(Photo: Carles Mercader. Models: Sayaka Yumi / Sr Interior)
(This is the third interview of the Shibari Talks series. You can find here more about what that is).
Gijón has been for years a very active city in the shibari scene, thanks to the constant activity of Sr. Interior and his particular way of understanding workshops and performances. We chat about autenticity, pleasure, the limits of consent, intensity, long aftercare… And he still has time for a tirade against ugly and aseptic shibari.
How would you define yourself as a rigger, in your own words?
There’s a lot of people rigging nowadays, and when I see them uploading and commenting pictures on social networks, I remember my trajectory: an initial technical obfuscation, an obsession with suspensions, a very closed style… During last years, after lots of workshops and personal work, I’m starting to see a style of my own, with more influences of some riggers than others, things I like and things I don’t… And that style is quite sober in forms, with basic techniques as to not complicating myself, and above all with a very sexual and emotional side. Some people say it’s very dark, and that surprises me somehow: I try to keep the hard parts of shibari under control and leave free rein to the pleasant ones as much as possible.
How and when did your interest in rope begin?
I’ve always liked fetish, kink or hard sex. Before the Internet I was seeing illustrations in Víbora or other similar magazines, but it seemed something so exotic that I never thought about my fancy for restraints. It was with the Internet, while seeing porno in a consistent way, when I started finding pictures. And one day I did a bet. A friend was one subject away from graduating in the University, so we bet this: “if you pass the last exam, I will learn that bondage stuff we saw in the pictures and do it to you”. [Laughs] And she passed the subject. I bought a couple of shibari and bondage books, the one from Midori and another by the Two Knotty Boys, what was available those years. I thought that we were going to fuck and that was that, but we ended up doing something stranger. And that started a chain of events in which, almost without noticing, I ended with a Japanese rigger tying his model in my living room. [Laughs] How did this happen? I only wanted to make out with a girl once…
During your first years, the available information sources in Spain about shibari were scarce… How did you learn at the time?
I soon noticed that books were not enough. It surprised me to have more ability than I thought, because I don’t consider myself to be an agile person with handcrafts, but I could tie with certain ease and fluidity. I contacted through the Internet with Alfil, thank God, who gave me a foundation very basic and clear; he had a keen eye to understand where I was, and he showed shibari as a permanent work in progress. That’s the key point of learning.
What did you do with Alfil? Private tuition, workshops…?
I attended to a workshop in El Garaje, in Madrid, where I met a lot of riggers that are still active nowadays… And, by chance, Alfil came on holidays to Asturias. We had contact during some years, that was the beginning of my vice. Then I attended an Esinem workshop in Madrid, in Dark Sabbath… It was very frustrating for me.
What happened?
It was an important technical evolution to step up from basic figures to my first takatekote, the ultimate thing at the time… But when I came back to Gijón and started practicing what I learnt I realized that I couldn’t, I didn’t remember it, what I did was disgusting. A moment of crisis: after a couple of years tying, I felt like a disaster when starting with technical stuff. Little by little I started again from scratch and I thought that I needed two things: continuous training and people to share that with. If two people attend a workshop, one remembers half of the subject matter and the other one remembers the other half, between the two they can put together something coherent.
Socializing shibari learning?
Making it social, yes, share the knowledge. There I started looking for people interested in shibari… And when we got together and tried to explain what I had learnt, I realized that simply teaching how to do the basic know I learnt to do the basic knot. Until then I didn’t really know.
Having to center yourself to teach it helped you to understand it deeply…
And so, step by step, we started the workshop dynamics in Asturias, with different riggers that luckily enough teach shibari in a way that encourages to go deeper. Tying is not like smoking, something that you do all the time, but something that you do when you feel like it, like taking care of some flowers, writing a short story or having sex.
Where did you meet for these workshops?
We started in Munster, a venue shared with artists, musicians, actors, performers… We didn’t have to give explanations there, and it was curious to see how very different people accepted us naturally. That gave birth to an atmosphere where we did some things in common: for instance someone was rehearsing with the piano while other persona was practicing a tie, and a dialog was established.
I met you in Osada Steve’s workshop in Barcelona, in 2010. How was that experience?
Incredible. I got very frustrated after Esinem’s workshop, but this one had the opposite effect on me.
Osada Steve, Kurt and Alfil, who were also there, were a very positive influence and gave me the opportunity to change my perspective, to see shibari with the heart. And I noticed something that we try to apply in our workshops: it’s important that the teacher spends the maximum time possible with the workshop attendants.
Not only during the workshop but before or afterwards…
You can’t understand how Isabelle Hanikamu or Ren Yagami do a rope figure if you don’t know how they are, because sometimes they show the same tic when they are eating or folding their clothes… Isabelle said that Akira Naka’s style can only be done by one person: Akira Naka himself. It’s his style, it gets born from him and his circumstances. Understanding the style of a rigger is not remembering his or her rope figures, that will change and evolve anyway, but understand their behaviour, why do they tie, what are they looking for in shibari. Steve was quite telling on that regard.
In the Munster venue you participated in Cuerdas por Japón, the nationwide series of performances to gather relief funds for 2011’s tsunami…
We did a performance, yes, although three months before half of my lung was taken out, so it was a bit weird. Since then a group of people interested in shibari started gathering, even from outside of the BDSM scene… Young people, mainly, not sadosaurs, something surprising in a place like Gijón with very few young ones. That group met for years, and was the root from which other activities were born. I heard some guy saying to a friend: “the other day I was in a great party at the Munster, there were projections, good food, drinks, music performances, DJs, naked girls hanging from the ceiling…”. [Laughs] At least they didn’t think that was bad.
Around that time also took place your participation in the TV program 21 days in sadomasochism. Or your not-participation, so to speak, as your fragment was not aired. What happened?
I was invited to participate and I accepted with some qualms, thinking that if I didn’t do it, I could not complain afterwards about what they said. The girl, Adela Úcar, was horrified; she was educated in Opus Dei schools and all this looked really bizarre to her. We were eating and chatting, and at some point she said: “you are a bit anti-establishment, aren’t you?” [Laughs] It was incredible the moment I tied her with very robust harnesses, it looked like I was going to take a working safety test, but in the moment I slightly pulled a rope she started screaming like I was destroying her in the inside. And I was thinking: “girl, don’t fake this, you’re making me look bad”. She was playing a role, and she understood that ropes had to hurt and she had to howl like a stuck rabbit. [Laughs] The producer, very nice, wrote me warning that my part was not going to make to the final cut. It didn’t fit, it was not the vision they wanted to give about BDSM, like some activity of strange couples that live some weird sexuality. When I could see the program I was relieved about not being there. Experiments with media are always distorted: they don’t care squat about what you say, they only want to use you for their own ends. Only if you’re lucky you manage to get some decent message through.
In the Münster you started bringing riggers from outside to give workshops…
In Asturias , “from outside” means anything more than one hundred and fifty kilometers away… Since someone goes out from Barcelona until the arrival here, there’s almost enough time to weave, like Ulises’ wife. The first rigger who came here was Desper_TNT, and she set the first line of work: her way of understanding, living and teaching ropes permeated a lot, in particular regarding how to integrate shibari to life as something personal, not as a social thing of meetings, performances or pictures. Afterwards Mark Yu came: a mad yankee half chiropractor, half shaman. He didn’t teach anything technical about shibari, but a lot of handling of energies, chi, pressure points, chinese medicine, muscular relaxation. He worked with the metabolic part, interesting when applied to shibari. After that came Yukinaga Max, technically impeccable… He’s a sunshine. A little grumpy, but a sunshine. [Laughs] A lot of people attended from outside, I was surprised… And a group was born that grew up and became well-established, with lots of people rigging and modelling. And then I wrote Hajime Kinoko to see if he could come and he answered yes… I couldn’t believe it. During that kamikaze Kinoko’s tour, from end to end of Europe with three or four days at each site, there were incidents of disorganization because of his unacceptable manager… But Kinoko was incredible, his passion and devotion for technique were overwhelming. Soon after we left the Munster venue, because it was very difficult to remain there at an organizational level, and we moved to the current Kinky Club. There was a change in people then.
What type of change?
A lot of people stopped coming. It’s not the same to go to some weird place where there are cultural multifaceted activities, from shibari to a poetic slam, that go to a venue exclusively dedicated to BDSM and shibari. There was a change in people, and we also tried to adapt the dynamics to the time I can dedicate to a space that is not a source of income but of expense… And to what people can do, because Asturias does not have so much population.
To the Kinky Club you have brought Pedro Cordas, Ren Yagami, Isabelle Hanikamu…
We looked for a place well suited for the workshops. For that some circumstances were taken into account, like my difficulties for travelling, both for personal reasons and health related ones… A workshop in Paris with a first level rigger costs me a lot of euros, plus travel and hotel. How much would I have to pay that rigger to come home? It’s a small difference, among various couples it can be done.
Splitting the costs…
That’s it. Although right now there’s an oversupply of workshops in Europe, like fifty a year, so some are difficult to cover. It’s a complex situation. And we like to look for an orientation and consistency in the workshops. It’s very difficult that a Japanese rigger can come twice a year or two years in a row… But a Spanish rigger, or a Portuguese like Pedro Cordas, or someone who visits Europe frequently like Isabelle; they can give two workshops a year.
Have you lived any incidents during all your years as a rigger?
Incidents and incidences… Tying outdoors with the model tied up, naked and with her legs open, and police suddenly arriving, more scared than anything. [Laughs] No noteworthy or serious accidents: an asleep hand, some dizziness and not much more. The physical incidents came when I did something that I was not prepared to do… But there is no other way. Sometimes you must do your first suspension even if you have practiced on the floor a thousand times… And then is when accidents happen, because you are nervous or not mature enough. On the other hand, accidents are related to both sides: maybe the person you are tying gives a strange feedback because of her subconscious saying that she is not comfortable in that situation, or the model comes with a previous injury of the carpal tunnel, doesn’t tell you about it and it gets worse during the tie… Then there’s another and more dangerous issue. Finding Ren Yagami was a step closer to live a more emotional shibari, in a way in which ropes are not the important thing, but what is inside. And I know how to cure a pinched nerve, a bump or a burn, with a first aid kit or going to ER. But for an emotional mess up there is no first aid kit, nor anyone who knows how to cure it. And those are incidences inherent to the practice, without parachute or guarantee; wonderful things can happen or you can greatly mess someone up.
Emotional issues derived from the session?
Yes, from what we could call semenawa or maybe better in a different way…
What relationship do you see between pain and shibari, what has been called semenawa?
No relationship between pain and shibari. I studied a bit of Japanese, and I know how much do they like to laugh at us. Literal translation of semenawa doesn’t make sense, because they never use a word in a literal way except for labels in boxes. Semenawa is what Riccardo Wildties does, a tough style that causes pain with ropes and has an important physical and emotional component. But when Ren Yagami was around here, he said that he didn’t do semenawa, which would be causing pain with ropes, but that his style was that the rigger is the one tormenting by planting a threat, a fear, a power and domination element… It’s a matter of looking for suffering and not pain. It’s not about hard spanking: if tugging a bit from the tip of the rope you manage that the tied up person feels and believes that you are causing a lot of pain, that’s enough. And the least power you use, the more power you have, more control over the situation. I understand it this way: if I’m in a happy mood I’m going to tease jokingly, if I’m in a dark mood I’ll look for crooked feelings. There’s no way of repeating the same experience two times with shibari. If you tie three people with the same figure, the result is nothing similar neither visually, tonally or emotionally. The idea is to keep adapting to the tied up person. It’s awful when I hear a rigger saying: “this model is not up to my standards”: that means that it’s the rigger who is not up to the model’s standards. The rigger is at the service of the tied up person, like the host of a tea ceremony.
Have you tied male models? Why are male models seldom seen in the scene?
I’ve tied male models, but it’s not my thing as I am heterosexual and cis, unfortunately. I tie to enjoy, so I stick to certain patterns. About male models being less seen… In any mainstream image more women are seen tied up, but in gay media more men appear. And there are a lot of women tying. When Isabelle came here, we hosted an informal luncheon with her and we discussed that. I started counting how many women there were, and I was the only man in twelve people. Shibari that is usually seen in certain media is one thing, but in real life there are a lot of men being tied up. In Japan there are a lot of female riggers that we don’t know because they are not showy or public, but they appear in Nawapedia. Their society is still chauvinistic… Like ours, really.
How do you negotiate a shibari scene with an unknown person?
Talking… I accept whatever they say, normally physical territory limits. For instance, one told me recently: “no sticking anything by any hole”. I always accept those conditions, as long as they don’t clash with my interests as a rigger. And from there… The way in which I practice shibari is not SSC, Safe, Sane and Consensual. It’s not sane because it does not seem very safe that an unknown person hangs you up from a stick in a dungeon. And it’s not completely consensual, because I will respect strictly the previously negotiated terms, but there’s a whole territory beyond that. And once the tied up person enters in subspace and gets lost, their head is not ready to say anything coherent; that’s another person. That’s why no full and continuous consent exists in these things. I will be a sane person as long as possible, but I also enter into a trance state and a freaky person can come out… Sometimes the funny thing is, while respecting the negotiated terms, adding some kind of annoyance: “I will not stick anything in any hole, but you will be on the floor having a lot of orgasms for a while, incredibly ashamed of how much you are enjoying”. That’s also a feature of shibari, use this shame over experiencing pleasure in public. Actually the audience is the third element of the shibari triangle: even if there is no one looking you must always tie like if you were being seen, you have to be smart, you have to make the tied person feel that there is someone else looking so you can use exhibition or shame… And that’s my way of negotiating, very basic: “tell me what you don’t want”. Sometimes the session stays in a somewhat soft tone, a simple travel in ropes, because there is no connection while tying. Or during the negotiation I see that there is something strange, previous traumas that the model should fix beforehand, and it’s better not getting involved with them. But sometimes there is connection with a person, she has a clear head over her shoulders, and we agree that if I break something I assume the responsibility. And those sessions are quite intense and brutal, very exciting for both of us. Those require a longer follow-up…
A kind of aftercare?
Yes, I understand aftercare as a long term thing. If you do something that messes emotions up, it’s not enough to send a Whatsapp and get and “I’m OK” back. You have to keep contact, talk and check, and one week later ask again, because there are things that come out some days later. Sometimes I ask about something that I enjoyed a lot of a session and she didn’t even notice. [Laughs] Or the other way around, she gives me information about things that marvelled or horrified her without me noticing. When you finish tying up a person you don’t know what’s going on in their head at the time. You have no idea about what could you have caused.
How should the rigger/model communication be during a tie?
Little or no verbal expression during a tie. It’s more like feel. A lot of reading of the tied up person at a physical level, but also a lot of adaptation, exploration on how the session is flowing. Not so much trial and error but keep looking at the reactions. For instance, a kind of gote I use has three upper wraps, because that’s the time I use to start reading the model’s response. When you enter the sea at the beach, the first feeling is very strong, vibrant, but then it goes down. If I was left with the first feeling with the first rope of the gote, I would stay too high… I leave time to go down and see how the model drops her weight down against the ropes, to see where she is before taking her where I want to go.
There are riggers who put more attention in the role of the model and their interaction, and others not so much…
Kinoko is acting when going up to a stage, his movements are accurate and precise, mentally rehearsed before every show. Doing three shows every night at his venue, how would he be able to connect emotionally every time? He would end up the week in an asylum. Isabelle, on the other hand, transmits her feelings and the clash of those feelings with the ones coming from the tied up person. She has to connect. The interaction with the model depends on the kind of shibari. It’s horrible for me to work with models giving erroneous feedback, acting. No, this has to flow in an honest way! If she acts, her reaction is not proportional to what I do and I end up tying blind. The model does not have to act or prepare: take out the bra and piercing, have the digestion done and little else.
Aside from tying, do you practice any other activity that makes you a better rigger?
Reiki, tai chi, chikung… In all those practices body and spirit are taken care of; the internal part, energy and chi. There is a great connection with shibari, a common geographical, cultural and religious base, besides of a great work on body and spirit. Ren Yagami has been practicing aikido for fifteen years, and he applies it to shibari… Any person practicing any martial art or Japanese artistic discipline will always understand shibari very fast.
What do you think is the best approach for a newcomer who wants to learn shibari?
Can I use the “Phone-a-friend” lifeline? [Laughs] It’s difficult… First questions that this newcomer should consider are why and for what, and then where or who to find someone doing something similar. Each rigger has a philosophy of his or her own. It would not make sense that a heavy metal fan gathers with pop musicians… The learner must look for people with whom a shared view exists, because the best learning is on-site and in a group. And guided! Horizontal groups seem horrible to me, the only thing they do is glorify mistakes. There has to be someone taking responsibility, so that person can take the blame: “my model got injured because So-and-so taught me to tie like that!” [Laughs].
What qualifications should someone have to be able to give shibari lessons and workshops?
Obviously it’s basic to have a real technical and knowledge level… But above all experience, years of practice, maturation and evolution. A rigger who has been doing exactly the same takate for ten years doesn’t really do it very much. During years of tying things happen to you and you learn from them; what nobody taught you, you can learn by yourself if you analyze. If a rope figure does not convince you, explore and think about it and find variations or explanations. A teacher does not really need to have done a lot of workshops, could be even self-taught. Nobody asked Yukimura’s resumé.
Do you think that there are enough resources nowadays as to be a self-taught rigger?
Ultimately I don’t think that being self-taught is good, at least at a non-domestic level. To play at home and enjoy, it’s enough to do a workshop to learn basic things about safety and basic figures, the rest you can develop on your own. But for a more public level you cannot be self-taught. Naka, Alberto or Zor can summarize in four hours things that took years for them to learn, because they had to look for good sources, check them, experiment, fail… You avoid all that, and just with learning their base knot you win a lot.
When do you think that a new rigger is ready to start suspending?
An industrial robot will be capable of suspending much better, faster and more securely than any person… But it will not create feelings in the model, nor understand when the moment comes from suspension, when it delivers something. Because if it’s only to show off suspending or to give the model a rope journey… Then when the rigger has enough ability to do so. Suspensions needs technique, not because of the difficulty but the risks.
Do you think that it’s an advantage for the rigger to be tied up frequently, it’s enough to have experimented once, or it is not necessary at all?
I don’t give importance to that… It does not matter either if the tied person has previous experience: that is sometimes worse because they come looking for something very specific.
How do you plan your public performances?
First ones were like school shows, “look, mum, what I can do!” [Laughs] After that I tried to do something more eye-catching, as I was with artists and musicians; more arty shows, looking for a visual aspect in movements and forms. Later on I looked for something more intense, harder… Until we started the Kinky Club and I found a problem. When organizing the activity, opening the door, taking care of people… And then suddenly having to change clothes quickly and act in the performance.
It was difficult to concentrate on the show…
That led me to think that shows could not be events with a lot of people in the audience. They have to be part of something. A reference is the tea ceremony: you take care of the people since the moment they arrive, a small group, six or eight people… Welcoming them is part of the game, you avoid vain social conversations about football. The moment you step through the small door to the Kinky’s dungeon and sit in the floor among the others, all differences vanish and we are all equal. You get a greater communication making them feel participant, making them know that they are part of what is going to happen: being part of the audience here is not like in cinema, feedback is important. And in the end, you have to look after the people and confront them: sometimes there’s people crying in the audience, or faces of surprise, and you have to talk to them. That’s also aftercare.
Aftercare towards the audience…
Of course, because they are the third element of shibari… And sometimes they revolt, surprise or freak out. I usually look for like-minded people who knows what all this is about, but when Isabelle came here we opened it towards a more general audience… And when the show finished, some came out with mouth agape and unbelieving eyes, we have to convince some of them that the model was alright, that Isabelle hadn’t killed her… And that requires a follow-up, it’s a responsibility. The way of presenting performances right now is more experiential than as a show to consume.
Shibari has been getting more and more popular during last years, and some people see risk of saturation. Do you share that vision?
Not at all! It seems great to me. What’s bad about it? If I love black shirts and they become fashionable, then much better for me, I will be able to buy more black shirts. It’s wonderful. Shibari gets corrupted when it becomes fashionable? Not really! Things are alive, and people feed them, and shibari must not be in the catacombs. I don’t want it to be exposed in a zoo while people throw peanuts, but I like it to be seen and naturalized. Or by “naturalize” someone understands that the Government is going to create a civil servant work offer for shibari director, with fourteen monthly wages? [Laughs] Let us enjoy and do what we want, and if people likes shibari, perfect! Better shibari than reggaeton.
Another classic debate is about the pros and cons of tying a single model with whom to deepen your shibari knowledge versus tying a lot of different models.
While being in a relationship, exploring each other is a more than enough task, I understand that as private shibari. But tying different models gives you richness: it’s not the same what you can be doing with your significant other at home than with another person at a workshop. You tie another body, with new technical issues… And tying is a good way of meeting other people and learning from many inputs. That’s always good for the rigger.
Have you explored other methods of immobilization? Chains, cloth, bandages…
Yes, yes. For me, ropes are the least important thing in shibari. You can do shibari with your hands, with a handkerchief… I have a special fetish with bandages. Ropes are very important as tools, but I don’t restrict shibari to them; my way of understanding shibari includes other kinds of restraints.
Which currently active riggers are more interesting to you? At least one local and one Japanese.
I will choose a Spanish and a Japanese one… From Spain the one I like the most right now is Zor, because of what I see of how is he tying. I have never seen him tying live, but his images caught my eye. Regarding Japanese: there’s a group of riggers I love. Ren Yagami, Shigonawa Bingo, some female riggers, some pupils of Yukimura… And I like people from Ichinawa-kai, not so much because of their ties but because of their way of practicing shibari as a whole.
How do you think shibari is going to evolve? How do you see the next generation of riggers and models?
I see elements of a more western shibari, detached from Japanese feeling, but that doesn’t seem new, only what the Two Knotty Boys did years ago but with different patterns and techniques. It doesn’t seem to be that shibari is evolving much in that sense. There is progress at a technical level, it’s incredible how technique has evolved during last decade… And I guess that it will keep perfecting during the next years. It’s obvious: the more people repeats the same tie over and over, it gets polished and improved. On the other hand, I see that the group of people interested in shibari is getting reduced during the last two years. It will be something cyclic, I guess: at some point we’ll end up being the same four rope nerds as always, then it will get fashionable again, then Russia will close the borders and it will be impossible to bring Japanese riggers, or the borders will open and everything will be much cheaper [Laughs].
What do you like the least about the current shibari scene?
It bothers me when someone wants to learn simple ties for domestic play and they get taught a takatekote: that’s a waste of time for everybody! It’s not needed, it will not be used, it’s a source of frustration and too difficult a tie for bedroom casual play. I also don’t like riggers who disembody the model and tie from a distance… I want to ask them: do you have something against people of that gender? Does the person you’re tying smell bad? You don’t like your model? But it’s a beautiful woman, a nice man, get closer, eroticize. Some people take the erotic charge out from shibari, doing white and clean practices, like in a gym. That’s OK, but shibari should be dirty, sexual… It’s Japanese, what the hell! [Laughs] They touch panties with the finger and mischievous grins… Sometimes I see aseptic and victorian shibari, when it’s not directly a pantomime or opportunistic guys trying to use shibari for their advantage… They hurt and steal illusions from people. Ah, and I also hate ugly shibari.
What do you consider “ugly shibari”?
Images, compositions and ties that are completely unsightly. For me shibari is beauty, with Japanese beauty concepts… And the problem is not that some people use ropes of one kind or another, or that the model is more or less beautiful, but… What the hell are they doing? It’s not like those riggers are clumsy, but they are not doing shibari but projecting there their internal shit. And when we see that, or when we see recklessness, we should point the finger although we don’t, and I include myself in that. I know that pointing fingers is hard, no one wants to create enemies, but we would all win if we loosened our tongue a bit. I sometimes write private messages warning of ties that could pose a danger. Nobody takes them well… But models should know who is tying them and how.
Foto: Lara Schild
Josep Lapidario 
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