The Shibari style we promote at KinbakuMania Shibari Dojo and ShibariMania.com, is related to an energetic, holistic, artistic and healing approach to the ropes that goes beyond rope itself and what is perceived at a glance in what a photo or a video may reflect.

While we approach to KinbakuMania’s fourth anniversary in a month time, we collected an initial set of phrases in which we humbly try to reflect what we feel during shibari, what echoes in our hearts, and what we try to express through our rope art. This set of phrases go over some concepts that we hope may help understand their own shibari kinbaku developement path of other rope lovers.

If any of the following phrases resonates with what you feel during your shibari practices, we would love to know it. If you happen to think of ideas alike we would be glad to hear about them and add them to our set. This way we aim to nurture each other with our passion for shibari kinbaku.

• Shibari Kinbaku art is not related to knots or ropes, but to what we provoke with them when tying.
• We do not aim for the rope to look beautiful on our models. Instead we use rope to enhance your models’ beauty.
• Gratitude is the key that opens it all. Never forget to thank everyone involved (models, teachers, audience, even those who hate you).
• Practice is your best ally and your perfect weapon. Do never quit practicing. You have never practiced enough.
• Not taking into account hundreds of years of experience and Japanese traditions is foolish. Limiting yourself to just copy structures without any personal contribution doesn’t have much merit.
• Make and feel the rope as part of your body.  Know it, master it, understand how it works. Only this way you would be able to hug with your ropes in the same way that you do with your arms.
• Take your time to know your rope model. You may think that you already know that person from yesterday, one month ago, or many years ago…  But always remember that we are unique in our here and now. May the person you thought you knew, surprise you with his/her here and now.
• Never allow your ropes to become a task or something “you must do“.  Ropes are meant to be enjoyed.  Other way the magic of the ropes gets lost.
• From our humble point of view it’s better not to use shibari as a mere excuse for your sexual purposes. Instead, let the sensual way of the ropes freely flow as a natural consequence. It will happen by itself if it’s meant to happen.
• Our style of Shibari Kinbaku does not necesarilly involve a D/s role. In our humble oppinion we feel that limitting this practice just to that is to minimize it’s real power and beauty.
• If ropes make you happy… practice until you get exausted. Then take your ropes and practice a bit more…
• We do not tie just for the photo.  We aim to make any moment of our Shibari Kinbaku session a memorable picture.
• We aim to teach our students how to avoid boredom in ropes. Ropes should speak, sing, dance, shout or cry… and you can use all this to show your particular feelings at any moment.
• Rigging tighter does not necessarilly mean you’re communicating more. Rigging loose does not necessarilly mean you communicate less.
• Lack of tension in ropes may not mean you’re rigging safer, in fact under certain circunstances it may lead to problems.
• Always remember that nawa is the extension of your arms.  As the Great Yukimura Haruki used to say, the less you touch with your hands, the more magic you’ll have on your ropes.
• Always focus better on communication instead of thinking how that pattern goes.  But also keep always in mind that everything you propose would impact on what you’re communicating to the model.
• Never forget to smile. Even when you’d not be visiblly similing, your energy will flow through your ropes. Always bring your best energy to the person that shares that rope session with you as a model.

I would love to thank all the people who accompanied me on my shibari developement path.  Thanks to my Senseis, to my colleagues around the world, thanks to all the models I’ve met, students, Dojo friends, and artists who have always collaborated with us in these almost four years of hard work in teaching the art of Kinbaku. As we already expressed in our Shibari Attack project, every relationship in the shibari world has a twist and generates such a special bound that makes each of our moves part of the whole rope community. Nothing that we do is individual and in the same way as a big rope structure, every move we make provokes something in other people.

幸せな 縄  (Merry Nawa)

Haru Tsubaki