Warning: Trying to access array offset on false in /home/.sites/681/site8202213/web/wp-content/themes/natraj-dance-studio-pro/inc/style.php on line 897
  • barkas@barkaskinbaku.com
  • Opening: Mo, Tue 4.30pm-9pm

When I tie with my partner

When I tie with my partner

So, I told you a lot about my theoretical views on Japanese rope art and how one perceives all the stuff that happens from several perspectives. That doesn’t mean at all that when I tie with my partner, I sit there and think about the etymology of a certain word that probably occur to me, when I pull a rope a bit tighter. This kind of reflection takes place before and after a scene.

When I tie with a person, I am interested in this person. I’m not necessarily interested in a relationship beyond the scene, but something should be there, that makes me feel like “yes, there is something in this person, I want to explore” and sometimes I just appreciate the time together with ropes and sometimes, well so far only one time, I get engaged with this person only ten months after the first scene. (@Addie <3)

And then we tie. The scene starts earlier than the first wrap around a wrist is applied. It starts, when it became clear that we will tie with each other. I look at the person. How he or she looks, how the head is held, the tension in the shoulders, the position of the legs and then I guess. I can never know and actually I am also insecure about if I will be able to read my partner properly or if everything will lead to a misunderstanding. So I put my hands on my partner. I want to feel, if my visual sense is right, if the tensions, I see, are actually there. But I also want to let my partner know about my tensions. And then, after a few moments, I start to use the ropes. Not long ago, pictures of how I would like to see my partner, or what kind of pattern it should be, occurred to my inner eye and I followed this picture. But this feeling vanished. I don’t know and I really don’t want to know, how it will look like. So, this teleology stopped. I don’t tie a chair, which shall look pretty.

When I tie, I see my partner and except from a few moments where I look at the suspension ring or the ropes, I try to always have my partner in view. Technicalities such as where the suspension point is, became somehow like sneezing while driving a car. Sometimes, I wake up within a scene and ask myself, what I intend to see, when I stare at my partner. And then, I see it. It is one of the toes curling or the hands that try to hide the thumb or it is my partner trying to seek eye contact. It is the increasing frequency of the breath or it is an expression of suffering when I squeeze the toes. It is the subtleties, that reply to what I do with my ropes. And immediately after I’ve seen, what I intend to see, my thoughts become blurry and hide behind a fog again and it feels good.

It is somehow like one meets somebody and one talks and all of a sudden it is 4am. I don’t rehearse such a conversation.

It is just beautiful. But sometimes, in the middle of that conversation, I say something and my partner interprets this in a way which hurts, or vice versa. So we stop the conversation and talk about why this could happen and it can also be beautiful, because we both have learned something. And next time, I tie and I come to a situation where I normally would have done something, I remember the last time and say to myself “Hah, I do something else or I’ll hurt my partner.”. But everything I do, while I tie is basically to get to know my partner and let him or her knowing who I am. So I listen to my partner. I watch my partner’s reactions and I try to get a feeling for his or her needs. And every time, my partner stays calm, I do something. I start talking and say who I am and what I feel. Sometimes, I tell my partner my love of very complicated patterns and sometimes I talk about the simple things that are very important for me. Sometimes I like to dance and sometimes I just want to sit and listen to music; metaphorically. And I ask my partner, if he or she likes similar things. Because I am interested in the person I tie with and I cannot imagine, that someone wants to tie with me, who isn’t interested in my personality. Because tying is such a big part of my personality. And although I said in the beginning that the reflections on a deeper meaning of my tying start after the scene, Addie told me at one point that my way of asking with the help of ropes feels somehow scientific but not in an objectifying way. She said, and that was one of the greatest compliments I ever got for my tying, that it feels like if someone is more interested in her as a person than anybody else.

When I studied mathematical physics, I never thought that I will ever be interested in people. I have to admit that there are people out there who are far more interesting and whose personality is much more beautiful then the Onsager solution of the 2-dimensional Ising model.