beta_vulgaris

I went out of the country for a handful of days away from active kink partners and came back home with an incredible sense of having missed rope. During my moments alone I decompressed by browsing and queuing up my rope inspiration tumblrI've done rope nearly every day in the six days since my return and I am so happy about that.

I think I've come a long way in my rope practice, and I'm thinking about ways to set myself challenges to continue improving. I'm moving in with two of my partners in a few months, and spending a lot of time with them in general. I do rope at least once a week with one of them, and since we are both switches who are energized by rope in general and one another in particular, I'm getting a lot of practice and insight as both a learning top and a teaching bottom.

I've become much more confident than I was, and I understand how the rope I use works in ways I didn't quite see before. I understand its physical properties, how it bends, how it grips, why the frictions in a particular tie work, how it will feel laid or dragged against various places on a person, how it holds weight. I'm beginning to be able to identify at a glance which lines are central to a tie's physically restrictive properties and which are decorative or flair.

Over the past weekend I've done rope in private with my partner, as a participant learner at two separate rope teaching sessions--at one of which I tied a bottom who had never done rope before, at a play event, and on myself while watching tv with my girlfriend. Each of those contexts has a different feel for me, with different goals, styles of focus, and I find them all valuable and I like deciding what to bring from one context to another.

I'm thinking about doing a month of rope every day as a self-challenge, probably in June since May is so busy for me. Since I'm clearly terrible at blogging everything I won't be reporting back on all, perhaps not even most, of it. And since I know my learning style I'll probably spend a lot of time doing the rope I normally would do, rather than try to ~do something different~ every day. But I can put together a little list of goals/activities/ties to choose from in that month. Also since Twisted Tryst is in June I'm likely to get some interesting outdoor rope experiences there :)

Here is a list of ideas! Thoughts/comments/suggestions welcome!

Drills and Games
Stopwatch ties! How fast can I whip out a TK?
Variations: tie three different hip harnesses
Blindfolded tying of a chest harness
Reverse engineer a design from a picture
Dueling riggers!
Rope from a prompt (ie., make a heart in the harness! Do rope based on a concept or emotion!)
Designing rope for two bottoms

Rope I've been meaning to look into/practice
Self-suspension
Wide wrap designs
Rope collars
Delicate appendage rope (fingers)
Rope + clamps
Thin/rough rope for painful/difficult bondage
Face rope
Hair bondage
Incorporating inanimate objects into the restrictions
Bondage photography

I recently had a good friend ask me for suggestions about where/how to get good starter rope. I... wrote her a novel-length email in response. I had a lot of feelings, okay? I have rewritten and expanded that email for today's post.

Disclaimer: as with all of these posts, this is personal opinion/advice based on my experiences, and other people have wildly different preferences!

( Rooooooooooope! )

My rope order finally arrived a couple of days ago, almost a month after I ordered it! It is worth the wait.

( Some discussion of the rope I got and some non-sexual self-bondage and partner bondage I did just to try it out. Photos! )

Okay, this got long! Feel free to ask any questions or whatever. Obviously I am no expert, I'm just learning, but I'm happy to talk about how this all feels!