Building frameworks for understanding:
consent, body, rope, movement, and practice.
Many people come to rope the way I did; pulled in by something they can't quite name yet. A feeling, performance, scene, an image; a conversation that opened a door they didn't know was there.
And then the rope is in your hands, or on you, and it is nothing like you imagined. It is harder. More technical. More intimate. More demanding of your attention than anything warned you it would be.
That gap, between what drew you here and what it actually asks of you; is not a problem to solve. It is the beginning of a practice.
I learned rope in that gap. Found my way through it with some guidance, some luck, and a stubborn decision to do better by others than the learning curve had done by me. That decision became a curriculum. The curriculum became a studio. The studio became a community. And the community keeps becoming, through some stubbornness, something none of us fully planned.
You don't have to always know where you are going. The shape of things takes time, and sometimes changes entirely before it arrives. This page is an attempt at shifting perspectives; to have you question what you thought you knew, and sit with the questions that replace it. I hope it gives you answers. I hope it gives you more questions. Both are the point.
Don't give up. Do your best.
I can be there along your path, at least for a time...
Get you where you want to go.
William Desjardins (she/her, they/them). Fell into rope in 2014 through a Mistress, head first into kink. Started tying in 2015 and never stopped. Founder of Tension MTL, a rope studio built slowly and stubbornly in Montréal. Over 10,000 hours in. Teaching, tying, performing, making mistakes, learning from them.
Former technical training director. That background translated directly: breaking complex things into their smallest learnable components is the same skill, different material. The teaching philosophy has always been about planting seeds and watching students grow.
Teaching approach shaped by component-based martial arts pedagogy. Kenjutsu practiced seriously. Aikido explored more through reading than formal training. Not authorized in any Japanese rope tradition. Everything drawn from many sources, shaped by a decade of deliberate practice and the humility to keep questioning it.
Behind the rigging, behind the classes, behind the policies and the leader label, there is just a person doing their best not to fuck it up. Rope is edge play. Not a caveat. The foundation.
The Fundamentals are not a phase to get through. They are the whole practice, revisited at every level.
When philosophy matters.
& Thirteen companions that changed me along the way.
Not rules to follow but lenses to see through.
These philosophies shaped me but they are not rules, only companions; concepts that have walked with me. They remind us that rope is more than just tying bodies and that mastery should never be the goal. The path is what counts, be in the moment; the person, not the destination.
Rope should be done with feeling; it's not all about the rope. Shibari or Kinbaku, depending on who you ask, is characterized by these three ingredients:
Above all, do not forget to have fun.
Structure is about every angle, tension, and line being intentional. Beauty is not decoration. It is structure made visible. Rope that looks right usually is right.
Tension should be palpable, why are you tying? The answer shapes everything. Rope without purpose is just knots. Intention transforms technique into something that goes beyond just macramé.
Flow is the dialogue that is rope between partners, not a monologue. Learning to listen with your hands, responding to micro-movements, separates craft from art.
You will notice that in these pillars Connection is last. Aesthetics are first. This is only because it is the easiest to access and connection the hardest to master. As my teaching philosophy grew so did the pillars and what they associated to.
"Eventually everything will be understood."
These symbols hang above the Kamiza at Tension.
As an invitation to ask questions and contemplate; a reminder that our actions in rope should be slower, methodical and practiced.
Originally the three pillars — Aesthetics, Purpose, Connection — were enough to orient a beginner. But the deeper the practice went, the more a larger framework was needed. One that could hold technique, transmission, and community at the same time.
Maru Sankaku Shikaku: Circle, Triangle, Square. An ancient teaching from Zen and Japanese martial arts, brought into a contemporary practice. Not as philosophy for its own sake but as a working tool for understanding body, rope, movement, and relationship.
The Universe. Three shapes that contain everything. At Tension, the symbols 〇△□ hang above the Kamiza; a reminder that every action in rope is a choice navigated through rigidity, technique, and how we hold safety together.
The square holds. The triangle chooses. The circle returns.
The square holds. It is the container: the form, the frame, the kata repeated until reliable. Without the square, there is nothing to push against and nowhere to return.
The triangle is the moment of decision, where forces meet and something must give. Every transition is a triangle. You choose a direction, apply tension, and there are consequences.
The circle has no beginning and no end. In rope it is the return: to fundamentals, to humility, to practice. Every teacher was once a beginner. The community is circular.
The rope's form, safety prerequisites, the pattern practiced until second nature.
The load decision, emotional charge, choosing to add or release pressure.
Sensitivity to the body receiving rope, adapting when anatomy, breath, or energy shifts.
Curriculum sequence, prerequisites, repeatable components taught consistently.
The challenge placed on a student at the right moment, not too soon, not too late.
Reading the room, following what the student is actually learning.
Agreements, policies, accountability frameworks, boundaries that protect the space.
Honest feedback, consent negotiation, the responsibility of authority.
How a community absorbs conflict, learns, adapts, and continues rather than fractures.
These shapes are not ideas to just contemplate but integrate; and that takes practice. Structure tells you what the form requires. Tension tells you what the moment demands. Flow tells you how to adapt when reality differs from the plan.
These are not sequential stages. They are simultaneous concepts found everywhere; Like proportion studies of the Vitruvian Man. At any moment in practice, all three are active, at all times. These shapes are also teaching tools and apply to biomechanical rules. The question is: do any of these need your immediate active attention? Eventually they are all passively applied; we do not think when we walk; we just do, but reality is that many people could go back to learning how to walk.
"In time, the rope will tie you as much as you tie it; Mastery is not the goal. Walking the path is."
The square carries information and patterns that we can study; Click on the Vitruvian man to reveal avenues of study.
NERVE · Fundamentals · Physical safety
Where all three of them leave the body.
All the nerves come out of the armpit and run along the outside of the arm at different intervals. That is why a wrap sitting wrong causes tingling in the fingers rather than at the wrap. It is also why armpits sit on my never list alongside elbows and the inside of the arms. Everything else on this figure passes through here first.
PRACTICE · Fundamentals · Torsions & joint erosion
The shoulder articulation, and how the arm gets there.
The takatekote is known for causing torsion injury, which is why I teach manipulating a partner into position rather than pulling them there. The precaution I credit to Fuoco, out of circus: hold the arm out at a 45 degree angle, rotate until the thumb points backwards, then pivot the more flexible arm into position. You should see the shoulder pitch forward, and that is how you know you have it.
NERVE · Fundamentals · Physical safety
First out of the armpit, protected by the deltoid.
Compressed, it tingles on the top of the hand and into the thumb area, and it is the one that carries mobility. My placement is that the top wrap sits at the bottom of the deltoid where the muscle still protects the nerve, not in the valley between deltoid, biceps and triceps. For suspension in this arm position I do not take that first wrap beyond about 80 per cent.
NERVE · Fundamentals · Physical safety
Follows the inside of the arm, can be caught in the bend of the elbow.
It reports on the palm side of the hand: the tips of thumb, index and middle finger, and sometimes only half the ring finger depending on the person, above the knuckles of the digits.
NERVE · Fundamentals · Physical safety
Last out of the armpit, around to the outside of the arm near the elbow.
Most often affected by the Kannuki, or by any wrap causing problems on the inside of the arm, or the lower wraps near the elbow, depending on placement. My second wrap sits roughly halfway from shoulder to elbow and stays looser than the top one, around 60 per cent.
PRACTICE · Fundamentals · Physical safety
Elbows, knees, wrists, ankles, armpits, groin.
My reasoning is that when you are new you are not in control of the tension you are placing there. Elbows and the inside of the arms, never. Armpits, never. On wrists I place the rope on the other side of the articulation, where pressing tells you it is weak. If a cuff does slip into the articulation a fist buys time, but only enough time for the rigger to redress it.
PRACTICE · Fundamentals · Physical safety
Colour tells you which problem you have.
Blue is venous: blood entering and not leaving. The nerves are not in much danger of losing oxygen barring actual compression, but stagnant blood carries an embolism risk. White is arterial: blood leaving and not entering. Generalized tingling can come with either, since the body is reading an oxygen imbalance, though I only get it during arterial. The trap is that generalized tingling masks localized tingling, so a circulation problem can hide a nerve problem underneath it. Raynaud’s sits on top of all of it: it affects around 20 per cent of the population, and with it, or with peripheral vascular disease, I drastically reduce time in bondage. On that body, colour stops being a reading you can trust.
PRACTICE · Fundamentals · Neck rope
The front and sides of the neck.
Full occlusion of both the arteries and the veins puts someone out in four seconds. It is an involuntary automatic response, not something willpower or experience reaches. Once out they are dead weight, and you have seconds. Placement on the neck is fragile and specific on top of that, and people die every year from neck-related sexual practice.
PRACTICE · Fundamentals · Emotional safety
Not a place on the body.
Arguably more important than the physical. Talk about expectations so you are both on the same page, get feedback from each other, and keep evolving the technical and the emotional awareness together rather than treating one as the real skill and the other as the soft part.
PRACTICE · Fundamentals · Physical safety
Around the chest, and the soft tissue between the ribs.
Wraps too tight around the chest have been known to cause numb patches under the breast or pectoral tissue. It happens most when someone is tied with their arms up in the air: the muscles are stretched and the shoulder blades are not where they will end up, so when the arms come down that top wrap is suddenly far too tight. Separately, a friction placed in the soft tissue between the ribs can trigger a vagal shock.
NERVE · Fundamentals · Physical safety
Through the front of the hip, in the lines of a futomomo or hip harness.
The futomomo and various hip harnesses can cause sensitivity issues through the femoral nerve. Tight lines high up across the thighs are on my avoid list. Thigh cuffs above the knee over extended periods raise the same problem, and there the numb patch has been known to show up on the top of the foot rather than where the rope is.
NERVE · Fundamentals · Physical safety
Inside the legs.
Known to cause sensitivity issues on the top of the foot. Some people really enjoy rope here and it is a risk some are willing to take. Suspension trauma, orthostatic shock while suspended, is the other thing that lives in this region if someone is held vertically too long.
NERVE · Fundamentals · Physical safety
The popliteal fossa, and the front of the knee.
Calf binders too tight, for too long, or too high into the popliteal fossa cause foot drop. So does rope behind or around the front of the knees when it sits too high or too tight. This is the leg’s version of the radial problem: the injury is named for the lost function, not for the sensation.
PRACTICE · Fundamentals · Sensation, Mobility
Two separate checks, because they fail separately.
Sensation: touch the ends of the fingers with the thumbnail individually, and touch the backs of the hands against something, often the back in a box tie position. Mobility: the Duck and the Bear. Closing the fingers all the way meets real resistance, and when the radial is affected the hand will not close. Onset can be surprisingly sudden, so check frequently and after every transition.
PRACTICE · Fundamentals · Physical safety
What to do the moment tingling shows up.
Slide one or two fingers behind the wraps to equalize the tension, or move the problem somewhere else. Sometimes one rope width up or down is the whole fix. If the tingling subsides, sometimes in three or four seconds, the fun continues. The play does not need to stop, it needs to pause and be redressed.
PRACTICE · Fundamentals · Physical safety
Two things people get wrong after the fact.
The damage is cumulative whether or not it was permanent. Someone who has had severe extended compression and recovered will show symptoms faster the next time, so their threshold is not the one in the book. And where the insulation or the axon is damaged, or the nerve is sheared, do not massage the area: it makes matters worse.
PRACTICE · Fundamentals · Loss of consciousness
Pressure drop, and vagal shock.
Nausea or near-fainting while tying is often a pressure drop, and in my experience it tracks with people not moving their feet for long stretches. A friction in the soft tissue between the ribs can trigger a vagal shock that feels much the same. Either way: cold or hot, dizziness, nausea, ringing ears, blurred vision, sweating.
PRACTICE · Fundamentals · Leaving someone unattended
Everything on this figure can happen while you are out of the room.
Someone in a box tie who falls has no hands to catch themselves, and people still try, bending toward the floor so the face arrives faster. Their safety relies entirely on your presence, and the safety tool only counts if you are there to use it.
"The square is not a cage.
It is the container that makes
freedom possible."
Structure is not the opposite of freedom. It is the condition of it. The square is the container. The kata. The protocol. Without the square, the circle has nothing to return to and the triangle has nothing to push against.
Westerners often want to skip as many steps as possible. "How long will it take me to get to...?" In rope, this leads to dangerous practices. People get hurt, physically and emotionally.
"The path is not something you complete. It is something you continue."
I built this curriculum because the gap in the community wasn't just technical. People were getting hurt not because they lacked enthusiasm, but because the foundations hadn't been laid honestly. The levels exist to address that. Not to gatekeep. Not to make you take my classes specifically.
I don't care where you learned. I care whether you can demonstrate the knowledge, skills, judgment, and safety foundations required for where you are at. Equivalent experience from other teachers and schools counts. You can challenge prerequisites. What I need to see is the competency, not loyalty.
What I won't do is skip the assessment entirely. Suspension and advanced load work carry enough risk that some method of confirming readiness is not optional. That isn't personal. It is the minimum standard of care I hold for everyone who works with me or alongside me.
Like martial arts belts, the rope colours at Tension are not certifications of completion. They are reminders of where you stand on your personal Dō, and an invitation to return to roots with each advancement. There is no top. Every colour eventually circles back to Beige.
Level ≠ role. Skill ≠ teaching capacity. The issue is not where you learned; it is whether you can do the thing in relative safety and if I am comfortable showing you things I will then be responsible for.
One session. One rope. You tie on yourself — so everyone is actively engaged throughout. By the end you can explore rope independently, tie basic patterns, and begin to understand what you are actually doing when you put rope on another person.
But more than the techniques — you leave knowing that there is more. That there are doors you didn't know were there. That is the point.
"Look at all of these doors that you may or may not have known were there."
Single column · Wrapping & Intention · Dressing Rope · Finger Pointing · Batten-Dome · Taiko-Dome · Kannuki · Larkshead · Takedome · Nodome · Futomomo · Body manipulation · Gote & creativity framework · Rope care · Negotiation · Aftercare · Debriefing
Core physical safety considerations · What rope can and cannot do to a body · The essentials of working with another person safely
A discourse on consent; clear, enthusiastic, revocable. The Fuck Yes standard. Opt-in negotiation. An introduction to the conversation that never ends.
The class shows you the doors. The book is some of what's behind them, reiterated and expanded. Not the ultimate guide but a foundational map of a territory you might want to return to, as you need it. Physical safety in anatomical detail. Emotional safety. Consent frameworks. Philosophy. Creativity. You won't know which paths matter until you are already on one. The book will hopefully be a resource to help you along yours.
You will eventually understand that no path is one path. It is many, walked back and forth, abandoned or well trodden, forking off here and there. Hopefully I will have made you curious enough to one day leave your own marks.
The parenthetical is not a technicality. It is the most honest thing we can say about what we are trying to build.
Safe(r) spaces require structure. We have a responsibility to hold people more accountable inside safe(r) spaces, not less. Some behaviours will get you benched or removed. Freedom does not mean freedom from consequences.
When you fuck up, own it. Listen. Repair where you can. Step back if you need to. Leadership without accountability is just ego in a shiny outfit.
Aim for Fuck Yes. Sober, informed, enthusiastic, revokable, ongoing. Negotiate honestly. Every time.
Places like Tension do not exist by magic. Show up. Help out. Pay when you can. Contribute to the culture you want to live in.
None of this is ever gates to pass through or done & done certifications. They are honest descriptions of what each stage of your practice might look and feel like. Read them and try to locate yourself. Not where you wish you were. Where you are.
Between Floorplay and Partials sits the Lab — open practice sessions where what you've learned has room to settle. Not a class. Not an assessment. A space to tie, make mistakes, ask questions, and discover what you actually retained versus what you thought you did.
The Lab exists because integration takes time that classes can't always give. The transition into uplines and load work is not a technical leap; it is a readiness question. The Lab is where information from floorplay gets integrated and extrapolated.
"Every tie is a choice.
The triangle holds or it hurts.
It should not be forced but felt."
The triangle is the moment of decision. Every tie is a choice. Why are you tying? The answer shapes everything that follows; the technique you choose, the pace you set, the attention you bring.
We need to evaluate and be reactive in every moment. Slow down pressure on harsh angles, or increase with certainty. Really feel frictions into place. Guide the pressure through triangulation, sense it in your fingertips, and ensure we don't go beyond what is tolerable.
Rope without intention is just knots. Tension without direction is just force. The triangle holds the question: what are you actually doing here, and does the person in front of you know?
The teaching at Tension runs across several paths — Floorplay, LAB, Suspension, and Nawajutsu, the martial path through rope. Each is distinct. All of them run through the same foundations and eventually reach the same conclusions.
The connection between method, craft and art.
Nawajutsu in application is drawn from multiple traditions: Hojōjutsu, Torinawajutsu, Hayanawa, Honnawa — all branches that touch on versions of Japanese martial arts of using rope to restrain a person; THIS and not "Shibari" as we refer to it today was practiced by samurai and law enforcement, at a time when handcuffs were not a thing, studied still in very select martial arts schools to this day. Preceding all of them is Torite — the art of the hand before the rope. The aggressor had to be controlled, balance broken, leverage removed, before any rope was applied. The rope was never first. None of these lineages I can speak to; yet my approach, intentions and studies are touching on depictions or versions of it.
I spent a long time arguing that Shibari should be considered like BuDō. I was wrong about the word, right about the direction. BuDō is the way of war. What I actually meant was Dō — the way. NawaDō. ShibariDō. The discipline, the practice, the path.
Nawajutsu is my attempt to build a container for that; the technical vocabulary of the martial traditions, applied to rope as I practice it, without the combat destination those traditions were designed for. I was training Kenjutsu and started noticing aspects of it bleeding into my rope work. The way I moved around a body, entered a position, exited a tie. People began asking me; "how are you doing that?" I went looking for the math of it. Through discussions with some folx and some private classes, I came to learn I was already practicing some Aikido methodology without naming it. Center mass. Triangulated weak points. Controlling through connection rather than force. I pushed into that deliberately. I tried... But I didn't want to continue in Aikido itself — I had no interest in breakfalls, throwing, or some of the combat destinations the art moves toward. Everything else was relevant. The destination wasn't. Nawajutsu became the container for what I was actually working on; the vocabulary without the application it was designed for.
This class is the subject of my own ongoing exploration. Not a finished system. Join me in it.
"Only when actually being confronted with many different feels can you do things with feeling."
When people ask how I am doing something, this is some of the perception checks that I am rolling… I am peripherally reading the floor. None of this is mystical and none of it is fully mine. It is the geometry that martial traditions have been teaching for a very long time, borrowed and pointed at for rope.
The square is what you can always see. Two points, the balance of each foot, somewhere just behind the toes where the weight actually sits. The line between them is the diagonal of a perfect square, and the two triangles it cuts run out to the Sumi-otoshi behind and Mae-otoshi in front.
Feet wide, hands in. The square is at its biggest and the circle at its smallest. The other state is the same body making the opposite trade.
Reading outward
Balance floats from the hara
The trade
Feet together makes a small square and the sword circle opens wide.
Four rings, inner to outer
The filled band
How I alter my stance to make it strong and shift and move to where theirs is weak, notice how that shifts. The slider runs from a wide passive base, in through close, and back out into A strong stance “kamae”: the change from a passive stance to an active one. Pounce like a snake. Know how to do that passively and not aggressively, and then how to do it with intention. Position, move, connect, take control through your core, move with your core.
What it feels like - treating the limb like a rope
A resisting body is already connected
A passive body has to be activated first
I use push and pull mechanics used in martial arts and in displacement. They are not two techniques. They are states that a body can already be in, and each one gives me a bearing. What I am after is the same either way: body activation, taking someone from passive or resisting to active and receptive. Once they are there I can displace the whole person, or take a limb through its own joints.
Either way
The sphere is dynamic. It shifts, it can be connected with and followed, and once you follow it the circle can become a spiral, up, down, around, which is what makes circular movement worth anything.
Both circles are built the same way: centred on the hara, cutting the floor, and the crossings are the otoshi points. Both figures are drawn at the same height so the comparison is honest. Omote sweeps down the front in red, Ura down the rear in blue. The circle barely changes between rest and kamae. That is the whole finding.
The otoshi line is the perpendicular one, running out to the corners, 63 degrees off front to back. This page cuts that plane at a steep angle, so on the kamae figure the circle foreshortens into an ellipse. It is still a circle in its own plane. What that means practically is that the gap between base and otoshi point cannot be read off this view at all, only off a plan.
After connection is established we maintain that connection and sometimes utilize the centrifugal force to balance and follow the dynamic sphere with our Uke.
Centrifugal is the honest word for what that feels like, to do these techniques, even though physics calls it the fictitious one. Stand outside the turn and there is only one force, it points inward: the rope, the grip, the hand at the hip, holding a mass on a curve that would otherwise leave it. That inward pull is the real one, and it has a name; centripetal.
Stand inside the turn, which is where both of us actually are, and it reverses. The mass feels thrown outward and loads the connection. Both descriptions are correct. They differ only in where the observer is standing, and I teach from inside.
Three things set how much there is to work with: how much they weigh, how far their mass sits from my axis, and how fast the turn is going. The first is given. The second is linear; twice as far out, twice the load. The third is squared; twice as fast is four times the load. Which is why the same path, walked slowly or driven quickly, is two different techniques.
Direction is the other half of it. Around anyone standing there is a ring on the floor, a stride or so out, marking how far their weight can travel before gravity finishes the journey. Forward and back along their own line are the two obvious points on it. The rest of the ring is available too, and which one I use is decided by where I am connected rather than by how they are standing. That is why it costs so little to move them. I am not overcoming their structure; I am choosing a bearing they are already made to be leaning toward.
The same ring works both ways. Past it, their weight keeps going and they are on their way down. To it and no further, their own legs arrive to meet them, which is how someone gets guided up off the floor from kneeling with almost no lifting involved. Nobody stands up by going straight up; the weight has to travel forward over the feet first. Most of what looks like strength in that moment is knowing where to point.
This is the class where the assumption is that you want to be corrected. Things will be done to you to show you what you are doing and what needs to happen instead. I am more willing to chastise here, to make you feel the inefficiency of what you are doing rather than explain it. Tough love. The body learns faster than the head.
You can develop real sensitivity to pressure, weight, and resistance by working with many different people of varying sizes and morphologies. That is why partners rotate. Every different body breaks a different assumption.
All of this has been drawn from my notes and from classes in Aikido, kenjutsu, research in biomechanical movement when something wasn’t working. Still being worked out; corrections welcome and integrated in class. Get started through Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere.
Prerequisite: Fundamentals. Full details at Tension MTL.
All classes are taught from both ends of the rope. Technique, body mechanics, consent, and intention are not separate topics — they arrive together or not at all.
The paths through the work are different. Floorplay, suspension, Nawajutsu, emotional connection; each has its own vocabulary and its own prerequisites. What they share is the same underlying commitment: you leave understanding why, not just what.
Private lessons in person at Tension MTL or remotely. Group workshops at Tension or at your space. Touring worldwide. If you're not sure what you need, say that. It's a better starting point than pretending otherwise.
You don't always know what you need. That's fine. Tell me where you are and I'll tell you what's possible. Adaptability is the practice.
Private parties are intimate and social. Tying in a room of people who want to watch, learn, or simply be in the presence of it. The energy is different from a stage, closer, warmer, more conversational.
Extended time to go deeper, into technique, into practice, into the parts of rope that only emerge when you stop rushing. Montréal is a good city to be in for a few days.
Available for live performance, stage work, and professional production. Film, photo, video, advisory, rigging, and on-set tying.
Two rates apply on set: a base rate for counsel, negotiation, styling, and standby, and a higher rate whenever hands are on a live body. Book by the hour, half day, or full day. On a mixed shoot the live tying is billed in its band and the surrounding time at base. Overtime beyond the booked window is 1.5×. Many productions choose mannequins or objects for liability; both are available. A supplied model is by quote, and travel and prep bill at base. All bookings confirmed in writing before work begins.
"You return to the beginning
not because you failed;
but because that is what the circle demands."
From semeru: to press forward, to apply pressure, to hold initiative before the blow lands.
In martial arts: the psychological force that precedes technique. The pressure that disrupts your opponent's confidence before you've even moved. The applied pressure through testing, feeling and disrupting balance, or before a throw.
In anime/manga, 攻め (seme) refers to the dominant partner in a relationship. "The Top" is the closest Western equivalent in our queer/BDSM vocabulary, though seme carries more of the pursuing/initiating nuance than just physical dominance.
In rope: the same principles, different materials; different potentially dangerous results.
There is a version of rope that most people see first. Clean lines. Beautiful forms. The aesthetic of it. That version is real and it has its place.
There is another version that brought me in.
I came to rope for the loss of control. Then quickly found a penchant for suffering. I identify as an exhibitionist and a masochist but pain alone doesn't do much for me. Suffering does. The anticipation of it. Being in the hands of someone who knows how to make me suffer, who wants me to suffer for them, and who is getting off on it while doing it in front of a crowd. That. All of that.
That is where I began. As Uke. As the one receiving.
It is from that place that I understand what I now apply.
Seme is not just about pain; yet it might sometimes look like that from the outside and cause much confusion.
Done right; it is the space before pressure becomes unbearable. The threshold. Sustained application of just enough: pressure, sensation, weight, restriction, to produce torment in the specific person, or people, you are with, without crossing into what they cannot hold.
That edge is not a line you cross. It is a place you do your best to inhabit, deliberately, with complete attention.
It is way more complicated than just saying "Well I'm a sadist & you agreed to pain..."
In rope; with rope, this becomes Semenawa, tormenting rope. With words; Kotobazeme, think flirting, humiliation, embarrassment or teasing. Or even Seme; the "top" who applies pressure, both psychological or physical, to the extent that is possible with that partner "uke", the one who receives. Seme in Kinbaku is not just about applying tight ropes; it is being able to understand what is, just enough. Rope not just for the aesthetics of it, or suspended for an image or end goal but for the journey of being held in sustained torment that requires absolute trust when participating in it.
The difference between Seme, torture and abuse is consent, skill, and the capacity to read another person accurately under pressure.
Not occasionally. Continuously. In real time.
For those thirsting for the extremes, the raw energies, the hentai scenes, the places where rope becomes something older and darker than the art you sometimes see today, you have your work cut out for you.
It is possible to find those willing and wanting. But the trust between you needs to grow first. And you must be confident enough to effortlessly read someone, to bring them to that precipice without letting them fall over and or into it.
That confidence does not come just from enthusiasm. It comes from thousands of hours of attention. It comes, ideally, from having been Uke yourself and knowing what it costs to be held in that place by someone who is paying attention.
The circle is not just about returning to the beginning. It is about applying what you carry back with you.
Listening with your hands. Responding to micro-movements. Adapting when the body receiving rope shifts, when the plan meets reality, when what was rehearsed gives way to what is actually happening.
Flow is not ease. It is responsiveness. The practitioner who has integrated structure and tension fully enough that they are no longer thinking about them is free to pay attention to what is more important and actually in front of them.
This work is genuinely hard. What flow as integration describes; inhabiting that threshold with complete attention, reading someone accurately under pressure, continuously, in real time, is not a skill you arrive at easily. It is a skill you practice, and practicing means getting it wrong.
Humans are biologically and psychologically built to make mistakes. That is not an excuse. It is the starting point for what comes after.
It's ok to duck up. The key is proper acknowledgment. Accept the errors, derive lessons, apologize, listen, learn, remain vigilant for potential pitfalls, and always aim to do better.
The hardest lesson: when someone feels violated, you don't get to argue their feelings away. You own your part, whether or not your intent matched their experience. Your rabbit was also a duck.
That doesn't mean every story is simple. It doesn't mean everyone gets to stay. It doesn't mean everything can be reconciled.
But it does mean: accountability matters. Listening matters. Being willing to step back, step down, pause, and re-align your compass matters.
The Circles system is a work in progress, rooted in first nations practices of accountability and repair, adapted for our reality. It exists because we believe people who make mistakes need to be guided toward doing better, and those affected need to be believed, supported, and given priority. Not dismissed.
We cannot promise to resolve every dispute. We can foster the discussion necessary for this community to keep growing in a healthy way.
Learn about the Circles system
Starting to tour internationally. Teaching, on stages, in studios, in living rooms and dungeons across continents. I rarely tie alone. The people I share rope with, Masha, Fox and doggo, shape this as much as I do. Together we collaborate with artists, educators, and communities doing the same work in different contexts.
The work we do ripples and intermingles, into other communities, other studios, other practices. The circle has no end. What you build, others will build on.
Rope professional, credited as Shibariste, on Denis Côté's feature film, released internationally as That Kind of Summer.
A live tying for the show's host, Rose-Aimée, alongside Masha.
Interview and tying with the hosts of the Sexe Oral podcast.
The path moves through, not upward. The tree at Tension continues to grow, each student a branch, each return a deepening of roots.
Every colour eventually circles back to Beige. Every advancement should reflect a revision of our roots.
"The rope will tie you as much as you tie it."
Infinity manifests as a line that never ends. A line drawn far enough has nowhere to go but where it began.
The square holds.
The triangle chooses.
The circle returns.
Return, without end, is infinity;
The same line, still returning.
...As does one's path.
The work continues because people choose to be part of it. Every class taken, every book bought, every workshop hosted keeps the studio running, the curriculum growing, and the teaching sustainable.
If you have learned from this work, in a class, from the book, from a conversation, this is how you give it back. Not as charity. As participation in something worth continuing.
Teaching, performing, consulting, collaborating. In Montréal or wherever the work takes me.
Start with an email. No forms, no intake questionnaires. Just a message about what you are looking to do and we go from there, just please be specific.