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About wykd

WykD_Dave (Dave Rickman) is a UK-based shibari bondage enthusiast, who now teaches and performs internationally accompanied by his partner Clover. He started exploring bondage 27 years ago and was autodidact for the first 17 years, until a lesson with shibari professional Osada Steve changed his way of tying. Dave loves Japanese style rope work, and decided to dedicate himself to this. “It isn’t about the rope, it’s about the expression, the look in the eyes, the hopelessness, the agony”. Now, Dave & Clover teach and perform all around the world. He takes great pleasure in seeing people get it and open their minds to what rope bondage can really be. “Not just a means of restraint but a much deeper and personally connected experience than any other I’ve ever found.” Running into Dave means running into his lovely partner Clover. She is very passionate about shibari bondage too, she models and performs, as well as makes impressive photos of Japanese rope work done by Dave. Her photography focuses on the feelings involved in rope play, not just the pretty ties, and she tells stories with her pictures. Dave: “Of course Clover’s a huge part of everything. Without her photography would people ever have noticed?”
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London festival of the art of Japanese Bondage 2012

By |2024-08-18T18:03:08+00:00October 14th, 2012|Categories: Events, Festivals, Performance|Tags: , , |

Part 1 Well apart from wishing that the event had a shorthand name that was less of a mouthful than "The London Festival of the Art of Japanese Bondage" or LFAOJB for short. I'm really looking forward to it again. Last year it has to be said was amazing. 10 performers over from Japan plus a few good home grown talents. This year there's more of a European flavour and even a few Americans and Canadians. There is still Kazami Ranki from Japan headlining, this is his second London festival. I'm specially looking forward to seeing Riccardo Wildties from Italy and Bob Ropemarks (not to mention Dutch Dame) from the Netherlands. Amy Morgan from America and.... Oh it's 02:30 here and I'm blogging. Knackered and forgetting lots of people. So I'll just put - others too numerous to mention right now. There are a couple of people we wish had come that we're going to miss too. This year will we hope be a bit relaxed for us. Aside from performing on the Friday I'm not teaching except for a few private sessions and we're not concretely booked into any of the other goings on. We really hope to spend a good amount of time socialising and getting to talk to some of the people that have been in the same place as us all over the world but we never got the time to sit down with. There looks to be a stellar line up of shows though I have to say I'm a bit sad that John Murakawa will not be performing this year. He's a real artist and he puts a tremendous amount of energy into the festival and his artistic input [...]

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Shibari shoot with Neil Whitely

By |2024-08-18T18:07:46+00:00September 23rd, 2012|Categories: Shoots|Tags: , , , , , |

Yesterday Clover and I had the fortune to shoot with Neil Whitely (In Rhyl (In Wales (In the UK))). It was a real pleasure for us. From the nice drive down (And Jersey ice-cream. (And a Coffee that was like a mug full of espresso.)) to the shoot itself, to the chip supper when we got home. The whole shoot was very relaxed and Neil was very forthcoming about his aims and the kind of images he was looking for whilst very open to ideas about how to get them. His style is very strong on emotional content and focuses very much on expression and feeling. He's very good at getting this into his images as you can see when you look at the gallery at the end of this blog. Frankly for the bulk of the images we just sort of did what we might do at home anyway. So at least this time you will see some of us being ourselves. The fat that it looks good is entirely down to Neil's expertise in capturing these images. I hope you enjoy the results of this shoot, we certainly enjoyed doing it.

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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 [...]

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Rope workshops (Washington 2012)

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

It seems very late to be blogging about this. However I don't like to let events go past unrecorded and this one is no exception. First of all I have to say that this would never have happened without Greeneyedevil and AsianBella in Washington and TheHammer and Roxy in Baltimore. I'd like to thank all of you for the wonderful effort and hospitality you showed to us. I can't tell you all what it means to us. Thank you so much for welcoming us into your home. Hard on the heels of Shibaricon it was quite something to be doing two days teaching. I really hope that people got something from the classes. I really want the classes that I do to change people's bondage for the better. If I gave you guys something useful then I'm good with that. I love that feeling when people in the room are really starting to get things together and clicking with the point of the class. Especially those classes where the main focus is on connection. People did great in Washington. It was a pleasure to visit with you and to have the pleasure of teaching there.

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Mr Nice

By |2012-09-19T23:16:01+00:00September 19th, 2012|Categories: Random, Teaching|Tags: , , |

I am not Mr Nice. When it comes to teaching I am not. I do do my best to be Mr Patient, Mr Understanding & Mr Informative. But let's be honest, you, I hope, didn't hire me to be your friend, you hired me to improve your bondage. Bondage is serious and can be seriously dangerous so I take teaching bondage seriously. I also take very seriously the responsibility of teaching. If you have a good time in a lesson that's just great, I hope you do. But that is not my goal. My goal is that you go away doing better bondage than you were before the lesson. If you're making mistakes I'll do my best to be Mr Tactful about it. However I will not be Mr Flattery, I will not deceive you into thinking that you're doing better than you are. Nor will I fill you with a false sense of confidence or accomplishment because I'm not Mr Disingenuous. I will not teach you beyond your ability, because I am not Mr Irresponsible. If you are not serious about wanting to learn, do not come to me. There are plenty of teachers who will make you feel good about yourself regardless of your ability. Go to them by all means if that is what you're after. Personally in lessons I'm not trying to be Mr Likeable. I will not praise that which is not praiseworthy. I will do my best to improve your rope as much as I am able. I am I hope Mr Conciencious. I am and can be many people. But! I am not Mr Nice.

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Sinsations

By |2016-10-28T16:39:57+00:00September 16th, 2012|Categories: Events, Performance, Teaching|Tags: , , , , , |

It was great to be a part of the first Sinsations, a new event in Derbyshire. I can't remember a better first night of any event. Firstly the venue was excellent. It was as clean and well done as any I've been to. Normally a swingers club they naturally enough did not have a lot of BDSM furniture but everyone knew that before the event so nobody had a reason disappointed by that, also there were large benches in every room that were put to good use by many kinksters during the evening. There was a really good crowd came to the event, it was busy and convivial and I have to congratulate the organisers for the way they put this together, publicised it and ran it. We were there to do a rope bondage demonstration and a BDSM 101 class. The rope bondage show was newaza or floor work. Some of the people had seen us doing suspension based shows before so it was nice to be able to show them something closer to the kind of bondage that we enjoy in private. We would like to thank everyone that gave us such kind comments after the show and those that have posted and blogged about it since. We are really blown away by all your kindness and generosity. The BDSM 101 class is something that we present together and changes every time we do it. We try to cover the basics for a BDSM newcomer in a reasonable time. Again we have to thank everyone that gave such positive feedback and told us that they found it informative. All in all it was a tremendous first night for a new event. We thoroughly [...]

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Shoot with Hay (as she was then)

By |2016-10-28T16:39:58+00:00September 10th, 2012|Categories: Shoots|Tags: , , , |

A long time ago... Well a few years now (has it really been that long?) we had one of the first rope bondage photo-shoots in our Studio at Number 6 (yeh I know). We had suspension points, we had bamboo, and importantly we had a someone who wanted to be tied up in Japanese style bondage. A young lady at the time using the name 'Hay'. Well anyway we had a thoroughly enjoyable day and I think got some great shots. Clover's gotten a lot better over time and I know what she would do things differently now but I really do believe she did a great job of photographing this rope bondage.

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Behind the scenes of a shibari shoot with Suffering4art

By |2017-02-01T00:37:14+00:00September 9th, 2012|Categories: Shoots|Tags: , , , |

Some time ago I had the pleasure of shooting a model called squeak. On this occasion the photographer was Suffering4art a photographer who lives close by and whom we've collaborated with many times. The images below are a few raw unedited snaps shots taken during the and around the shoot, they are not the images that came from the shoot and not Suffering4art's excellent artistic images. That being said I thought that maybe people might enjoy seeing a few 'behind the scenes' shots from a shibari rope bondage shoot.

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Shoot with Rodm and Gestalta

By |2016-10-28T16:39:58+00:00September 8th, 2012|Categories: Shoots|Tags: , , , , , |

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far... OK a couple of years ago in Cambridge (The one in England not the one in Masachusetts.) I had the opportunity to do a  shoot of Japanese style rope bondage with English photographer Rodm and a model who's name I cannot now happily remember... happily for her because she flaked on the shoot with zero notice. Luckily Rod was able to get a replacement who very kindly came to the shoot at very short notice. This model was Gestalta and she was a real pleasure to work with. I think we got some really great stuff in the end. I was particularly happy with the Hojo hishi nawa. I think generally the shibari in this shoot works well and Rod captured the bondage and the mood. So these are some bondage pictures I'm very happy to have been involved in making. All credit though to our great model Gestalta (who has since modelled for, amongst others,  Kazami Ranki notably in performance at the Festival of the Art of Japanese bondage).  

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London festival performance 2011

By |2024-08-18T18:17:06+00:00September 2nd, 2012|Categories: Events, Performance|Tags: , , |

I have to say that I'm not normally nervous performing. I really look forward to it and the rush of doing bondage with clover on stage. London was the first time I've really felt anything other than excited. Nervous is probably not the right word though. Certainly feeling an edge that I hadn't before though. I pretty much put this down to the people I knew would be watching. Osada Steve (長田スティーブ), Hajime Kinoko (一鬼のこ), Kazami Ranki (風見蘭喜), Yoi Yoshida (吉田よい), Bingo Shigonawa (紫護縄びんご), Ero Ouji (エロ王子) etc. Also Japanese erotic photography legend Norio Sugiura (杉浦則夫) was in attendance. We had no concrete plan for the performance, just an idea about how to start and a rough idea of the finish. Everything in between being done on the fly. I think wracking is a good word for it. It wasn't flawless but we got through. Once it was finished I can't describe the feelings. Everyone was very kind in their comments. Kinoko describing it as "Good show. Very sadistic!" with a big grin and "Hot" was so great. Learning via interpreter that Kazami Ranki liked the performance was another thrill. Finally Osada Steve liking the show and very generously giving me a few tips to improve on the final day was a great bonus for us. He also praised Clover very much as a model and commented on her strength. She makes me very proud. The weekend was full of stuff that just blew us away. Teaching with Kinoko was an experience. Also my Ichinawa class went over very well and I have to say how touched I've been by those that said how much they liked it at the time and since. It was [...]

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