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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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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 |2024-08-18T17:55:08+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 |2024-08-18T17:56:43+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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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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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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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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Yukimura Haruki in Copenhagen

By |2024-08-18T18:49:07+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. 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 be the case. I shall certainly be re-viewing his videos with new eyes now. This might be disappointing to some readers but one thing I'm [...]

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Legarti (Rome)

By |2024-08-18T18:54:29+00:00August 21st, 2012|Categories: Events, Performance|Tags: , , , , |

Coming to re-write these blogs Legarti seems both a long time ago and very fresh in my memory. Firstly we were naturally enough very excited to be going to Rome. We'd never been before and this was going to be an exciting adventure in many ways. What a great time we had, the hospitality shown to us in Rome was second to none and I really mean that. The whole trip was an amazing experience. We even got to be tourists and saw some of the sights of Rome. Just an incredible city. Our thanks to Stefano Laforgia who put us up in his home and showed us some of the wonderful sights of Rome. The sights were just wonderful and it was so great for us to be able to see something of a city we visit. I have to say, OMG... the Coffee, the Icecream, the wonderful food at a great family restaurant. The wine! Mouth watering just thinking of it. So, on to the purpose of the visit the Legarti bondage festival. Asside from myself and Clover the other preformers were to the best of my memory Riccardo Sergnese with Redsabbath, Andrea Ropes, DolcissimaBastarda and was at the delightful space Lost and Found studio. There had been a lot of bad publicity in Italy about bondage after a kink accident that had nothing to do with Japanese style rope work had been labeld shibari by the press. I have to say what a great thing it was that this event happened such a short time after, with the Italian press invited to see what rope bondage was really about. Sadly we have no video and only a couple of snaps of the performance, what we do have however [...]

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Bound 2 (London 2012)

By |2024-08-18T18:58:37+00:00August 20th, 2012|Categories: Events, Performance|Tags: , , |

Our second time at bound was a great night. On reason we specially wanted to make this particular night was that Nawakiri Shin was going to perform and we wanted to meet him. He is the only rigger we knew of from Tiwan and he'd also performed at Hajimi Kinoko's festival Tobaku in Japan. It was again a great night of performances. There are some riggers in London that are making real strides forward and the quality of some performances was visibly improving. Here it will not surprise you that I'm going to concentrate on Nawakiri Shin's performance at Bound. The thing that struck me about Shin's performance right away was how theatrical it was. There was a scripted story, delightfully there was also comedy. The performance was entitled 'Monster'  and I won't spool the joke for you if you haven't seen it. I don't think I'll spoil too many secrets however if I say Cute Schoolgirl gets tied up and sadistic things happen to her. It was a lot of fun. They were a lot of fun. Really looking forward to seeing them again at the London festival. We also did a little something. Pics of our performance below.

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