I worked with another of Max‘s students this week, and as always, in the process I learned something myself.

All my life I’ve been inclined to be helpful. Being helpful has its purpose and place, certainly−people frequently need help. But there are two big pitfalls to being a helpful person.

One: losing balance.

Two: being a know-it-all.

I am too familiar with both these pits. “Losing balance” is the one where I fail to attend to my own needs and desires, always putting everyone else first. This depletes me and weakens my real ability to be a helpful person. And for me, it has meant a long-time inattention to my body, ignoring and neglecting it.

“Know-it-all” is the one where I habitually anticipate what’s-next, predicting what someone will need or want. This is a great behavior when I am working in the role of someone’s assistant, but it is a lousy trait to bring into relationships; Who am I to believe I know what is good or best or right for someone else?

Some very many years ago I began to see the error of my ways, and began revamping my tendencies. It hasn’t been easy−it’s meant a real change to the identity I had built. I still struggle to be appropriately helpful to other people, without being destructive to myself, or my relationships.

My adventures into kinky realms where submission and service are a norm have certainly stirred up my old ways. And it’s not as clear a realm as it might appear on the surface.

First let me just say that I am a novice in this territory. There’s a lot that I don’t understand, and even more that I don’t even know.

Secondly, I am not ready to wear labels. I know I am−by many viewpoints−kinky. But I don’t feel right acquiring the label “masochist” just because I’m not a “sadist”, nor calling myself “submissive” just because I don’t feel an urge to be “dominant”.

Handily−because most of the kinky stuff I do involves rope−I can comfortably label myself a “bottom”–common parlance for the person who is being tied up (the label “top” going to the person wielding the ropes).

Okay, so working with Max’s students, I am bottoming. I am providing my body for people to practice their rope skills. Whatever happens during these sessions is up to Max and the student with whom he is working; I don’t have to make decisions, I don’t have to ensure anything. Really, my sole responsibility is to speak up if my body is unhappy, if I’ve reached my limits. And when that happens, Max and his student turn their attention to making things better−for me.

What interesting circumstances for a girl such as me−to be serving someone, to be helpful, and yet my only real job is to take care of myself.

During this most recent session with Max, his student was very attentive to things such as the silhouette of my body and the lay of the ropes−there was a high aesthetic to his practice. I found this intriguing and pleasant. He and Max concocted a partial suspension that involved a harness around my chest and hips and several up-lines running from me to the ceiling. It was simple, yet with all the angles and all the ropes, when it came time to unravel the bondage there was rope everywhere. I was sitting on the floor surrounded by all the hemp, and still wearing the chest harness.

And this is when I decided to be helpful … and I stood up−to make it easier to have my harness removed.

I’d like to say that I saw my blunder right away. I did not. But I see it now.

It wasn’t my job to make it easier for my top to do his work. It’s his role to let me know what he wants.

This is very different territory than I am used to. I have so much to learn.

As you know, I have been working now and again as a stunt bottom for a rope bondage student of Max’s.

It has been a very wonderful experience for me, and I am excited that Max has another student who wants/needs a rope bottom for his lessons.

So far, I have been doing this gratis, just for the fun and education of it. It is work, though. And I am happy that this next student will be paying me for my time/effort.

And now I am fantasizing that this kind of thing become a regular thing. I’d only need to to do this a few times a week to be able to pay my bills . . . hmmm.

Photo: Bondage #2 by Michael M. Ferrario and used with Creative Commons license

∞  ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Over the last few weeks I have been serving as a stunt bottom for someone who is taking private lessons from Max of BondageLessons.com. (“Bottom” meaning the person inside the ropes, and “Top” meaning the person applying the ropes.) Doing this has given me a very special opportunity to really focus on what it is like to be inside the ropes, and to try and articulate my experiences. I have been writing about some of that here on this blog.

I have found that rope bondage brings an amazing range of experiences, and I am becoming more and more passionate about it.

Granted, rope bondage (or whatever kink) might not be for you. (Uh heck, it didn’t used to be for me …)

But if you are curious to explore and are lucky to live in the Pacific Northwest, there are many opportunities. One, coming up in about two weeks, is Max’s workshop, “Bondage from the Bottom’s Perspective,” exploring the question:

What happens in someone’s head when they’re restrained?

This workshop starts with the bottom’s headspace and works backwards to technique. We’ll discuss different types of bottoms, the scenes most appropriate to them, and how tops and bottoms can maximize the likelihood of getting what they want out of a scene.

There’ll be demonstrations of bondage and discussions of what it is like to be in bondage.

This will be a nice chance for people who are curious about bondage–whether as a “bottom” or a “top”–to easily explore this realm. You won’t have to “risk” getting tied up, or bumble about tying up someone, but you will get a lot of information to contemplate, and you will meet people you can learn from if you decide you want to explore this more (including Max).

Another lesson with Max. This stunt bottom stuff is challenging, but educational and fun.

The photo is of the second lesson of the day. It has taken awhile to set up all the harnesses and “up lines” (the ones that run from the body up up up to a hard point of secure attachment somewhere above). I am already a little worn from the first lesson of the day, which was a partial suspension that had me first on tip-toes, then on one foot, then up, up, up and completely suspended.

But anyway. The second lesson.

One of the goals was to practice the “bridge” which is what you see there in the red ropes running upwards from my hip harness. See the three separate loops? These distribute the lift and allow the harness to be pulled upwards without collapsing all the wraps of the harness into just one row.

From the perspective inside the ropes, this is nice because the weight remains more evenly distributed, mitigating “hot spots” of pressure, which can be difficult to endure.

And from outside the ropes, the bridge helps keep things tidier, more beautiful. Some people don’t care so much about that, but I do.

The second goal of the lesson was to practice adjusting the up lines. This meant setting up the harnesses and up lines, and then raising me incrementally, bit by bit until I was well above the floor.

This was much more grueling than I’d anticipated. Granted, I was a little spent already, but as I write this I just realized the truly stressful element.

Every other suspension I have done involved a lift that made a rapid transition from my weight on the ground to my weight on the ropes. It might have been jarring or painful, but the shift happened pretty much all at once, and then I settled into the sensations.

But in this lesson the lift was slow. Each line was hoisted some, tied off, and then the next line was hoisted–until all four lines had been raised. Then the pattern was repeated, lifting me higher and higher above the ground.

This incremental hoisting caused my weight to be shifted repeatedly, bearing down in a new way with each lift. In retrospect I estimate there were a dozen or more separate hoists.

Each of these times I had to meet the sensations anew–at each of the four rope-points on my body–find my relationship to the rope, meet new pieces of pain.

And I think this need to repeatedly establish my relationship to the ropes is what ultimately made this session taxing.

Interesting.

Photo of me, by Max

I am so thrilled with what I learned this weekend. The whole weekend was packed with great experiences, and working with Max was one of them.

This photo is of the “homework” that I did this morning after meeting with Max and his student yesterday. I wasn’t sure that I had paid attention well enough to replicate what Max had demonstrated, but YES, I did.

I am excited that I was able to recreate this tie at home. For me it means that I have really learned some “building blocks” for simple bondage, that I don’t have to struggle with those, and can now just do certain things. You know, rather like driving, where in time you know enough about an automobile that you don’t have to concentrate on things like holding the steering wheel and touching the gas pedal, and instead can focus on getting to where you are going.

This is a big step for me.

Oh, I have a ton left to learn before I can even pretend to be proficient, but now it’s like I can actually see proficiency in my future.

And I am developing a greater awareness of nuances (and I am going to continue trying to catalog them).

This tie in the photograph Max had demonstrated on my wrists, but since I cannot practice on my wrists I built it around my ankles. And from this I learned a couple of things. It was nice to stand in this bondage with my feet apart rather than in a typical tied-close-together fashion. Being able to have a feet-apart stance eliminated the rather perilous, easily-off-balance position that comes when the ankles are bound close together.

And obviously this tie becomes a hobble–allowing the feet to “walk” slowly. But the interesting discovery was that while the tie is quite comfortable without movement, once I started hobbling across the floor, the cuffs worked back-and-forth on my skin, in a very rough and painful fashion–quite discouraging moving.

I love working with Max. He is very perceptive and can dial in on what his student needs, adjusting any lesson plan to fit the flow of the moment. It’s probably the extreme depth and degree of his experience that makes that happen. Whatever it is, it makes for a “classroom” where even I in my clumsy fashion can learn.

Max had a new student for private lessons who needed a rope bottom to try things on during the lessons, and long story short, I ended up the lucky winner.

This was a perfect thing for me. I would never answer some random advertisement for someone looking to practice bondage. But because the whole thing was through Max–whom I trust completely–I had no important hesitations.

And what better way for me to learn more about bondage? I get to essentially “audit” the instruction, adding to my own repertoire during the lessons, but I also get to zone out a little here and there and just have a nice rope bottom experience. I mean it’s not like I really have to be paying attention to how to tie one knot or another … but if I do, I learn more.

But today what I learned most were some nuances about the experience of bondage that I hadn’t honed in on before.

This was in part because I was trying to give good feedback to Max’s fledging top–by verbalizing certain bits of my experience. For example, while Max was teaching his student a chest harness, student asked about wrapping the harness from behind versus wrapping it by walking around and around me.

And I tuned into the processes–they really are different. When my rope top stands behind me and wraps the harness strictly from that position, there’s some degree of “stranger danger” quality because I cannot see this person who is applying the ropes. But there is also a large amount of connection and intimacy, because of the closeness of our bodies, including the warmth of the top’s breath upon me.

But with a harness that is built by walking around me to make the wraps, there is a flow that emerges, and a soothing cadence that develops by virtue of the repetition of the top’s body (and hands) moving around, and around, and around, and around. In repetition there comes a predictability that humans find agreeable–because we know what to expect, a sense of safety emerges.

I will try and get back here tomorrow and write some more about the nuances I found, but this girl is tired and is off to bed now.

For one, Max has announced his curriculum/schedule for the coming months, and I am interested in each and every topic he is presenting in Seattle. In addition to Max’s usual monthly workshops at CSPC, he is offering a three-part series, Topping to the Next Level, co-taught with Russell. I have the schedule lined out below.

But first, returning to my on-going quest to explain, “why bondage?” here’s a snippet of my favorite rope supplier’s explanation.

“Rope is an extension of the body,” Monk said, . . . “When you’re in bondage, you’re literally wrapped up in another person’s desire. They’ve taken the time to encase you.”

from Tied Up in the Erotic Heritage Museum

I love that bit about wrapped in desire.

And here’s Max’s very full schedule. (We are so spoiled here in Seattle.)

Sunday February 7th
Partial Suspension Bondage

Sunday, February 20th, with Russell, Part 1 of 3
Techniques for Thoughtful Tops

Sunday, March 7th
Bondage from the Bottom’s Perspective

Sunday, March 13th, with Russell, Part 2 of 3
Hot Negotiation

Sunday April 4th
Bondage for Sex

Sunday, April 10th, with Russell, Part 3 of 3
How to Push

Saturday April 24th – Sunday 25th
Two Day Bondage Intensive in Seattle

Sunday May 2nd
When Things go Wrong – What to do and What to learn

(Max is also presenting in Atlanta, March 26 – March 28.)

I also want to be direct, that my experience is limited. Although the number of times I have been bound probably far exceeds that of the average Jill, in the realms where bondage is common, the dozens of times that I have been tied up is peanuts. So not only can I not speak for the typical experience, I also have no idea how my perspective will change as my experience increases.

Additionally, there is an entire realm of BDSM–of which bondage is the “B” component–and pain being an aspect of so much of this, and for many people, pain is a big big part of bondage, a good part. My previous post did not give this just attention, quite possibly because for me, pain is not the main attraction of this.

But, let me say clearly that (for me) pain is a functional element of this. I spoke to that; I acknowledge that the experience comes with pain and (for me) existing within the pain is formative and restorative.

I want to also acknowledge that my experience has been particularly fortunate. You might even say I have been spoiled. I have certainly had my share of times with what I called “household” bondage. But I have also been very blessed to have found myself in the hands of superb, highly experienced, and wonderfully spirited talent, most recently with Max.

These were times when I could surrender deeply with trust in the rigger’s experience. This surrender, combined with the caliber of sensation from the rigger’s skill, results in very rich effects.

And I have realized that bondage forces me to trust. This is important in my life right now, when my trust “mechanism” is so brutally bruised. But I believe that it is important in our society overall, where we are presented with more and more reasons to distrust. Being engulfed in a bondage situation, gives a full impact experience of trust, a splendid reminder that trust can not only exist, but can be rewarded.

Really, it is no wonder that I have become very fond of this stuff.

Photo: ropes on the beach by Til Krech and used with Creative Commons license

I do not remember exactly the first time I was bound, but discounting those drugstore fuzzy handcuff kind of games, it was probably with a man I had known for twenty years. Our relationship had only recently made its shift from “friends” to “soon-to-be-lovers.” We were at his home, and he explained that his bedroom was such a catastrophe that he did not want me to see it, and therefore he wanted to blindfold me. Because he was a longtime friend, I had no “trust issues” and could surrender to the game.

A blindfold is an interesting form of bondage.

The loss or restraint of a sense, increases and/or alters the perceptions of all the other senses. When I really want to hear the music of a band, closing my eyes helps me concentrate my focus. When I cannot see the ground that I am walking on, I increase my attention to the sensations in my feet, and even attend more sincerely to the sounds and smells around me (that babbling brook noise will be something I want to track and avoid plunging into).

I happen to be a big believer in the transformative possibilities of truly sensing the world around us.

This new lover turned out to also have a fondness for tying my hands together–during sex, but at other times as well. And I found that I had a fondness for the surrender the restriction created.

I was well aware that this “surrender” was consensual and could be broken at any time. I was fine with that; it did not make the surrender any less powerful or important.

Surrender is an enormous component of bondage.

The surrender was compelling. It meant (means) dropping pretense. It means elevating trust. It means a heightened awareness that is accompanied by a decreased vigilance.

It is a fast track to bliss.

∞

Fast forward a couple of years, and I found myself in new circles and with a lover who would do more complicated rope bondage on me. In our earliest adventures, he bound me in a simple wrap that I have since learned is called a karada, and I wore it under my evening gown, just a bit of the white rope and knots peeking out above the neckline; there was an interesting sense of displaying a secret, publicly.

Another night, this man tied my hands and feet, in a fashion which prevented me from traveling anywhere of my own accord. I was in my own home and was by this point good friends with this lover, so I could surrender into a deep place of trust. But he took me even more deeply when he whispered one of the most romantic things anyone has ever said to me, “If there is an earthquake or a fire, I will carry you out of the building,” and he lifted me from the floor to demonstrate that he could do this.

I mean, I know his whisperings sound completely technical and like a real mood killer. But I was struck by the level of attention he was giving to me, and his overall respect for the risks I was taking.

∞

Fast forward, again, and I am with friends, and one friend-of-a-friend, who happened to be a professional dom visiting from Texas to see a client. And lucky for me, this man also was a talented rigger, there was setup for aerial equipment in the space, and he was more than happy to tie me up and take me flying.

This was my first time going beyond “household” bondage; I was now under the hands of someone whose talent went far beyond spinning a few hanks of nylon rope around my wrists and ankles (not that there is anything wrong with that!).

That night, I stood naked in the softly lit room, closing my eyes to take in as much as I could of the new sensations. I felt the fiber of the ropes slide across my skin, tickling just the tiniest amount, under the sharp coarseness of the hemp. I felt the tugging and tension as the body harnesses were built by wrapping the rope around my torso and my hips. I felt myself sink more and more deeply into my own self–a quiet, breathing, blood-flowing human being who was moving into uncharted realms.

And then, just after my rigger whispered a request that I confirm that I was a-okay, I heard, “I am taking you up now,” (to which I nodded), and then I was off the floor and in the air.

I was now in awe, and pain.

Flying is an interesting sensation. Imagine those goofy old-timey movies with angels suspended from a rope on stage, flying back and forth–that’s how I was moving. And it came with very much the sense of being one of those angels–quite ethereal.

But as I said, it came with distinct pain. In suspension bondage, the rope harnesses are what hold and distribute a body’s weight, which means that all my weight was compressed upon a few inches of thin hemp rope–my skin, my bones, my nerves, pushed down under all my weight onto the wraps of the harnesses.

It was not an unendurable pain, but it was bold and all present.

This pain, is a source of transformation and enlightenment.

Here’s the deal. When someone ties me up, the bondage is something that I have chosen to be inside. If it is painful, it is only pain to which I have consented. Now, this is simplifying somewhat, because as the rigging is built, there is communication about incidental pain and adjustments are made to eliminate or mitigate it. And as the ropes are applied and take possession of my body there are discomforts, rather like a pair of shoes which fit in a slightly out-of-sorts fashion.

But then a line is crossed, and pain becomes an accepted aspect of the process. This line might be the introduction of a tie that stretches the limbs, or it might be a knot that is placed in a very uncomfortable fashion. This line might be when a body is moved from supporting its own weight, to the moments when the weight is transferred to a harness.

And when the line is crossed, it is time to meet my pain.

There are few times when we humans really meet pain. We usually avoid pain, or take some drug to relieve it. We typically deem the presence of pain as an indicator of something being wrong.

Being in bondage gives me a chance to not run away from my pain. I guess this is like the advice we get about looking our fears in the face. And staying right here, right now with my pain, well that reminds me that I am greater than the pain.

And the interesting thing is, while the experience is of physical pain, the effect transmutes to emotional pain.

∞

Beings that I am girl who is currently walking around with a LOT of (emotional) pain, having a chance to be greater than my pain, is transformative. I glean a strength of spirit that comes with conquering the physical pain.

The combination of surrender and meeting my own pain, takes me into an interesting realm where I feel a deep, deep trust. Obviously, I am trusting the person who has tied me up, but I find I move into a more enormous place of more enormous trust. A place where I feel–even if only for the minutes that I am bound–that everything is perfect and just right with my world.

∞∞∞

Continued.

Photo: found bondage by Tom Hickmore and used under Creative Commons license.

The class was outstanding and astounding–as is Max, and his trusty assistants, Griffin and Lorelei. I was impressed with their high-caliber professionalism–a certain sedate, intelligent, and adept approach to conveying a lot of information, and helping all the students absorb and implement it.

No small feat, especially in my case–I am lousy at learning things by listening, watching makes it easier, but really, I need to do in order to learn. So the patient and capable tutelage as we practiced the knots and ties, made everything possible for me.

I have a lot to learn and will need to spend hours practicing, I can tell, and I will be attending more of Max’s workshops. But I am happy to have this foundation from which to start.

And here’s a funny little proof that I really learned something . . . Well, in the story I am currently writing I just now needed to tie a dog to a pole, and did it using one of the things that Max taught us–the taut line hitch.