Mara Geneva Rehearsing for WICKED LINES
If I didn’t worship Gar Reynolds as the Last, Best Hope Against Powerpoint, I might resent him. A long while back I did a keynote at the Austin Ropecraft Symposium based around the concept of “Rope Naked.” I’m still pretty proud of that speech, and its delivery. Gar has actually written an entire book called “The Naked Presenter” that follows along that same idea. He’s written extensively about it on his site, but nothing has resonated quite as much as the last post, We don’t seek your perfection, only your authenticity.
I won’t name names, but I’ve talked with many riggers who have expressed what Dr. Brene Brown would call “shame.” She defines that as the fear of disconnection. Faced with a pile of rope, the rigger feels “If I don’t do this right, my bottom won’t want to play with me. My friends will laugh at me. No one will ever let me present. Nobody will ever want to play with me again.”
Will any of this actually happen? Probably not. But it feels like it might. We want the sure thing, the security. Just tie another takate-kote, throw in some weaves to make it artsy, and let the hot boobies do the work. It’s safe. It’s certain. It’s easy to learn.
But here’s the problem, said so well in one single sentence by Mr. Reynolds.
Passion dies in an environment of fear
and a yearning
for guarantees and certainty.
If you’re not playing on the brink, and risking doing it wrong, why are you bothering? And if you’re wondering why the passion seems to have gone out of your ropework…maybe you need to figure out if your aversion to shame is keeping you from that one thing that every rigger and bottom yearns for: connnection.
Read the post. Watch the talk. And think about it the next time you pick up rope. It might make a difference.
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That’s a great talk. I work on the personal ideology of “if I’m not dead, its fixable”. Tends to give a lot of scope for exploration, screw ups and re-corrections and/or learning.
I think so many people seek labels or how-to do it exactly right scenarios because of the fear you talk about and that is a shame. In the same way presenting without slides (liberating!) or having an UnConference, giving oneself permission not to get it right leads to so many more discoveries including new ways to be “just right for you”. I’m passionate about this subject so please insert visual of me waving my hands around a lot as I discuss it 🙂