Absent mindedness and routine cockups in rope bondage

By |2012-10-15T23:27:48+00:00October 15th, 2012|Categories: Learning|Tags: , , |

A friend today made a very good point about when he found things most likely to go wrong in rope bondage. And I absolutely agree with him on this. Often its when you’re doing the routine things, the small things, the things you’ve done a thousand times before. It’s in those moments when you’re running on automatic pilot rather than when you’re working on something on the edge where you’re focused and paying complete attention. You should be able to do some parts of your bondage completely without thought, you should know what you’re doing so well. The mistakes in things you have done a thousand times before happen not because you don’t know how to do it but because you are not focused. It is absence from the moment. It is something unregarded and considered unimportant. All things in rope bondage are important, from the first detail, especially from the first detail. Those brings me to the main point of this article. The need to be present in the moment. Now there is an apparent dichotomy in the concepts that you should know what you’re doing so well that you can do it without conscious thought and the idea that you must be present and focused in the moment. This dichotomy is however only apparent. There is a very big difference between having practised things so well that you can do them automatically i.e. that you have developed muscle memory for an action and by contrast, simply not paying attention to what you’re doing. When you are focused in the moment you are paying attention to all things including those things that you do automatically.

Ichinawa, Ippon me no nawa and One rope

By |2016-11-04T16:14:20+00:00October 14th, 2012|Categories: Learning, Teaching, Workshops|Tags: , |

I've been asked a lot of times if Ichinawa is right for the one rope technique I teach or if it should be Ipponnawa. So rather then keep explaining it I'm going to write out my answer here and point people at it in future. The term comes straight from the Japanese language. Confusion has arisen because some people have been getting confused between naming and counting. Some have told me that Ichinawa is wrong and it should be Ipponnawa. It would be Ipponnawa if you were counting ropes. Or slightly more accurately Ippon me no nawa. Japanese counting is a nightmare so I checked this with a Japanese born professional translator who also agrees that it's a nightmare and a minefield. Ippon = one as in one two three... for long cylindrical things, The 'hon' category! Yes I know it's written 'pon' but it's still in the hon category. Ichi = one in a general sense can also mean best. (Ichiban is worth a mention as it's what you also might use for best or first as in first, second third.) There are also Japanese counting variants for flat thin objects, small compact objects, liquid in cups, bound objects (i.e. you count things like books differently to everything else), machines, the floors of buildings, pairs of things (i.e. socks), time, large animals, small animals, birds, people (formal), people (informal) and age. To be honest I've probably missed a few in that list. Nightmare right? Which is why I asked a professional translator who's a Japanese national and also into rope to make sure. Ichinawa definitely (in the opinion of a professional native Japanese translator) a correct usage for the naming of this technique. Now [...]

Yin Yoga for Bondage

By |2016-10-28T16:39:56+00:00September 21st, 2012|Categories: Learning|Tags: , |

Hi. This is Dave introducing a guest article here. Yin Yoga for Bondage is by BYG (Bendy Yoga Girl from Boston at the time of writing and just lately relocated to Seattle) I'm sure you'll enjoy it. As a yoga person, and a bondage person, I’m always happy to hear teachers talk about the importance of stretching as it relates to bondage. There are two main buckets of stretching, if you will: static and dynamic. Static stretching involves holding positions for at least 30 seconds, although I recommend 1.5 to 3 minutes (I’ll get into the why of this in a bit). Dynamic stretching involves using movement to take the body to (not beyond) its limit. Dynamic stretching increases blood flow to the areas that are being worked. The debate between the efficacy of dynamic vs. static stretching has resulted in a great deal of research on the matter. In a study by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, researchers found that athletes (runners) generated less force in their leg muscles after static stretching than after no stretching at all, indicating that performance (running, etc.) is enhanced by not doing slow stretches before working out. The inverse of this finding would state that static stretching inhibits athletic performance (running, etc.) Here are some effects of static stretching one it’s held for more than a minute or so: muscles relax fascia is stretched ligaments stretch mobility in the joint that is being stressed increases flexibility in the general area that is being stretched increases If one was to work the hips in such a way as to relax all of the muscles, and then ask the legs to do, say, a 5k run... well, yes. This [...]

Yukimura Haruki in Copenhagen

By |2016-10-28T16:39:58+00:00August 31st, 2012|Categories: Events, Learning|Tags: , , , |

Part 1 This week we shall (thanks to clover) be going to study newaza with grand master Yukimura Haruki. I am SO excited to be doing this. It's a wonderful opportunity to learn from one of the very best! It's always exciting for me to have an opportunity to learn so as the date approaches I'm really starting to feel the excitement. Clover surprised me with this trip for my birthday treat, how cool is that? I'll be blogging about the experience afterwards but for now... how cool is that? Part 2 What a really good learning experience does is open your mind to new possibilites, possibilities you hadn't suspected before. Further it gives you a way into those new experiences. One thing that I think is worth emphasising is the tremendous contribution that the interpreters made to this class. In a large part due to the fact that not only were they there because they spoke excellent Japanese but also they were students of Yukimura Sensei and therefore understood what they were translating and could also spot the mistakes that we made during the day. They were very much part of making the day what it was. The grand master is also known for his calligraphy skills and it was a great surprise to receive this calligraphied board on the day. Through watching videos of the grand master tying I had some idea of what Yukimura Sensei was about but learning from him showed how easy it is to fail to understand what someone is really doing from just watching. I had thought that a large part of what he was doing was not so to speak 'in the visible range' and that proved to [...]

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