As part of the Wicked Grounds Holiday Dinner, I offered a two-hour bondage lesson to whoever the lucky raffle ticket winner was. It was RopeMonk, who also runs the San Francisco RopeBite, and he asked me for a short class on building connection in a scene. With the help of the lovely ClurraBella we spent two hours talking about some really neat stuff and doing rope. He’s agreed to let me share the notes from the class here; consider them food for thought, and if you want to know more, well, I’ve got quite reasonable rates…
Notes on Building & Keeping Connection & Flow in a Rope Scene
Don’t put distance between you and your rope bottom. Be as close as you can while still respecting boundaries
Ask before touching, but if you want to touch, ask.
Maintain contact through touch or rope tension throughout the scene.
Give some indication of what you’re going to do before you do it. “I’m going to put a chest harness on you” is ok, but “The rope is going on these beautiful breasts” might be better. On the other hand, “Gonna tie you down, bitch, before I smack and fuck that sweet ass” might be preferred by some. Know your bottom.
If you want nudity, ask for it. The worst that can happen is they say “no”.
Confidence as you move the bottom’s body around is always good.
Acknowledge mistakes if they’re obvious, like hitting her in the face with the rope, but don’t draw attention to it. He can’t see that you didn’t tie the Somerville bowline quite right behind his back; why tell him? Never say “oops” unless it’s immediately followed by “Eh, who gives a fuck?“
If you have to backtrack, don’t say “I did that wrong.” Say something like “Ooh…you’ve got a really great body. I’ve got a better idea for this…” Then start over.
Precision & hesitation is for photographic shoots. If you want energy, give up the pursuit of perfection. Don’t become the Graveyard of Passion.
When possible, pull the rope across the body, letting it caress the skin.
If you have loose bands of rope, find a way to make them tighter.
Communicate throughout the scene. It should be a conversation, either with words or through touch.
At the end of the scene, you should know where your head is at, and have some idea where your bottom’s head was at. Discuss it, and see how close you both were. The more you know about each other, the better the next scene will be.
Last night, a special kind of joy: listening to the creak of the jute as her legs pulled against the bonds, as her hands flexed and twisted, not exactly trying to get away but just in reaction to the sensations I was giving her.
The sound of binding and passion and sex.
•
Let me share with you the amazing mashup that accompanied much of our activity last night. It’s long, free, and awesome: Girl Talk – All Day.
•
Afterwards, she snuggled in and smiled at me. “You look so cute,” she said. “You get that intense look on your face.”
“Cute?” I puzzled. Fuzzy ducks are cute. “Cute and intense aren’t words I normally associate with each other.”
“It’s like Miranda says,” she explained. “Fuck it like you’re trying to kill it.”
If that’s the cute intensity I have…I can live with that.
Shooting with Michele Serchuk=Another Good Decision
It is the season for Wrap Ups, for Looks Back, for reflection and “what the fuck happened?” to mingle in the brain. I normally don’t do such things; arbitrary ends-of-years (you do remember that more than half the world doesn’t see this as the New Year, right?) don’t normally appeal to me.
However, I had a dream the other night. It was a class I was organizing, and the theme was “Best & Worst.” I think it came from the series of posts from people like Lochai and Voron on Fetlife about the “end result or process?” or the “most important safety rule“. And as much as I dislike hyperbole and dyadic choices (life is not the Kobiyashi Maru, in my opinion) I think there might be some value in exploring the questions:
What was the best kinky thing you did all year?
What was the worst?
Note the limiting factors: kinky and year. Feel free to expand and try and think of the best or worst thing you’ve done in general, or in your entire life, but when I did that my head either wanted to explode or to wander down a dark spiral of self-recrimination and regret. Neither really good things.
So…what was the best kinky thing you did all year, Graydancer?
Hmm…probably it was the decision to embrace my avocation and try to unite it with my vocation. I tried having a “normal” job for a while, for a little more than half the year. 9 to 5, insurance (sort of, though it didn’t cover the things I actually needed treatment for), overtime, vacation…the whole shebang.
But it was soul-deadening. The contrast between the people that I connected with through writing, podcasting, teaching, and performing, vs. the people I suckered into buying shitty properties on eBay at my job became intolerable. In the end, I had to realize that the only thing I was accomplishing at that job was making my boss richer, and that was at the cost of not only the sucker’s money but also at the cost of my quality of life, and the quality of life of those I loved.
So one weekend I walked in, packed up my personal items from my desk, sent emails of resignation to the two immediate superiors and the big boss, and left. I resolved that it was better to be poor, insecure, and happily contributing positively to the world (at least, as far as I can tell) than to be a dead soul with a steady paycheck.
Since then, life has been one good thing happening after another. I have been able to teach and do things with people I’d never expected or dreamed of, and 2011 is looking even better. Does my bank account suffer? Hell yes. But really, in the bigger scheme of things, having tried both ways…this is where I belong, doing what I’m doing. Best. Decision. All. Year.
Eh, that’s an easy one. What about the worst thing you did all year?
Ah, now, here’s the decision time. Do I open myself up to the teeming masses (ha) reading this blog and go for the intensely personal experience, or take the easy route and go with “well, I didn’t check that I tied that Gravity Boot correctly on the famous Oreo Cookie suspension…”
If you do this exercise, I warn you, this is dangerous territory. Regret and guilt are two of the most insidious and yet worthless emotions there are, because they really don’t accomplish anything. The past is the past, and you can’t change it, and more than that, there is no way to tell if the past is exactly what needed to happen to get you where you are right now – in my case, sitting in bed in my friend’s flat in San Francisco with a happily tired and snuggly DoNotGoGently next to me. I wouldn’t trade this for anything, so how can I be sure that anything I did to lead up to this should have been changed?
Well, ok, I’ll stop dodging the question. The worst thing I’ve done in my kinky life all year…it’s not really one thing. It’s more the area of my kinky life where I wish I was doing better, making better decisions, able to explore and develop it more skillfully.
It’s the area of dominant and submissive relationships. I still carry around a big huge hangup from my first real D/s experience, and while it has benefited me in terms of education, it has certainly stunted my own development. About all I know is that I am “wired” for that kind of relationship – but making that wiring actually function seems to be a very difficult process of talking things out and trying things out with my partners, whether play- or life-. These are some of the more difficult and clumsy conversations I’ve had, and mis-steps and mis-communications and mis-takes have led to a great deal of strife and pain for myself and those I love. So what have I done the worst in my kinky life over the past year? Managed my identity as a dominant kinky person.
There. Now I know what I can choose to work on in the future. Or not; sometimes you just do the best you can, and have to keep muddling through. I’m a big fan of “inching towards daylight” as the saying goes.
Now it’s your turn, if you care to take up the challenge. The comment field awaits:
What’s the best kinky thing you did all year? What’s the worst?
It was a blast. Fun people to work with, and basically it was like when you played cops-and-robbers as a kid. I got to be the bad guy in several different scenarios, and you can watch the teaser for one of them or enjoy the screen captures.
But since this was video, we went for some level of verisimilitude, and that presented some interesting challenges on my end. For example, for the “Witness Protection” scenario, it called for me to “chloroform” the first witness and then disarm and choke out the Federal Marshal.
Now, the rough body play stuff? No problem. I had lots of fun with that, as did DNGG. But think about it: then I’m supposed to tie pretty and effective bondage on them while they are unconscious.
Dead weight. Limp limbs, a rubber spine, and no other help. Why don’t we offer “Tying the Unconscious” classes at Shibaricon, anyway?
And let’s add the fact that I was being all Actor-like, and decided that I really should be wearing my Sexy Leather Gloves so as not to leave fingerprints. Have you tried tying someone while you’re wearing leather gloves? Let me put it to you another way: if you’re going to be tying someone in leather gloves under a time- or performance-pressure situation, practice first.
Oh, and skin! Hate to tell you this, bottoms, but the real reason the answer to “Should I take this off?” is always “YES!” has nothing to do with your beautiful bodies. Rather, it’s because rope + skin < friction > rope + fabric + long beautiful hair.
These are skillsets that are severely lacking in the training of riggers all over the world. Maybe Chanta’s Bondage for Sex, Vol. 2 will have it. Or Douglas Kent’s Complete Shibari Vol. 4: Sweaters.
But we need more training than that. That was the easy shoot. The next shoot called for them to both be conscious and struggling while I tied them up.
Yeah. That’s right. Those of you who have tried tying pretty bondage on someone who is struggling will be chuckling; those of you who have seen DNGG actually fight are rolling on the floor guffawing. Various scenarios and ideas were put out, some of which had about as much relevance to reality as a Tarantino action movie. Sure, we had a prop gun – so I’m supposed to hold the gun on them and tie them at the same time? Or maybe hold to to my own head and yell “Hold it! Next slut makes a move, the Rigger gets it!” (1)
Yeah. You try it sometime. We came up with some creative solutions to the problem, and it was actually quite fun to do the role-playing. But I think, for those who are wanting to get into the insanely lucrative world of Damsel-in-Distress porn, Murphy Blue and I should teach a special series of classes at Shibaricon. Call it the “Snidely Whiplash” track:
TUF 101: Tying the Unconscious Form
TUF 102: Tying the Unconscious Form While Wearing Gloves
TUF 103: Tying the Sweater-Wearing Long-Haired Unconscious Form While Wearing Gloves
TUF 104: Lugging the Tied-Up Unconscious Form Up and Down Stairs
TUF 201: Tying the Other Sweater-Wearing Long-Haired Unconscious Form While Wearing Gloves Under Hot Lights and Still Trying to Look Sexy/Menacing/Not About to Go Into Cardiac Arrest.
There are a lot of forms of negotiation for scenes. They range from the very thorough 18-page checklist created by Jay Wiseman to the famous “Hey, wanna do some stuff?” negotiation technique of Philip the Foole. My own style tends to fall somewhere between the two – I do have several specific things I ask about, but the last thing I want is a “laundry-list” of the things my bottom wants to have happen.
The Very Short Story
In my vanilla writing job I recently came across a game designed to improve listening skills in children. It’s called the “Very Short Story,” and it’s brilliantly simple.
The adult provides a short arc of plot points, with basically one sentence: “A girl walked down the road and picked a flower.” The children in the game then take turns embellishing the story, everyone adding in elements, while listening to the elements from the person before.
It occurred to me that this might be an interesting way to negotiate a scene somewhere between a checklist and the anarchistic wanton wonderland of Philip’s mantra. Something like this:
“I’m going to tie you up.”
“You’re going to tie me up with hemp.”
“I’m going to tie you up tightly with hemp.”
“You’re going to tie me tightly with hemp and take pictures so I can see how beautiful the rope is.”
“I’m going to tie you tightly with hemp and let you thank me for the beautiful pictures by kissing my boot.”
“Hmmm…I’m not sure I can do the boot worship thing. How about I thank you by showing how clever I am with my hands even when they’re tied?”
“Ah…interesting. That works. And then?”
“You’re going to tie me tightly with hemp and take pictures that make me feel so beautiful that I want to use my hands to get you off, while you tell me what a good slut I am for you.“
And so on. All kinds of elements of negotiation are in there – the pragmatic stuff like “tight” and “hemp” and “not into boot worship.” At the same time elements that might not have been discussed are put into play: “hand job” and “call me slut.” Hearing the story, the top can perhaps even work some of it in advance, like working the slutwordcraft into the beginning of the scene, or taking the time to think about what ties are good to photograph and are tight and work well with hemp.
At least, that’s what it seems like to me. This is just an idea, never been tried, never been tested. But if any of you use the “Very Short Story” technique to negotiate a scene, let me know, ok? I’m interested to see what happens.
Recently I was chatting with a fellow rigger and he related to me a story about a suspension he’d done while visiting another town. Pardon me while I take some writerly liberties and pretend to speak in his voice:
I wasn’t really there to do suspension that night – I wasn’t feeling it, you know, I was happy doing the floor work. But she’d never been suspended, and asked nicely, and so I said ok, sure, we can do that.
She wanted to feel the way she’d seen the girls in my pics feel – like you wrote about in your post. And I guess she did, because she went away happy-floaty-like.
But I got no energy back from her. I just felt drained.
At this point, there are a lot of riggers out there reading this* who are nodding their heads sagely, saying some variety of “I feel ya, man.” At some point in a rope top’s life they have probably had the experience of pouring their soul into a tie, combining the engineering/physiology/performance/seductive skills into tying, suspending, and then bringing safely to ground a lovely bottom…only to have the bottom giggle endorphically and traipse off to the chorus of “I can’t believe you did that! How did it feel?” from friends and onlookers.
The rope top, meanwhile, is standing by the frame, sweaty, tired, possibly sexually frustrated, and proud in that grim “I did it!” kind of way, left to coil the ropes and get out of the way for the next rope top tapping his foot impatiently.
And you know what? That’s ok.
Really. This is not a post about aftercare**, or about how bottoms should be grateful, or how there should be offers of Lagavulin and Godiva truffles and blow jobs at the end of every rope scene.*** No, actually if what the bottom feels is the need to traipse off happily, then that’s what should happen. That’s what they needed at the end of the scene.
Rather, this is a post about being prepared. About having something in your rope arsenal even more important than a locking carabiner or even (gasp) safety shears.****
Me Rites
To shift things to a personal level, I had a bad breakup a while back. Real bad. And the first time I drove past The Town Where She Lived, it hurt. Damn it hurt, I was surprised. Worse, I was going to have to drive past The Exit a lot over the next few months. I didn’t want it to hurt that much.
So the next time I approached The Town, I did a little imagery. I imagined armor around my heart. Yeah, go ahead, snicker, I did it. I imagined 12-gauge steel plate with rivets and welds encasing the thing.
And you know what? It didn’t hurt so much. It became a little ritual, until The Town just became the town and The Exit was just another off-ramp.
There is a lot of talk about after-care for Tops these days, and thanks be to the Knotty Powers for that. But what about “pre-care”? How about having the mental (and, yeah, I’ll say it, spiritual) tokens and rituals that can get you and the bottom through a rope scene even when they are draining your energy faster than a cracked dilithium crystal?
Vampires Aren’t All Bad. Just the Glittery Ones
If you come up with the “Me Rites” that you need to conserve your energy – whether that’s imagery, crystals, or just reciting passages from The Marketplace over and over in your head – you gain a skill. That’s the ability to work with bottoms who haven’t learned yet how to “give back”. The term “energy vampire” is bandied about a lot, and it’s accurate: some people just take it out of you, feeding off of the energy you give them.
It takes a while for them to learn how to give back, though there is the occasional naturally gifted one such as Evinxiamor. Having your Me-Rites in place protect both of you, and enable you both to have a good scene.
Maybe picturing your heart in armor is too much, and you want to instead have a little CPU Monitor widget fixed in your mind, checking how many cycles-per-second you’re running and how the temperature is holding out. Maybe it’s just the traditional Monster Ceremony (or, in the original Japanese, kageki-genki-yu) as developed by Midori.
Whatever it is, I personally think it’s as important, if not more so, than just plain “aftercare”. Sometimes aftercare is too late. Put your Me Rites in place, and see if that might just help “Top Drop” before it happens.
And what about bottoms, you ask? Good question. Bottoms, I’m sure Tops can be as draining; I can’t really speak from your perspective. So let’s share both sides: what kinds of Me Rites do it for you?
*I flatter myself.
**Look for Mollena‘s “Aftercare, Schmaftercare” class at Shibaricon!
***Unless you’re into that. In which case,
you can reach me at
graydancer @ gmail dot com.
****Yeah. I said it.
I suppose I should start out by explaining to those of you here hoping for a rope-and-steampunk post that this is not it. The title rather refers to a rather overquoted but nonetheless pivotal essay by Walter Benjamin called “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.”
It’s a fascinating article in its own way, if you are one of those who likes wanking off in discussions about what is or is not art. I’ve found that the newer you are to this theory, the more eager you are to discuss it; having been through decades of such things, I usually just roll my eyes a little and fall back on Chief Justice Potter Stewart’s 1964 definition in Jacobellis vs. Ohio: “I’ll know it when I see it.”
However, I recently allowed myself to become embroiled in just such a discussion on FetLife, and while it wasn’t pleasant, it did give some food for thought. Among other things, it was amusing that I found myself defending the idea that kinbaku is an art form, requiring years of practice to do it well – much like playing a musical instrument. The OP (Original Poster) got quite frustrated by the fact that his post had not been about the whole art-vs-not-art debate at all; his original post had been about a person online who, looking for guidance, had wanted to know if there were tutorials online.
I was one of the first respondents in that thread, and had pointed out the tutorials at BeKnotty and Twisted Monk and of course Jack Elfrink’s stuff. I also noted, as a responsible citizen journalist of the rope world, that “there is a school of thought that one cannot learn shibari online.”
To my mind, that is different than saying “one cannot learn shibari online.” Because frankly, I don’t necessarily believe that some people can learn it one-on-one, either. I’ve tried with a few people who have studied and taught in that way, and found it frustrating.
More to the point, it doesn’t fucking matter.
Forget What You Think
Getting away from the “what is art” argument and to the original point: that person looking for tutorials wanted something. For the sake of argument, let’s say that he saw a picture like this online:
The Fabulous Ms. Berlin & Derrick Pierce
…and he wanted to put his submissive in a similar situation.
Why did he want to do that? Was it because he wanted to get into the wildly lucrative world of bondage porn?* Was it because he was a passionate photographer, and wanted to exactly re-create this amazingly composed photo?**
Perhaps. I don’t think so, though. I think it’s more likely that he didn’t want to duplicate the picture at all. He wanted the results. He wanted to make his sub feel the way Ms. Berlin feels in the picture. Or he wanted to feel the way Derrick feels in the picture. And that’s where the whole “mechanical reproduction” thing comes into play.
See, I did that tie. I took that picture, because this was a shoot that I was directing. So I know exactly what was happening on that set, on that day, in that place. And let me tell you, the orgasmic bliss that Ms. Berlin is conveying in that pic is far more a tribute to her acting ability than any skill on my (or even Derrick’s) part.
Probably more of what was going on in her head was along the lines of:
“Who the fuck is this no-talent rigger/director thinks he can tie me in this RIDICULOUS suspension? Jeez this is killing my lumbar vertebrae. Going to have to do some hot tub relaxing today. Wonder if Cherry’s up for coffee after the shoot? At least I have a good PA here to help out. Oh, here comes Derrick’s cock. He’s such a great guy, too bad he’s gotta work with this midwest hack too…”
That’s not to say that I know that was her inner monologue-Berlin and I are friends, but this was the first time we met and I was a hack, as this was my very first professional bondage shoot.
But I doubt that the FetLife poster was hoping to have his submissive thinking those kinds of thoughts when he reproduced the tie. No, he didn’t want his sub to feel the way the people in the picture felt.
He wanted his sub to feel the way he thought the people in the picture felt.
And that’s the crux of it. The proper response to that FetLife poster should not have been me listing the tutorials; those are just ways of duplicating the images. Nor was the proper response to say “You can’t do that; it’s art, and reserved for the Worthy.” It certainly wasn’t helpful to say, “Oh, that? Anybody can do that. It’s no big deal.”
What ends up happening, time and again, is that he takes either track – saves up the money, goes to Japan and studies, or just decides to “reverse engineer” the ties using things online, and gets to the point where she and he are in exactly the same position…and suddenly they realize: this doesn’t feel the way I thought it would.
Nouns Don’t Matter
To my mind, the most important question to ask, whether you’re an experienced rigger or a novice knotter, is not “What do you want to do?” but rather “How do you want to feel?” That determines the tools you use, the frame of mind, the setting, the technique – everything else. What is the tone of the rope bondage? I personally believe that with that as your goal, it doesn’t matter if you’re doing a one-column tie or a takate-reallyfuckinghawtakote with a side of hashirodokai sauce.
Most of the time when I do rope for enjoyment (as opposed to for performance, education, or photography, in which case fun is by-product rather than the objective) I don’t have a big idea of a complicated tie. I tend to go in and start working with the rope and the body and the way it changes over time, and at the end, if you want to call it smut or art or craft, it really doesn’t matter to me. What matters to me are the adjectives, not the nouns. Was it good? Was it fun? Was it beautiful?
We can re-create images in 3-d and record the steps on hi-def video and break them down into loop A over bight B around Nipple C. But as far as I know, there’s no way to accurately recreate the feelings involved – even between the same two people with the same rope.
I love that ephemerality. I love that “unique and special snowflake”-ness of it. And that’s why I’ll see you in the dungeon.
“What about the bottom?” DoNotGoGently asked me shortly after she read my post about The Mormon Pause. I’ll wait while you click the link and catch up on the reading…
OK, back? As you can see, she’s absolutely right. I didn’t mention a thing about the bottom’s point of view. Sure, it’s all well and good for the top to sit there and wait for the next thing to happen, to “allow” the space to open and present the right action, but what about the Bottom? Are they supposed to just sit there and do nothing.
Well, yes. And no.
In my opinion, the first part is a yes. They are supposed to “just sit there.” Or lay there, or writhe there, or dance there or hop there or dangle there…you know what I mean. However, they are far from doing “nothing.” In fact, I would argue that their task is far harder than the Top’s.
I view the “Kinky Mormon Pause” for Bottom’s as being Present. No, I’m not trying to go all “slashcappy” here, I capitalized that P because it does need differentiation. I have a friend who earned a Master’s of Fine Arts with a final dissertation on the ability to be “Present”, so it’s a pretty big deal. It involves being able to let go of anticipation. It means being able to open up to whatever comes next, to give up any semblance of control and simply accept whatever happens.
Yep, this is the Girl that was Terrified of Needle Play
This does not look like a sack of meat. Not reacting to a stimulus or emotion is another form of control, after all. Being present means letting yourself feel and express your reaction to whatever happens next, and then letting it go, ready for the next thing. In some that is a peaceful glazed look. In others that is a scream and a frenetic thrashing against the ropes. In some it’s a wave of orgasm, in others it’s a desperate, hopeless torrent of tears.
In every case, when it comes from that Present place, I find it amazingly beautiful. I am in awe of the bottoms I know who can go there, whether I’m playing with them or not.
It’s hard not to let the mind go wild. In fact, it’s so hard that it’s a common technique used by tops. “Just stand there and run the rope through your fingers speculatively,” I teach, “let the bottom’s mind do the work. Odds are, whatever they’re imagining is probably much worse than what you’re actually planning.*” It’s a time-honored technique in interrogation. “Go and get me three hamsters, a spool of copper wire, and a jar of peanut butter!” barks the interrogator to the subordinate, and then just looks at the prisoner with a semi-pitying smile, letting the implications sink in. After a moment: “And don’t forget the Coleman stove!”
If the prisoner/bottom is able to be “Present”, this technique won’t work. And that’s ok; it provides an entirely different canvas of the body and mind for the Top to work with, arguably a higher level of connection and sensation.
How do you cultivate this? Good question. The obvious answer is “zen meditation” but then people start getting all “cultural appropriation”-this and “woo-woo” that. Plus, having been a zen practitioner for over two decades, I can’t pretend I’m not biased towards it. I suspect that letting yourself fall into music might be a technique, or listening to a painting. Or dancing about architecture. Whatever the technique, I know it takes practice, because even after the aforementioned two decades, I only occasionally manage it.
But oh, how I long for it. That ineffable moment. And on someone else? It is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“The study of magic is not a science, it is not an art, and it is not religion. Magic is a craft. When we do magic, we do not wish and we do not pray. We rely upon our will and our knowledge and our skill to make a specific change in the world…”
–Lev Grossman, The Magicians
My friend Lochai recently posted a stimulating question on the Shibaricon mailing list. It was, like many great questions, short and to the point:
Why rope?
I think my answer lies in an example I use a lot when I teach. If I come towards a person with a flogger, they know pretty much what’s going to happen. If I come towards a person with some fine leather bondage shackles, they know where they’re going to go. If I pull out some hand-blown fluted fire-cups, it’s pretty obvious what’s going to happen next.
If I walk towards someone with a coiled piece of hemp, they have no clue. Except that it will involve rope. Probably.
Here. I’ll set a timer, and come up with ten things I could do with that coil of rope:
Cover it with a condom and fuck them.
Knot the ends and give them a very sharp and painful whipping.
Re-coil it into a soft, thuddy flogger.
Tie a crotch rope hooked into their hair and make them give me head while rubbing out orgasm after orgasm.
Hogtie them and enjoy their escape attempts.
Use the rope to highlight a part of their anatomy (ass, breasts, cock & balls, whatever) and lavish attention on it.
Introduce them to some Enforced Yoga Poses.
String the knotted line across the room and force them to straddle it, walking along the line reciting humiliating phrases in Russian.
Gag & blindfold them.
Tie their hands together.
OK, that took me longer than expected – one minute and 15 seconds. Try it yourself; feel free to share your results in the comments. Admittedly, some might say that the last one (or two) shouldn’t count, that they’re too basic. That’s a subject for another post.
My point is that rope is nothing but potential until I exercise my skill and desire upon it-and at that point, the range of options available is greater than any other tool I’ve seen. It’s Schroedinger’s Rope, if you will: it’s everything until you make it something.It is unknowable:
The Unknowable is that which lies in the cracks between the known and the irrelevant…the Unknowable lives in a pack of cards after it has been fairly shuffled but before it has been dealt, when all the possibilities are open, and which each possibility matters.
–Stephen Brust & Emma Bull, Freedom and Necessity
That rope will do nothing without the rigger’s will. Their intent.
That intention may be nothing more than to replicate the knots on some picture they saw.
Or it may be with the intention of creating a passionate experience filled with ephemeral beauty for an audience of two.
I know which I prefer. And that is why rope, Lochai.
Posted in play, writing on December 3, 2010 by Gray
long ago, in an event hotel far, far away…
I remember very distinctly sitting in a hotel room, angry and sad, looking across at my friend Mollena, who was also angry and sad. We were angry and sad at each other, in fact, due to some communication glitches that got blown into full-fledged perceived insults and ended…well, with us sitting there, completely aware of where the mistakes/misunderstandings had been, but still, angry and sad.
I think it was her who said it: “You know, we teach this shit. You’d think we’d be better at it.”
Over the past couple of days I’ve had a few situations that have not gone as I might have liked them. Possibly the only advantage I had was that there was a part of me able to step outside of the situations and see the big picture, to understand at least my own reactions. Ah, you are feeling X because Y happened and that’s a trigger for situation Z with a side of Q with P sauce…
In some cases I could even see some of the other side: Ah, they’re reacting that way to that statement? That reveals some interesting insecurities. Wonder what kind of baggage they’re carrying there?
In all of the cases I was able to, at a minimum, extricate myself from the situation and stop it from escalating. In some it even went on to much happier places.
But that didn’t do a damn thing about the feelings. The anger, hurt, self- and other-directed blame, the natural reaction I have to want to fucking hit something when I get truly pissed. Even with that nice birds-eye analytical view, I was still furious in all these situations, at some point.
You know, the kind of furious where you try to just breathe. To just get through one…more…second without breaking anything. Where you have to basically throttle your brain. No, that’s a blaming thought. No, that’s a guilty thought. No, that’s extrapolation.
Bringing myself back to the here, the now, over and over. While feeling the waves of anger, guilt, and shame just wash over me. Hearing my own voice, as I’ve taught in classes over and over, describing how to get past drama, past a scene gang aft agley, past the past.
You know, I teach this shit. You’d think I’d be better at it, and maybe, maybe I am getting better at it, just a little.
But in case anyone’s wondering: it doesn’t get any fucking easier.
