We had an amazing time in BED again this year. I want to blog this while it’s all fresh in my mind, I apologise to anyone who I forget or anything I miss.

Tuesday

We packed lighter this year and headed for London at ridiculous o’clock at night and BED for us had begun. Our feelings of excitement and  anticipation to meet old friends and have an amazing time with them in Dallas had begun days before but it really starts when we leave home and doesn’t stop until we have to leave and the plane lifts off for the long haul home.

Wednesday

When we got to DFW we were collected from the Airport by DK (Dallas Kink). When we got to his place we finally ate the good food we’d brought onto the plane with use in preference to airline food and… had forgotten about until we emptied the overhead locker when we landed. Well we could use a snack so Coffee and food from England was had.

Now, mad scheduling moment, I had a three hour private session to teach. So UBER and away we go.

A little later back at DK‘s… hunger was again present and as people arrived we went to Lee Harvey’s (an excellent local dive bar) for half pound Burgers and Beer. Awesome eats.

Original sketch from a couple of years back for the new portable suspension frame.

Original sketch from a couple of years back for the new portable suspension frame.

Also at DK‘s we had our first sight of the frame we’d been talking to Handrolld about the previous year. Starting with a little hand sketch he’d made an excellent travelling frame. Weighing in at around 50 lbs including the bag it’s a great stable and strong frame and you should look at getting one.

I wanted to stay up and meet everyone turning up that day but we were just too tired and we had a good early night that actually was very well timed and helped us get on Dallas time for the weekend.

Thursday

So it’s Thursday morning and we’re feeling good. Nawashi Kanna & Kagura had arrived while we were asleep and we all had breakfast burritos together which were awesome and something we only have in Dallas as they’re not a feature of a British breakfast. That set me up nicely for the staff masterclass I was teaching that day. The staff of BED work really hard to make the event go well and usually don’t get to get to many if any classes themselves to it was really nice to be able to give them something from us. Also kind of surprising for me that Nawashi Kanna was taking an interest in what I was teaching.

After the master class and something to eat, we head to the event Hotel and time for another private with my most regular student in America. It’s always great to have a productive time with a student and to see their development continuing.

I cannot for the life of me remember what we did for the evening other than I think this is when we went for food at Gators to get something before the pre-event party that night at The Nines in Deep Ellum. Lots of free tying going on on the roof and shows downstairs, we saw two, Parker (rope boi) and BlueRisk (with Diamond). We tried to video the performances for them but the lights were too low for the GoPro. I’m sad we weren’t able to get that for them.

We left at a reasonable time unbelievably and got some good sleep ready for the Con proper starting on Friday.

Friday

After getting a breakfast we headed to Nawashi Kanna‘s presenter class. I’m not going to give away any of his content but he did cover some very interesting thoughts on Akechi style and to my amazement mentioned my class the previous day in his preamble to the class.

After lunch there’s another private session before the event registration followed by the meet and greet. Then it’s time for us to get ready for the performance evening. This time it’s just us and then Nawashi Kanna & Kagura.

The shows at BED are always a high spot for us it’s not an event that focuses on performance and these are the only shows until the after party. We love the intense moments we have in front of the BED audience.

We hadn’t eaten much before the shows for obvious reasons but filled with the natural high of an intense bondage scene afterwards we weren’t hungry. We socialised and caught up with friends some, gave a clown warning to another and went to get some sleep.

Saturday

Saturday was filled with more teaching and privates and passed in a blur. Lots of good information was communicated. The main thing that I remember is ordering the ‘large’ pepperoni pizza at Tuttas and being presented with something I’d call ‘family size’. Manfully I ate it all anyway.

After dinner we went back to the hotel for showers and a bit of a rest before the play party that night. This is practically the only chance we get to tie for ourselves in the whole of the bondage conference so we got a nap to be fresh… and woke up at 01:30! So yes, we were tireder than we’d thought and had slept hours through our alarm. So this is how our Sunday started. We were disappointed but at least we were going to be well rested.

Sunday

Sunday would see our last classes of the conference, first suspension line attachment (a class so booked we taught it twice in the weekend) and lastly my method TK class. I was psyched up for it as it was going to have to be a very hard working and focused class. On this one occasion Clover would be in another class so for this occasion the lovely Madam Lush had volunteered to stand in as demo bottom for the class.

The class went really well and concluded a brilliant conference where we’d enjoyed every class and the effort everyone had put forward in them.

Closing ceremonies

This is always a bit emotional, it’s sad but it’s necessary. I think you can’t have an event like this and just trail off without a proper goodbye and a closing moment where everyone is together one last time. Many people have to head for home that night. Some will be at the after show, fewer at the after show after party, some we’ll see again after it’s all done. Some like ourselves and Nawashi Kanna & Kagura will be going home or on to other events a couple of days later.

We now had some time to prepare ourselves for the After party shibari show. One thing on our minds was food and we were happy to go to a local steakhouse with Ojipan and Goodmosttimes. Ahhhh steak! Yes, I like a good steak. Feeling much more filled we got ourselves showered and together for the show. Our lift TwistedCupcake took us to the Church.

The after show

We always look forward to the after shows at BED. The Church Dallas is pretty much the only venue of this type we perform at in any year and we like the fun aspect of it. We also get to do stuff we don’t do in the more intimate shows. The audience at  these parties really gives it a great and different energy.

I had my GoPro with me and Knotty James took care of the camera for the evening and got video of all the shows. I’m putting links to the videos below for your enjoyment.

I’d like to express my thanks to Beagleone, Kingkey and everyone who sent us pictures from the evening.

Finally here’s a gallery of all the pics from the event that we can publish.

Hopefully we’ll see everyone again next year and have an awesome time again.

I can’t finish here without giving one last shout out to the organisers and volunteers that make this event go so well. I’m sure there are issues behind the scenes but they are so good at dealing with them we’ve never seen them impinge on the event and as they say, if you do your job well enough people won’t even notice you’ve done it at all.

Thanks everyone, we had a blast.

After the After party…
and after the After party after party

Monday

Yes, we’re not quite done in Dallas yet. Monday morning saw us breakfasting at Ellen’s Southern Kitchen in downtown Dallas before TwistedCupcake & Madam Lush picked us up and we left the hotel for the last time, this time to stay with DK(Dallas Kink) and TheHouseCat. We love getting to hang out after the rush of the bondage conference is over. Also we had a special treat as we all went to spacastle for some serious relaxation. We had an awesome time and we’re as relaxed as anything by the time we left late in the evening.

Tuesday

We learned that Nawashi Kanna is a mad keen go-kart racer so our hosts had organised for us all to go racing at the Dallas carting track (sorry I can’t right now recall the correct name of the place). I personally hadn’t been in a cart in at least 10 years so I was a bit on the rusty side and tooled around the first race in very sedate style getting the feel of things while Nawashi Kanna and Handrolld got competitive and lapped everyone. I put up a miserable lap time but still had a lot of fun.

In the second race I had a bit more of a go and managed to finish 4th in the race taking over 26 seconds off my lap time which shows you just how bad I was in the first race.

Final order

  1. Nawashi Kanna
  2. Handrolld
  3. TwistedCupcake
  4. WykD Dave

Unfortunately once the racing was over it was time for Nawashi Kanna and Kagura to head to Love Field to head for New York and continue their tour. Many emotional goodbyes were had and we look forward to seeing them again.

We headed back to DK‘s and then to Lee Harvey’s for a final Burger and Beer before we had to head to the airport ourselves and go back to the UK.

We left with more luggage than when we arrived as we had a new addition to our equipment. It was one of the frames that Handrolld had made and we’re going to be so glad to have that to take with us on our travels here in the UK. On the right here you can see me with the whole thing dangling from one hand in a ski bag used to get it home.

 

 

Always a sad time and heading for the airport for us is the real end of Bondage Expo Dallas when we have to make the final goodbyes in many cases until the next year.

Thanks for having us, we loved being there and we are already looking forward to the day we land in Dallas again.

D

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