Let’s pick up on the first article in this section: “Picture a room, lit by candles. Shadows will dance on the walls, light will change constantly and this combination, this dance, is what largely determines the atmosphere in the room.

That is exactly what you want to achieve in Shibari – the battle between contrasts: beauty and fear, love and endurance, desire and despair, mental growth and embarrassement, pain and lust.

Shibari is a complex art that involves many different levels, many different ingredients, phsyical, mental and metaphysical. For the Kizõshà (giver, donor, dominant, active partner) it is a balancing act, juggling with various different impulses and techniques. To the Ukétorinìn (recipient, submissive, passive partner) it is the ultimate journey to paradise.”

There are different ways to approach and learn Shibari. We have chosen the most practical one and will introduce you to the different bondages and techniques immediately, so you can start to use bondages and techniques almost instantly.

And we’ll try and explain about background, phylosophy, ideas, differences and other things on the fly. The bondages we have chosen for this level can all be made by using very simple, basic knots.

To understand Shibari you need to understand a bit about its background, roots and culture: ancient oriental rope bondage (Kinbaku), medieval transportation techniques for prisoners (Hojo Jitsu) and Zen Buddhism.

Hojo Jitsu – The Japanese word “Hojo” consists of two parts. Ho (also known as “Tori”) means “to catch or arrest someone”. Jo refers to the use of general policing techniques, among which Jo (walking stick) and a rope (Nawa). Jitsu translates as eternal art or technical skill. Hojo Jitsu – in another format of romanizing Japanese – is sometimes also known as Torinawa Jutsu. Hojo Jistu in itself forms part of the more encompassing Kobu Jitsu, the (medieval) use of weapons for law purposes. These techniques encompass both the use of rope and sticks. Kobu Jitsu in turn is a part op Ju Jitsu, the mother of all Japanese martial arts (as Kung Fu is to the Chinese martial arts).

Zen - To the Zen-monks it was one of the ways to train the power of the mind over the body and to separate physical experiences like pain and discomfort from mental power. All this in search for ultimate meditation. Like all other things the monks – and this is a part of the traditional Japanese culture as well – were and are searching for for perfection, sublimation and harmony. You may compare this with techniques such as Bonsai (Japanese tree nursing), and Ikebana (Japanese flower arranging), the Japanese kitchen, Japanese gardening and martial arts (most of which have their roots in Zen too).

Serenity, beauty, perfection, harmony and meditation are all elements that you will recognise in Shibari.

Kinbaku (translation: binding tightly. The use of tightly bound rope for training purposes) is not exactly exclusive to the Orient. Forms of rope bondage (even actual bondages) were also used in medieval Europe and are documented, for example in the Austrian “Constitutio Criminals Theresiana” (1769). You will find forms of rope bondage in both Japanese and Chinese penetentionary history. Here time is the dominant factor. No other culture has produced such efficient, effective ways to train the human body, which again has to do with striving for perfection. Unlike the Western executioners, their oriental colleaques did not put enormous amounts of energy and physical effort into torturing whatever they wanted to hear out of their prisoners. Instead they let time – and psychological impulses – do the trick. They also did not use too many complicated devices (you will not find a Japanese bondage rack or a Japanese wheel) but used relatively simple techniques.

Things like “the eternal water drip” we all know about (which is a Chinese invention but perfected by the Japanese, who “succesfully” made a big point about the sound effects, locking up the victim in a soundproof room so the victim would hear the water drip as well as feel it. The sound soon turned into the sound of an imaginative hammer banging on the forehead).

To tie someone to a simple wooden plank will eventually do the same trick as a bondage rack or ladder. It takes more time but a lot less effort.

This basically comes down to: use the internal power (or weakness) of your opponent. A judo, karate or kung fu fighter will not try to use his own muscular strength, but will try to use the weight, speed and momentum of the movements of his opponent.

In the erotic bondage techniques the trick is to use the internal power of your partner as well. What you do is stimulate the mind by stimulating the body and let the mind of your partner do the work for you.

This internal power in Japanese is called Ki (“Chi” in Chinese – you may have picked this up from Tao-insprired love making – or “Kundalini” in Hindu) and it is used in many practical ways, because it is nothing else but mental and physical energy concentrated in one point of the body and using it to your advantage. This is exactly what a karate expert will do when he smashes a piece of wood. He concentrates his Ki and uses speed and perfection, not physical strength. Acupuncture and Shiatsu (Japanese pressure point based massage) will help a person to concentrate this Ki into a certain point in the body and use it to heal, to relax or to influence physical processes.

The above article is a reprint from our information/educational site Kink Culture.
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