Over the next few months, LA Rope will be restructuring its core mission to focus exclusively on the teaching of Yukimura Ryuu.

The new structure of classes will be based on an introductory or fundamentals class which will be taught on the fourth Sunday of each month from 9-12.  This class will explore the background, history, and philosophy of Yukimura’s unique approach to kinbaku and will serve as a prerequisite for all of the additional intensives.

From 1-4 on that same day, we will offer an advanced workshop on a particular tie or element of Yukimura Ryuu.  These classes will not be progressive and may be taken in any order or skipped altogether.  It will be a cycle composed of six classes, which will be repeated every 6 months.  Each class will be an in-depth analysis of each tie with multiple variations.

Classes will be limited to 4 couples.

The topics covered in the intensives will be:

• The Yukimura Gote: Theory and Practice
• Kemono shibari, the beast tie
• Kata ashi kaikyuku, the one leg raised partial suspension from the ground
• Kata Ashi Zuri, partial suspensions from sitting, kneeling, and standing positions
• Fast One Rope Practices (Sobaku Renshu)
• Rope Communication: Movement, Position, Voice, and Play

About the Class

This class explores the question “What makes a good rope picture?”

There are almost as many approaches to kinbaku photography as there are to rope itself. To better understand the context of rope photography we will first examine the work of several well known Japanese photographers, discussing what makes each create powerful and dynamic images. Following that we will briefly discuss basics of lighting, space, and camera settings.

We will finish the class by setting up lighting and creating several opportunities to shoot images applying the principles discussed earlier.  Crocoduck will the the featured bakushi for the night.

About the Instructor

Zetsu has been studying Kinbaku Photography since 2009.  He frequently travels to Tokyo where he has attended multiple satsueikai (photo workshops) with master photographer Norio Sugiura as well as with his sensei, Yukimura Haruki.  In 2013, his photography of Master K’s ropework was exhibited at Shinjukuza in Tokyo with the title “Kinbaku: Form and Emotion” and his photography was featured in Master K’s second edition of The Beauty of Kinbaku.  His photography has been accepted for exhibition in art shows in Los Angeles, Seattle, Miami, and Tokyo.  An avid collector of kinbaku books and magazines, he also studies the evolution of kinbaku photography as an art in its own right, both in the context of early forms of representation (for example, the seme-e works of Itoh Seiu, photography of the 1950s in Japan, and the art of Yoji Muku, Juan Maeda, and Toshio Saeki) and in its modern evolution in print, digital images, and video.

Event Details