If you are reading this, maybe you know (or maybe you do not) that my instagram account was finally deleted. This has caused me to reflect on my relationship to my creative output and how overly reliant I had become on that platform. Although it proved to be a useful way to share my work broadly, the myriad downsides had started to become too large to ignore.
These include, in rough order of importance:
1. censorship
2. being subject to an opaque algorithm
3. addiction to likes and other dopamine traps
4. focusing too much on follow counts, eg. comparison is the thief of joy
5. limited character count in the caption leading to lack of context
I want to focus in this first log about point five. I have rarely explained my thought process when tying except to my in-person students, preferring instead to share my poems and pictures as stand alone pieces. My hope is that the effect was to create a kind of journal reflecting my daily life – I write almost exclusively about what is right in front of me, and I treat rope as a very normal part of my physical routine. It isn’t something that stands apart, but something which is mundane. Which should not be confused as unimportant or boring, all the best things in life have a touch of the mundane. The ritual of morning coffee, a kiss from a longtime lover, the habit of feeding the cat. Life is full of normal magic.
A study in twisting legs
An exploratory tie with favoriteblanket –
We agreed to aim for something a bit dynamic, so after a nice warmup I met the first stop in the decision tree by choosing a TK. This proved to be a very limiting choice as the tight upper bands blocked the shoulders into place and restricted mobility on the torso. The stemless design also lent itself only to vertical or torsioned positions, as the minimal structure made the TK too unstable to use through many transitions.
However, limits have a way of making things happen. Adding constraints clarifies the available options, and usually listening to the bottom provides many interesting ideas. We talk often about communication often in rope without explaining exactly what that means. In this case it meant waiting and closely watching for the moment favoriteblanket settled into a different position or made an adjustment herself. Based on these clues I decided to pull the ankle up and to the side, where it landed in this very interesting twisted shape.
Note that when the knee is twisted in this angle this can be risky to the bottom. At this point I verbally checked in that it wasn’t painful to the knee, and after adjusting the thigh/waist tie up to raise the other leg, I released the ankle entirely. Pausing here to see where she naturally moved the leg, and how the hip angle changed.
Tying and untying in the air is one of my favorite ways to vary the pace of a scene – releasing structures or building them up to add a different level of challenge to my partners body at the same time as the sensation of being released and re-bound gets inside their head. I used the ankle line to tie a futomomo, pulling it to the highest point in the suspension. When I did this the lines on the other ankle became loose, so I untied them and saw an opportunity to re-cross the legs to create symmetry to the earlier part of the tie.
Using a stemless TK in a fully inverted position is not recommended, as the bands will tend to slide or put pressure lower on the arms where there is greater likelihood of hitting the radial nerve. To avoid this I lowered the TK completely and untied it, before retying the wrists and bringing favoriteblanket into a more compacted position again. For bottoms who are less experienced with rope on their wrists, I recommend creating a long double bight so they can hold onto the knot. While I find people can acclimate to pressure directly on the wrists, it is risky for the nerves, so for beginners I untie immediately when they are no longer able to support their weight by holding onto the rope. From this final position we went to the ground by releasing the waist, ankle, and finally futomomo.
Big thanks to favoriteblanket for her excellent active bottoming!
A disappointed fate Something as simple as breathing wrapped in a handmedown coat, a generation’s sweat, dry-cleaned out and a compliment from the one who knows. Messy bangs, scuffed shoes, a bent key ring a lock of hair tucked behind the ear. And the image of a crane in the clouds - a test of where to look. There is a brotherhood in women facing the ugly world, and running streams meet to form a stream. Buying mugs of soup, penny papers, spinach Running hands through hair Running hands on skin as simple as the breathing
boshai 