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Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays! I hope to be blogging a bit more next year!

For more Xmas cards click here

In the Barn

Photo: Chell

Last year, we were on a camping weekend with some people from the Wandering Spirits BDSM forum. It was a great weekend with a BBQ, some sun, a lot of rain (mostly during the BBQ) and a lot of drinks at the campfire, truth or dare, talking booby’s… Also among the guests was a photographer we’ve known for years, but with whom it somehow never got to an actual photoshoot. But we brought ropes, she brought her camera, and on the campsite was a barn filled with farming equipment. All in all an excellent opportunity do a shoot!

So, with permission of the campsite (thanks chippie) we went in and explored the possibilities of the tractor and other bigger and smaller equipment, including a self-suspension from one of the ceiling beams 🙂

For the full gallery, click here.

Merry XMas

Gallery with all Touwtjes.tk XMas cards

5-day professional workshop with Hajime Kinoko (5)

Pfew, and that was day 5. Started with another 2 step suspension transition starting with a sideway suspension. Cool, because that´s one I like to start with, but never knew how I could turn it into somethingv else. Second half of the workshop Kinoko told a bit about the spiritual/psychological side of shibari and how he connectes to his models while tying very slowly. Of course, we got to practice that style of tying to.

Afterwards there was of course a little speech about the workshops by Kinoko and his announcement of a big international bondage event in Japan, which he would like to promote in the west. Will post more details about that later, though we are not going ourselves. Now, it´s  time for dinner, and then off to the bondage play party at schwelle7.

Edit: Pluu got tied by Kinoko 🙂

5-day professional workshop with Hajime Kinoko (4)

Another busy day.  Started out with a han-behind-the-neck with rope gag. Kinoko doesn´t recommend the harness for suspension but does it anyway (and hence, so did we).  Second part of the afternoon was spent learning a four-part suspensionprogression/transition which was cool to do, but needs a little more practice. Kinoko also had a few tips on how to do it more effeciently and quicker and some cool ways to tie of the suspension ropes so that they can be released very quickly and still look good, even when you have several meters of rope left. It´s interesting to see how he shifts from slow tying and beauty to quick tying and functionality when he´s discussing show concept. My own tying, by the way,  is getting slower and more sloppy, I´m definitely starting to get tired despite over 8 hours  of sleep.

The day ended with Q&A with Kinoko telling a few things about aesthetics, Japanese bondage masters, humiliation in Japan and the west, club life in Japan and his view on teaching shibari, which is learningv people basic techniques and concept, but recommending we also use those techniques  to create our own ties and patterns.

Agqain, we´re planning on taking the evening class as well, so I´ll be updating later.

So, t9onight we finally learned the tie that every Japanese kid recognises according to Kinoko, a karada :-). Sounds dull, but is was the technical variation with doubled ropes that even can be used to suspend from, so that was pretty okay.  We both had find a model and ended up doing a double suspension with them from one point.  After the workshop, one of the models was willing to try the four suspension progression with pluu, so she got to practice that herself too.

Tying is getting slower and more sloppy, I´m definitely starting to get tired despite over 8 hours  of sleep.

5-day professional workshop with Hajime Kinoko (3)

We survived another day of workshops.  The third day Kinoko started with two very cool variations on yoko tsuri (sideway suspension), one with the foot to the back and then lifted upwards, one with a straight leg going up. After that we used yesterdays suspensions for a lesson in transitions, going from the p[ostman suspension to the suspended hogtie without touching the ground. The third part was more new stuff, with a harness that has the arms parallel (like in a dragonfly sleeve), but mixed with chestwrapwhich makes it possible to suspend from it. He also attached a slightly different hip support to the lower wraps and then progressed into a suspension with the arms pointing upwards, much like in a strappado.  Cool, but a lot of new information to process!

And

Tonight we plan to partcipate in the evening workshop as well. How chances do you get to learn this much!  So maybe I will update this post later tonight.

Update: Evening was fun. Bondage was fairly simple, a crotch rope progressing into a face up partial suspension. Pluu and I also got to practice on a spanish lady. Fun part was, when I had the partial suspension ready and was pulling on the ropes to give the girl some more pleasure, Kinoko cam up to me and told me to sit on my knees between her legs and make-pretend fucking movements (hmmm… I justMET the lady, remember)… and then he showed how to do it like the Japanese do, face straight up, eyes looking down. So now I know how to fuck-pretend in Japanese :-). After the workshop, pluu could practice some of the advanced class stuff on the lady and got a big compliment from Kinoko for her work!

5-day professional workshop with Hajime Kinoko (2)

Just a quick note-to-self. Today we started by doing the 3R-TK and hip-harness again with another inspection by Hajime Kinoko.  After that we practiced two suspensions – a “postman” suspension – with one leg in front, one leg behind, which he said was a classic “running away” pose and a gyaku-ebi tsuri, a suspended hogtie. The practice included lots of tips on the precise positioning of body parts and ropes, how to make your bondage more pretty, and a very different way to attach a suspension rope to a harness.  And Kinoko really takes the time to take a look at your work and give personal feedback. Way cool! At the the end there was some time left, so pluu got to practice the 3R-TK on me and also got it checked by Kinoko.

Tonight we plan to hang out at schwelle 7 and maybe watch alittle of the evening workshop.

Edit! Evening at schwelle 7 was cool too. We didn’t partcipate in the workshop ourselves but just wanted to hang out with the others a little more, but we could watch the group. The level in the evening group is also very high, this was no beginners workshop. Kinoko showed a “self strangulation suspension” (which gets its name from the choke-like arm position, not from any real strangulation). It’s technically rather similar to a Teppo shibari, so I can reproduce it, and when someone asked Vilaine to model for him, I even helped him as he needed somewhat more step-by-step help. After the workshop Kinoko tied a very pretty harness on the girl of one of the Peters, a bit of a mix between a Karada and a Takate Kote, which we had seen on pictures but couldn’t figure out ourselves. Now we could 🙂

Back in the appartment, and with a little too much brandy, Pluu explained to me some basic principles of compositionn in art, which she always assumed I was already familliar with. No, I wasn’t. So that was a final bit of useful information to process before getting a little too less sleep and on to day 3. hoping my head is not going to explode with all the new stuff.

5-day professional workshop with Hajime Kinoko (1)

Monday

Today we started with the 5-day professionals workshop by Hajime Kinoko in Berlin. We had arrived on saturday after a long train ride.  We had no idea what to expect, how many people would be there, what the level of the workshops and the other people was going to be etc. Well, there are 12 couples participating, some fammiliar faces from LFAJB,  many from Germany and Denmark. We have at least four Peters in the group :-). And the level is very high, with no-one needing step by step instructions.

The first day started out with practicing the Kinoko-style 3-rope Takate Kote as he wanted to make sure everybody can do that harness and gets the tensions right. He took his timing explaining many details, more even than in London. After that everybody got to practice while Kinoko and his two assistants were walking around checking the patterns and the tensions. I was glad to hear my tensions were good!

Second part of the workshop was learning the Kinoko-style hip harness. It’s bit of a signature tie for him when he uses it as a bridge-tie for suspension (horizontal, face up, supported onlly by the hips, like shown here). It’s not a very difficult tie, but with pluu it hurt a bit more than expected, so she asked Kinoko to tie her to see if it was different from my tie. With a little more rope and slightly different rope placement it felt better, but still hurt a bit.

Finally, he taught us a harness without the arms included (more “shinju” style, but in the same friction-based style as the other ties) that continued into hip supports. This harness can be used for (self)suspension and he showed a nice combination with the hands in front and the legs/feet up – toes shoint point upwards for aesthetics – that was reasonably comfortable.

Fortunately, there was plennty of time to practice, so during the smoking break pluu got to practice the hip support on me as well, and afterwards she even did the the suspension from the third part on me.

Psycho Poodle

Model: -Psycho-

This was a difficult shoot. For quite while, I had been thinking of experimenting with the lighting a bit more. At LFAJB we took the photography class by Rod Macdonald, and one thing that I remembered was experimenting with light rom one side instead of from both sides. So I figured, I’m gonna do a few of those shots, than put both lights on, so that if it doesn’t work, I’ll still have plenty of pictures for the shoot with lihting that I’m used to.

But. Then. One. Lamp. Broke. Down.

And so I had to do the whole shoot with light from one direction, which meant continuously playing with the brightness and the location of that one lamp and the camera settings. In the end, I think it worked out rather well, but it was, well, quite stressful.

Fortunately, the idea of Psycho and her long curly hair with a gasmask was briliant, and so were Akahige’s contributions, – writing on Psycho’s butt, and the final position of Psycho as a real poodle. That worked great, so here’s Psycho Poodle!

For the gallery, click here

A Sultry Sunday with Madison Young & Bicon

Two demo’s in about one and a half week!

An evening with Madison Youg

Last month we were very honoured to do a little bondage demo at Madison Young’s movie premiere for “Femmetastic”. As Madison was about six months pregnant at the time she didn’t want to do bondage herself, so the organisation went looking for someone to do some bondage, and through a mutual friend we got in touch. As the event was primarily geared towards women, we decided it would be best if pluu would do the show with a female model. Aurelia couldn’t make it that day, so she went looking for someone else. A few days before, however, it turned out that Aurelia would be able to do the show after all, so that was settled. Then, a day before I got a PM through Fetlife from L.N. (see our shoot for The Word Magazine) that she had heard we were looking for a model, and that she was looking forward to it. So we decided that I would tie her and join in the show as well.

So, in between the movie and Madison’s performance we did our show, and it went really well. Unfortunately, I did miss the photoshoot opportunity with Madison (but we took a quick snapshot later on). Madison, by the way, was very cool and sexy even while visibly pregnant. The movie Femmetastic was an interesting experiment in lesbian porn, and what was really clear was that these were not just women doing it for money, but who were really enjoying the sex and doing the movie.

Too bad we haven’t received any of the pictures of our show yet. We know people took pictures (so if you did, please do send them!)

Holland Bicon

We were also asked to do a bondage performance at Holland BiCon, a festival for bisexuals. A real challenge, because a) the audience would be partly vanilla and b) they didn’t have a suspension point. So we had to figure out a floor show. In the end, we did a decorative harness with crab ties in the back, changing into an agura, a hogtie, some candle work, an ending with some bamboo forcing the butt up so we could stick a candle in the butt 🙂 That way, we hoped it would be interesting enough for the kinky people, but not too shocking for the vanilla’s.

It worked out great, we were especially pleased that some of the kinky people thought it as good as a suspension show, and none of the vanilla’s seemed to be too shocked. Afterwards, we did a 15 minute Q&A with the audience, in which we were able to answer a lot of questions on shibari and kink in general. Great fun!