Part I and Part II of Shibari Suspension Techniques have gone down a storm and I know a lot of you are itching for Part III. The good news is that I have just finished editing the main 50+ minute tutorial in which Nina uses the Running Man (aka Postman) suspension to teach the use of additional secondary lines, quick release tie-offs, harness to harness suspension, variations on the contemporary gote, the pros and cons of different means of attaching the main line, with two versions of this suspension, one using a modification of her hip-harness. Not only is this all shown in great detail but, as usual, we also explain the reasons for everything that’s done. Suspension is not something to do by rote. To be safe and creative, you need to understand what you are doing and why. It is all too easy to make dangerous mistakes through ignorance.
In this tutorial, we take a more ‘real life’ approach which does not exclude every glitch and thing that could have been done better. In the real world, ties are rarely 100% perfect. Tangles and snags happen, you drop a rope, get twists or something a bit off centre. By leaving these things in the video, pointing them out and doing a de-brief and analysis, we think you’ll learn more than if everything was done faultlessly with no room for self-critique. As we are always likely to encounter these things, it’s important to recognise them, know what’s dangerous or just ugly and know what remedial action to take. For example, in the tutorial, the cross-bracing on the rear of the gote is misaligned. Whether it was like this from the start or got pushed out of place during the suspension, I’m unsure. However, it’s merely an aesthetic point. The vital question is “Is the gote safe and secure?”. As you’ll see by the end of several suspensions, it hasn’t moved an inch, so it has done its job perfectly.
Assuming you have the base skills, e.g. to competently tie Nina’s hip-harness and a gote, and have completed the preceding parts of this series, you should be able to perform this shibari suspension after studying this tutorial. We urge you to really make sure that you have laid solid foundations and not to rush ahead. This is a demanding suspension and can place considerable load on the gote. We have therefore added a version which reduces the load by distributing it into a hip-harness. This means it is more comfortable, can be endured for longer and, most importantly, reduces the risk of nerve injury by placing less pressure on the arms.
Hopefully, I will upload the finished tutorial to ShibariClasses by the end of the weekend.