Doing it by the book.
When it comes to suspension should people do it by the book? For instance should you have a fixed check list and tick off your safety checks? Should it be a rigid and defined procedure, set and unchangeable?
The answer to this is a loud and very resounding no! Fixing things in this way is the enemy of creativity, the enemy of development, the enemy of growth.
On the other hand...
Certain things should be checked, some, before you start, like the health of the suspension rig and your equipment which should be checked out in a methodical manner. When tying load bearing lines during a suspension they should be tied and locked in an appropriate manner.
Where the difficulty arises is in determining what is an appropriate manner.
What is appropriate changes depending on what is being done, with whom in what circumstances. This will in the end be to some extent a matter of judgement. To be able to make this kind of judgement a person needs knowledge and experience.
You cannot replace knowledge and experience with a check list.
This can go wrong.
The unexpected can effect us all... unexpectedly. Many people say to expect the unexpected. With respect to rope bondage and suspension the number things that could go wrong is large but finite we therefore can be prepared for the majority of likely happenings.
One thing that occurs to me is that there is a difference between knowing what to do about something and coping with something in the heat of the moment. It's something you will only ever find out when it happens.
When it comes to something going unexpectedly wrong, overconfidence and arrogance are the enemies of preparedness, the assumption that something will not go wrong for you. This can lead to ill preparedness and inattention.
Be aware of the risks, consider carefully if you are willing to accept responsibility for something going seriously wrong.
It's my opinion that you should always be aware that..
This can go wrong and have very real and serious consequences.
The dangers of what you are doing should be present in your mind.
Doing suspension bondage always carries risks, people sometimes talk of risk free and having methods that are less risky but there is no such thing as risk free and it's always, regardless of method more risky than not doing it. It is always a risk. It should be a calculated risk that you enter into knowingly and consentingly and with a grasp of the possible consequences and with a preparedness to accept the unhappy consequences of a mistake or failure. This cannot happen if you are not aware of the risks, it cannot be done responsibly without knowledge of how to deal with the possible problems, it cannot be done consentingly without both parties knowing the possible consequences and making an informed decision to enter into the activity.
I have seen people say that suspension is not an advanced skill, that it's easy and can be done safely with minimal knowledge. I cannot help but see these people as fools. You are literally hanging someone's life on your rope and your partner is quite literally trusting you with their life and well-being. This is not something to be casually regarded as a basic skill. You are by engaging in this act accepting responsibility for that persons life, safety and well-being. Be aware of that fact.
There are no getouts and no letoffs. It is absolutely incumbent upon you to know your business and to take that business and your responsibility seriously.
Badly copied bondage
It's an unfortunate problem that sometimes people copy your bondage badly. Not just that it looks bad but that the person copying something they have seen is copying it without understanding it.
The above is particularly worrying when applied to suspension bondage. Some people seem not to get this but, suspension bondage is dangerous if you get it wrong! Honestly it really is.
I find that the problem of bad copiests particularly effects me when I see pictures of bondage or in some cases hear tell of bondage that is bad, dangerous etc. done by people that I know have seen me rigging. I should not feel this but sometimes I cannot help but feel that I see poor, badly implemented or just plain wrong imitations of things I have done either at a shoot or workshop or demonstration. Did they think that it looked easy therefore it would be easy?
What to do? Nothing unfortunately I have absolutely no desire or right to be some kind of bondage policeman. I don't want to spend my time arguing people out of their decisions. At the end of the day they're adults and responsible for their own actions. But! Should you leave these people to their own mistakes? Unfortunately you have to. You cannot babysit the world, you cannot forcibly educate those that will not learn.
What bothers me is that in the case of bad rigging it is the trusting bound who is going to suffer the consequences of bad bondage not the unskilled rigger.
Many times it seems to me that people are relatively new to rope bondage and see what they perceive to be "cool suspensions" and want to be doing them. Well there's nothing wrong with wanting to do suspensions. What's wrong is when they do suspensions without grasping the basics and getting a firm grip on them first. What's wrong is when they do suspensions without a firm grasp of the consequences of getting it wrong!
Everyone has something go wrong sometime. I've had things go wrong. Regardless of knowledge of bondage, anatomy, experience and however many successful suspensions. Regardless of all I've learned in order to try and reduce the risk of something going wrong it happens. Suspension bondage is risky and it is incumbent on those who do it to be as well prepared as possible.
Now in the light of that statement consider how much more likely it is for something to go wrong with someone who isn't as well prepared. Who doesn't fully understand the risks. Who's technique and skills are at the rudimentary level. People who aren't experienced or knowledgeable to the point where they should be attempting suspension bondage. And I don't just mean the risks of instant damage. Nerve damage problems can be cumulative. Bad placement of ropes can cause problems that aren't immediately obvious and by the time they do become obvious it's too late.
Tied
Running it through my hands,
feeling its texture.
Not looking at it.
Looking at you.
Images run through my mind,
how you will look,
what I will do.
Laying it on your skin,
binding,
restricting,
ornamenting.
Making you helpless.
Hitch, weave, cinch, tension, turn.
Beautiful, and beautiful.
Helpless but held.
Tied
I am not Japanese.
I am not Japanese.
I did not grow up in Japan. I do not have the cultural frame of reference of someone Japanese. I do not speak Japanese very well.
That may seem obvious but it's a relevant point because, I love Japanese bondage, I find it heart achingly beautiful. But when I do bondage it is a western person doing it.
Despite the appearance of some of my bondage, it isn't done by someone Japanese, with a Japanese spirit or with any of the any other of the myriad cues, associations and references that make up a Japanese perspective on bondage.
So what does this mean for my bondage?
Well everything and nothing really. Much as I would like to understand, or may study I will never truly have a Japanese mind set. I don't however believe that this means less for my feeling for bondage. It does not diminish my delight in it or my passion to tie. With a partner who has grown up in a western culture their bondage experience and the feelings that they experience when being bound must be different to that of a Japanese person but that does not diminish the experience for them. It means that the experience is different but not, I think less.
Japanese bondage has taught, continues to teach and, I sincerely hope will always have much to teach me.
It's my intention to continue learning and developing my bondage. I'll continue to enjoy my bondage, use Japanese names for Japanese ties where I know them.
Does it matter that I'm not Japanese? No, not really. It's important to remember that my background colours the way I see things and has an effect on my perception and feelings for and from bondage but does not mean the feelings are less or any less valid. It doesn't mean my appreciation for the beauty of Japanese bondage is less, it does mean that it's different.
I am passionate about bondage. I am committed to improving my bondage. I gain great satisfaction from bondage and even more from the affect on my partners. I gain great joy and satisfaction from the intimacy and connection in bondage.
Knot what I meant
Pretty much everyone uses some knots in bondage. There's a lot of preference in their choice and what's the right knot depends on the circumstances.
I have an interest in knots; in service of the bondage.
I have an interest in rope; in service of the bondage.
I have an interest in many thing, in art, in music, in anything that helps to serve the bondage.
What I don't understand is the obsession with these things just as a stand alone concept with no purpose other than to argue about the intrinsic benefits and properties of those knots divorced from their use.
To refute, or not to refute, that is the question.
Sometimes people make posts on forums that are just crazy, full of misinformation, logically flawed, full of false assumptions or just plain wrong.
So what do you do?
Do you ignore these posts; or do you refute them?
Generally I have chosen to refute them believing that if you don't then there's a chance that people especially those starting out may believe them and have their time wasted finding out that they've been steered wrong.
This just, well it's exhausting, it just annoys the me and makes me feel tired. I'm not the internet policeman, I'm not the bondage policeman. However I feel that if you're engaged in a 'community' and want to see it advance you do be being part of that community have take on an implicit responsibility to oppose something that you see as detrimental to that community. And I think that misinformation falls into that category.
I've come to dislike doing this however for a few reasons.
Firstly the person who posted may simply be mistaken in their belief and though you try it's hard to effectively tell them they're 'mistaken' in a way that they are able to accept. People naturally in some cases become somewhat defensive even though the intention was never to attack them.
Secondly some people repeatedly jump on the same hobby horse time after time and have a kind of tunnel vision about what they think is right and wrong and cannot consider any other approach or the possibility of their error. Saying anything to someone like that is just a thankless task in any case because they will never be persuaded by argument, fact or in extreme cases even sanity.
Thirdly and very importantly I start to feel like all I ever post for is to argue. That's not fun. It sucks up energy that could be used for something useful.
A further thought is that there are many topics and posts that occur to me that I don't post because I can well see that if I do I'm going to have to dedicate quite a bit of time to responding to replies that either, didn't read the OP, didn't understand the OP or plain just posted something unrelated. Also you may get one of the afore mentioned hobby horsests who will use any opportunity to push their agenda especially if you post something not in tune with their personal world view.
It seems unavoidable and is tiring. Yet you shouldn't let things go past that you really think are wrong.
It’s all about…
The longer you're around the bondage scene the more you notice the ebb and flow of trends within the scene.
One of the current fads is 'connection' you see people doing classes all over that never apparently worried about this area of their bondage before. I see people who have displayed nothing but an obsession with technique applaud those touting 'connection is all you need'.
When I see posts of that nature I think 'yes but it might be handy to at least know how not to cripple your partner' rather than just saying 'connection is all'.
Don't get me wrong, connection is hugely important. I teach classes on connection. It is in my opinion absolutely central to what rope bondage is all about and always has been. In many ways it's great that these fads turn up and people get into an aspect of bondage that they've previously neglected, not just this one, it's good for everyone to keep connection in mind. Just not to the extent of thinking that it somehow removes the need to know what you're doing.
I'd like to point out that I believe anyone tying another person is responsible to know how to take care of the person in their rope and in their care.
To give an analogy, the idea that it doesn't matter what you do as long as you do it with emotion is one that has led to a lifetime of wasted potential for any number of musicians that felt that knowing what they were doing would somehow 'ruin their feel' when the truth is that not learning was what ruined their development. I sometimes wonder how many people actually believe this kind of thing, how many simply do not think to question it and how many are just using it as an excuse for their laziness. (There have of course been many wonderful players that were not 'classically trained' but these without exception were very dedicated and worked incredibly hard to find their way and develop their own knowledge, none of them just relied on 'feel' to the exclusion of hard work.)
While it's nice that some people are getting away from their monomaniacal obsessions with rope types, knots technical details and realising that it is actually about people, it is alarming to see those people now saying that the only thing you need is 'feel' whatever you may define that as, and that's all with no mention of any necessary skills.
The danger of fadism is the focusing on one aspect to the exclusion of all others.
I believe that it's never one thing or the other but that good bondage is made up of a balance of factors. It's about connection but that doesn't mean it's not about skill. Yes it's about skill but that doesn't mean it's not about knowledge. Yes it's about knowledge but that doesn't mean it's not about connection.
I believe that it's a balance of a combination of things. Ever shifting and changing. The idea that technique is in the way of connection is a common misapprehension. Good technique is in fact the servant of expression and it is through your ability to express yourself and so communicate with your partner that is at the root of being able to cultivate that connection.
TK on trial (is it safe?)
There has been a lot of discussion on this topic and it’s wondered far and wide around the subject and has largely been based on personal preferences, anecdotal ‘evidence’ and ‘people said to me’ kinds of things.
To an extent people have been putting the TK on trial rather than the knowledge, safety information and skills required for it's safe use. I wonder however if "Is the TK safe" the right question.
If you want to ask this kind of question it helps to know what the question really is.
Do you mean in an absolute sense? If that’s the question then the answer is easy; no, nothing is safe in an absolute sense and therefore a TK isn’t safe either.
Do you mean to suspend someone in one position for extended periods? If so what constitutes and extended period. What’s the weight distribution on the body? How else is the body to be supported? What position would the suspension be in?
If you want to compare it to other ties then are they comparable? Do they provide equivalent restriction, can you do similar suspensions and transitions?
Another thing I’d consider a key question is, what’s a TK anyway? You can simplistically say that it’s a box tie, that rope goes over the arms etc. But there are so many different variants and methods of construction that it’s very hard to agree exactly what a TK is. And if you don’t agree this before discussing it’s safety then you invalidate the discussion by talking at cross purposes at anything but the most general level.
A big problem with this kind of question is evidence. We know that there are injuries, we know that many variables effect what these injuries are and their severity. What we don’t know is how significant each of these factors are. Without a serious scientific study this is going to continue to be a problem for any discussion. Things like “I’ve never had a problem with”, “Nobody I’ve talked to has” and the like aren’t really helpful or significant. I’ve never been run over crossing the street, this doesn’t mean that people aren’t run down crossing the street or that there isn’t a level of danger associated with crossing the street. If someone says to me that they’ve never known someone who was run over crossing the street does that in any way effect the likelihood of it actually happening? Of course not. Anecdotal evidence is for reasons such as that almost totally meaningless. Individual experiences are unavoidably subjective. Given enough accurate information it’s possible to build up a more informative picture, this is what Esinem has been trying to do by encouraging people to report incidents with as much detail as possible anonymously. The more information that is recorded and the greater number of incidents the more a real picture will emerge. However it must be born in mind that this reporting is itself subjective and not scientific observation.
So, where does that leave us? Not anywhere in particular, don’t get the impression that the information gathered as described above is useless. It does at the very least inform us of the trend of the most common problem and their type. Or to be absolutely clear about this, the most commonly reported problems and their type. What it doesn’t accurately do is inform us of the exact cause though we can make some deductions, without testing however we can’t guarantee that our deductions aren’t skewed by factors that we’re not aware of.
From all the forgoing we know that injuries of concern are nerve injuries, we know that people have suffered wrist drop, palsies and the like. From this it seems fair to deduce that these injuries are caused by the pressure of the rope over the nerve.
Let’s assume for the sake of argument that placement is the key to these injuries and avoiding them. If we make that assumption what if any other factors come into play? Is there any way we can justify that proposition?
Hypothetical case 1
Let’s consider the same tie with the same tension and the same placement and the same model, once on the floor with no suspension pressures and once in suspension. In our hypothetical case the suspension results in nerve damage and the floor bondage doesn’t.
This, given the relative incidence of nerve damage in suspension vs. floor bondage seems a case that is likely to occur and very probably has on a number of occasions or at least a very close approximation. In this case as the placement is the same in both instances it must be that some other factor has come into play. What could this be? The obvious one is that the amount of pressure applied to the body is much greater in suspension than in floor bondage. So pressure is a factor.
Before we go further let’s have another hypothetical case.
Hypothetical case 2
Let’s consider the same tie as in case 1 but with a slightly altered rope placement, with the same model the same suspension.
This time their is no injury. Given that the pressure applied to the body is the same as in case one we can only assume that the rope placement made the difference.
So we can now assume that rope placement is not the sole cause, pressure is not the sole cause, we need bad rope placement plus pressure. We can however further deduce that rope placement is the primary causative factor but does not necessarily result in injury without a certain amount of pressure.
If we accept that placement is the primary cause then the other factors that may come into play will be regarding the extent of possible damage, for instance muscle tone, weight, body fat, rope thickness, time under stress and so on and so forth. Depending on their quantities/proportions any of these factors may be positive or negative influences but in cases where any of these mitigate the effects of pressure it is the case that they only mitigate and not prevent.
(On a side note that I while I feel it’s worth mentioning but don’t wish to introduce as a complication to these examples is the fact that angle of pull/suspension can effect where a tie transmits force into the body of the tied and that this should be born in mind and accounted for with regard to dynamic suspensions and transitions)
So what conclusions can we draw?
That rope placement is causative of nerve damage injury, that it’s likely that no other factors will mitigate against this causing an injury if get it exactly wrong though they may effect the extent of the injury. If you get it slightly wrong i.e. you’re close to but not actually over the nerve then factors like body fat between the rope and the site, muscle mass between the rope and the site, force being applied via the bondage, duration of compression etc. will come more into play.
A conclusion that we can draw, is that in all cases rope placement is the deciding factor in injury. If the rope were not over or near the site of the vulnerability then there wouldn’t be a nerve injury.
What then can we do to prevent these nerve injuries? They do happen and will probably continue to happen. Sometimes because people don’t even know there is a problem to be avoided, sometimes because people don’t know how to avoid the problem, and sometimes, hard though it may be to accept, accidents happen. It’s clear however that accidents happen far less often to the more skilled.
Good information, good teaching, good attitude and good practice all help to cut down the incidence of these injuries. That being said, it is generally true that rope play, especially rope suspension play is edge play and is a danger entered into deliberately. It's therefore incumbent on those participating to arm themselves with the best knowledge possible. This is the difference between entering into a known risk in a calculated rather than a reckless fashion.
Mastery
Often you will find that the best at anything have a certain humility, this is because in their pursuit of excellence they have realised how little they know and how much more there is to learn. They call themselves students and always see themselves as such, seeking always to learn.
Often those who are the least humble are the mediocre, they have learned a little but cannot see how little they really know. They believe what little they know is all that should be known and become arrogant in their little knowledge. They proclaim themselves masters and never seek to learn.