I have just added another 20 minutes of video to my Contemporary Gote tutorial. The new section covers tying less flexible people giving two examples. The first is a modification of the standard gote for those who cannot get their arms into the classic position. The second is something I devised on the fly to accommodate a problem with the model’s shoulder. Strictly speaking it is a half-gote as only one arm is behind, the other is in front, as one might have an arm in a sling, hence my name ‘broken arm gote’. Of course, the latter sounds a lot cooler in Japanese: Oreta ude gote …which might or might not be complete rubbish as I just pulled it off Google Translate ;-D These two ties illustrate how standard ‘ingredients’ can be used to modify ‘recipes’ so long as the structural rules are followed.
The main course, based on my DVDs ‘Japanese Rope Bondage, has finally had a long overdue update to the gote tutorial as it is nearly 5 years since it made it. As you’d hope, I have learned a thing or two since then. Five years might not sound a lot but that was practically the Dark Ages as far as shibari education in the west is concerned. We had barely seen a real live Japanese sensei in Europe, let alone benefited from workshops. Our knowledge never stands still and we should never think we know it all even when it comes to the most simple things. A perfect example is the tiny change to the single column tie shown to me by Ren Yagami in the past couple of days. By breaking one simple rule, you can make it rock solid. We will shoot some video later so he can show you. Oh so simple but it will have you clapping your hand to your forehead with a Homer Simpson-like “Doh!”.
I’m hoping he will also show his unique approach to tying which relies heavily on using martial arts locks to create the restriction with the rope to hold it in place. This method means that there is very little wiggle room thus making the ties almost escape-proof and very restrictive. He’s a very smart rigger from what I have seen so far and his performance videos look awesome. I agree with Gorgone that he is hot favourite to be the next big name on the scene here.