strong French accent. It would have taken a team to shoot this to my satisfaction, and I didn’t have that much time and money to invest. Often when I look at shibari study, it’s very close to what I had in mind in terms of production. I’m grateful someone pulled it off.
  • I always improve, therefor, the video capture an old version of me and very shortly after, I have improvement that I would like to include, and then I want to reshoot the whole thing all over again.

This is actually where rope365 was born. Using text and image, drawing over image, it was easier to go back and add a safety tip, or correct something I learned to do in a better way. Instead of reshooting and re-editing the whole thing. It was also more bite-size work that I could make in my spare time.

But the itch was still there, I’ve been part of a video maker group in the early 2000s. I actually love making video, but I needed the right concept. It all came together when I watched Jo Nakashima’s origami channel. His videos are just his hands folding, with the paper sound, with diagrams in a corner. Some have instructions in the subtitles, usually in many languages. During the lockdown, I couldn’t tie and I was searching for a hobby that would give me a break from the computer. I got pretty obsessive with origami for a while.

This got me thinking it would be nice to have relaxing videos with only the rope sounds, instructions in subtitle. It felt different than what currently exist in the rope tutorial world.

Two driving forces when creating this, keeping it as accessible as possible and making it easy/low maintenance to create. Those two often go in pair, for exemple, if the exercises are self-tied, I don’t have to arrange someone to help me, and it’s also more accessible as the person watching doesn’t need a partner to learn and practice.

Pondered for a while if there should be music, I could have mixed my piano project with this, but decided to go for simplicity and just used the rope sound. Also decided to use my phone instead of the nice camera because it’s faster to setup. After trying tying with a tripod between my legs, got myself a tripod with an horizontal bar to get better first person shots.

I’m planing in translating the subtitles to French and very open if anyone want to translate them to other languages. It would also be nice to translate the getting section website to other languages as well.

I’m glad I waited so long. I feel I have a stronger concept now and my skills are also in a different place. It’s still a learning process, I need to look at all the small details. Also learning a new editing tool (my old version of Final Cut is no longer supported) was quite a challenge but I think I got the basics of Adobe Premiere now and I want to keep the video concept simples so they should require little editing.

Another thing that was preventing me from making videos is the huge backlog of things I have to do for rope365. If I ever want to publish a book, it’s not being written while I shoot and edit videos. But the reality is that the website is in a good shape and I was having a hard time being motivated on doing the next wave of improvements for the site/book. I’m also feeling quite stuck on the ethic of showing the Box tie (TK). I’m hoping my upcoming trip to Japan is going to open my perspectives and bring new fuel to the writing journey. The best is probably alternating between videos and writing depending on my mood. I still get guilt of not working on a project when I’m working on the other, have to constantly remind myself that it’s a hobby.

The next videos should be the first week of rope365, starting with frictions. This one is going to be more important because there are lots of single column video, but friction is a much more important and difficult topic to cover. I’ve already made some prototypes but I need to reshoot in a cleaner way. The first seven videos should complete the beginner series. Then I have ideas for many more

  • Creative series
  • Chest harnesses
  • Levels of futomomo difficulty
  • Party tricks
  • And so many more ideas

Hope you’ll enjoy this one and the upcoming content!