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Taboo magazine cover Shibari Bondage

By |2013-12-29T13:05:26+00:00December 29th, 2013|Categories: Random, Shoots|Tags: , , , , , , |

In an excellent round of to our working year we have a magazine cover. This is the cover of Hustler's Taboo magazine. The model for this shoot was the lovely and very sexy MaYa Homerton. A wonderful model to work with and just one of the nicest people you could wish to work with. We're looking forward to working with her again in the new year. This year has seen so much good stuff and it's a delight to end on another high point. Just amazing for us. Thank you to everyone who's given us great feedback on this. We really appreciate it.   Dave.

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Robert Wilson, Lady Gaga and the Louvre

By |2016-10-28T16:39:56+00:00December 3rd, 2013|Categories: Events, Shoots|Tags: , , , |

From my personal blog on WykD.com I’ve been very lucky recently to get to work with some incredible people. Most recently it was a privilege and a pleasure to work with the American director and veteran of the Avant-garde Robert Wilson and with the model for one of Wilson’s video portraits, Lady Gaga who I had the pleasure of tying and suspending. The result of this I’m blown away to say is a portrait that is now hanging in every sense in the Louvre gallery in Paris as part of Robert Wilson’s Living Rooms installation. The installation will be at the Louvre till February 17, 2014 I had this opportunity only due to the kindness and good will of a very great friend. I consider myself very fortunate to have been a part of this and to have worked with so many great and talented people. On a more personal note... The Robert Wilson portrait of Lady Gaga now hanging in the Louvre. I pretty much can't believe this even now. Something I've worked on is right now hanging in the Louvre gallery in Paris. Just incredible. I could not have imagined such a thing even months ago. Earlier this year I worked on a feature film and saw its first showing at the Raindance festival. I have had the pleasure of working with a lot of extraordinary beautiful and surprising models. This one however was the Mother Monster of surprises! Here is Lady Gaga's own comment on her Little Monsters website. I got to work with some extraordinary people. My personal thanks to everyone for making me feel so welcome on location especially those that were kind to the rope guy trying to get [...]

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The film love.honour.obey

By |2016-10-28T16:39:56+00:00December 1st, 2013|Categories: Film|Tags: , , |

love.honour.obey The thriller love.honour.obey A film by Raindance raw talent directed by Ate de Jong Earlier this year I had an amazing experience working on a new film. This full length feature thriller features some shibari rope bondage. It was my great pleasure to be able to supply this for the movie. The first showing of this movie will be on Monday September 30th at 9:00pm A home invasion irrevocably changes the lives of all involved in ways neither victims nor perpetrator could have imagined. The showing is on the Monday immediately following the London Festival of the Art of Japanese Bondage in London. It was an amazing experience being involved in a project like this and to work with so many wonderful people. I'm not going to give away anything that happens in the film. You'll just have to watch it and see.

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Luck, self awareness, responsibility & rope bondage injuries.

By |2013-11-30T10:37:22+00:00November 30th, 2013|Categories: Learning|Tags: , , , , , |

This article is one of those that you wish didn’t need to be written about. However here I am writing it anyway. So what is is that I’m going to write about here that I wish I wasn’t? Rope inflicted injuries! Rope isn’t safe, especially not suspension. However having said that it doesn’t mean that we should accept injuries as a matter of course, they should be few and far between. I am horrified when people shrug off injuries to models with an ‘oh well, these things happen’. Well once in a while maybe. When there are repeated injuries occurring it’s time to ask yourself some serious questions. When it comes to injuries some people are more ‘unlucky’ than others. Generally the better a rigger is the ‘luckier’ they tend to get. Bad riggers just tend to have more ‘accidents’ the more they rig. Now I would expect someone who has inflicted multiple injuries to stop rigging so much, to go and look at the common themes in these injuries, to work very hard to stop them occurring again. What I’m horrified to hear is ‘well these things happen’. Yeh, they happen to you don’t they? Can we guess why? When it happens to multiple models in multiple sessions you have to look for the factor that’s common to all the injuries. And that common factor is likely to be the person tying. In all the tying I’ve done, all the models, all the time, all the suspensions I’ve had 3 nerve injuries. Two of those I’ve identified the cause and can ensure that they won’t happen again. One I simply have no concrete idea, I’ve spoken to medical professionals, never had the same problem [...]

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Luck, self awareness, responsibility & rope bondage injuries.

By |2016-10-28T16:39:56+00:00November 30th, 2013|Categories: Learning|Tags: , , , , , |

This article is one of those that you wish didn’t need to be written about. However here I am writing it anyway. So what is is that I’m going to write about here that I wish I wasn’t? Rope inflicted injuries! Rope isn’t safe, especially not suspension. However having said that it doesn’t mean that we should accept injuries as a matter of course, they should be few and far between. I am horrified when people shrug off injuries to models with an ‘oh well, these things happen’. Well once in a while maybe. When there are repeated injuries occurring it’s time to ask yourself some serious questions. When it comes to injuries some people are more ‘unlucky’ than others. Generally the better a rigger is the ‘luckier’ they tend to get. Bad riggers just tend to have more ‘accidents’ the more they rig. Now I would expect someone who has inflicted multiple injuries to stop rigging so much, to go and look at the common themes in these injuries, to work very hard to stop them occurring again. What I’m horrified to hear is ‘well these things happen’. Yeh, they happen to you don’t they? Can we guess why? When it happens to multiple models in multiple sessions you have to look for the factor that’s common to all the injuries. And that common factor is likely to be the person tying. In all the tying I’ve done, all the models, all the time, all the suspensions I’ve had 3 nerve injuries. Two of those I’ve identified the cause and can ensure that they won’t happen again. One I simply have no concrete idea, I’ve spoken to medical professionals, never had the same problem [...]

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BBB after party July 2013

By |2016-10-28T16:39:56+00:00July 22nd, 2013|Categories: Events, Teaching|Tags: , , , |

First thing's first, it's not often we do workshops in the UK, usually we do most of our work in the US or mainland Europe. So it was a nice surprise to be asked to do a workshop at the BBB in Birmingham in the UK, it's the biggest fetish fair in the UK and in all the time we've been doing rope round the world we'd never been asked to do anything at the BBB so it was a real pleasure to be asked. Our thanks to Dragon George and Midstar for thinking of us. Dragon George and Midstar run Exodus UK in Birmingham and it's a really great club, not to mention that George does some of the most cracking dungeon furniture you could imagine. If you've been to the BBB after party and seen the equipment there or visited Exodus you'll know what I mean. So to the workshop itself... First the day was pretty hot and I'd like to say how good it was of everyone to get involved and tying in all that heat and in many cases in all that latex and pvc. I really loved that everyone got involved regardless of their experience and had a good time. Thanks to everyone who expressed their enjoyment. I'm really glad that you had a good time and hope you got something you're going to use for some good clean kinky fun.

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Shibaricon 2012 Favourite moments.

By |2016-10-28T16:39:56+00:00June 2nd, 2013|Categories: Events, Festivals, Learning, Performance, Teaching, Workshops|Tags: , , , , , |

Learning that a photographic hero and inspiration, Norio Sugiuar would be there. Getting nervous about meeting him. Being so pleased to meet him and having the chance to get a print in person.Takeshi Nagaike san's good humour, charm and old school tying style. It was very much a pleasure to meet him. Getting to go to the Andersen Japanese gardens for the first time, picking up some nice hashi. Visiting the Asian market on the way back and getting an Agatsuma CD I didn't have. Saki Kamijoo san just being so infectiously fun and instantly fitting into the mind as one of those people that you're just always glad to see. Having some time with Milla Reika san and discovering the sweet, un-egotistical, enthusiastic and grounded person behind the mistress image. Iambic9 for being one of the most unassumingly nice and generous people I can think of. Tying Indigozebra who is just such a sweetheart. Getting to perform again (I'm aware that we may have run just a fraction over time for which I apologise). MarkDV8's generosity of spirit truly catching me off guard and really touching me. Tying friends in the dungeon. Being only the third person to really tie Beemo, thanks for the trust. Giving Amy Morgan a stressfull old school experience on the bamboo frame. Somewhat more seriously getting into it with Clover and then having a great time tying sugrah! That was hot and hot again. Getting some M0co jute to try. I've never had a single specific rope for Ichinawa but couldn't resist getting a piece of Oniroku Nawa for that purpose and as yet another souvenir. Getting a new kimono for Clover from the lovely Japanese lady who was [...]

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London, Waterloo, Tunnels and the Artful Badger

By |2016-10-28T16:39:56+00:00February 19th, 2013|Categories: Events, Performance|

This Saturday just gone contained a really fun night of rope for us. Before I get onto the night itself I want to say a thank you to Nawashi Murakawa for getting us involved in this event. We were able to get us to some excellent parking opposite the stage door. Now onto the night of performances itself. The audience for these shows were not a rope crowd, but they were a very appreciative mixture of party and festival people, many of them very dressed up for the night in all manner of classy, sexy and feathered outfits. Clover was looking stunning in kimono as always.  The theme of the night was 'Japanese' and the room we were in was strictly shoes off! The performances (galleries coming soon) were very enjoyable for us. We had nothing planned and not even any music prepared. This was actually an opportunity for us to just let things flow and see how they went. We were first on and the show settled into a very deliberate rhythm. We completely lost track of time and were surprised when we'd finished to be told that we'd been going for nearly an hour. It honestly felt like no time at all. Next up were shows from JackWhipper and Zahara and then us again. (If I've got that order wrong I apologise.) What I loved was that all our shows had different personalities. Those people that returned to see more than one show saw something different every time. It turned out that we had the honour of finishing as well as starting we still didn't know what we'd be doing and just went with the music (kindly put together by JackWhipper and containing only one track we'd heard [...]

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On certification

By |2017-02-13T00:01:56+00:00February 7th, 2013|Categories: Learning|Tags: , |

There has been some 'debate' recently about people being certified for their bondage skills. There are many arguments both for and against this idea... Individual certification Attendance Firstly it's important to remember that there are teaches already that have certificates of attendance for bondage courses. These do not make any promises about the quality of the student, how completely and not how well they learned the subject matter of the class. In short they say nothing about competence, they just confirm attendance. Competence Some systems do provide certificates once people reach a certain verifiable level and have obtained competence and required skills. A very few of these are credible because of the very high standards they maintain and because of the consistency of method they use to teach and to evaluate. Most importantly they also require a long term commitment to excellence. That is to say they are not just meaningless pieces of paper handed out to anyone that turned up and paid their money on one or two days. They spent weeks, months or even years obtaining serious skills. That then seems at the moment to be the outliers of certification, such as it is in rope bondage. My problem with general certification The reason there has not been a system of certification so far is that nobody really can agree on what basic competence consists of or how to satisfactorily measure it. This is why it has been the province so far of small, defined and dedicated schools. Certification, to be widely recognised needs acceptance by a large number of people and for that to happen you need standardisation. This is where the problem for me lies. People can, and do, argue to the end [...]

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