Rope Study was originally formed in 2015 as a series of in-person courses to promote responsible, risk-aware rope education. We originally created this website to provide supplemental, online support to those in-person courses. Unfortunately, since 2022, other responsibilities have prevented us from continuing to offer in-person courses. However, we know that other rope communities have found some of the resources we provided here useful for their own education, so we didn’t want to close the site.
Therefore, we continue to maintain this website as an online resource and introduction to the philosophy behind our original courses, though we are currently reorganizing the content to better reflect an online-only resource. You can learn more about that process, and a brief history of Rope Study, on our About page.
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Our Purpose
We do not intend this site to be an online rope tutorial site. There are a number of excellent sites of that type. Instead, we view this site as a supplement or complement to those sites.
In most cases, we do not provide tutorial videos or specific examples of exercises. Instead, you should view this site as a “tour guide” to the world of rope, laying out concepts, forms, exercises, and approaches that we think are important to know, in the order in which we think you should focus on them.
Armed with that information, you can seek out online and in-person resources for learning the specifics of what we discuss on the site.
Our primary goals are to help rope practitioners gain a better understanding of the following core concepts:
- Responsible Progression: Providing a pathway (which we call “responsible progression”) to help students move from beginner to advanced practitioners of rope by offering suggestions about what to learn first and next, what to master before moving forward, and what to consider as you go.
- Risk-Awareness: Offering information about risk and safety, but also promoting a particular approach to rope bondage that emphasizes the need for all participants to be mindful of the risks they are bringing to themselves and their partners.
- Tying Well: Focusing on the importance of tying well, helping to define what that means, and highlighting how it impacts successful rope interactions and the risks involved. We often sum this up in phrases like “tying well, not patterns” or “tying the person, not the rope.”
- Tying Together: Emphasizing the partnered aspect of rope bondage, meaning that both the person doing the tying and the person being tied have equally important contributions to make to the experience, have essential knowledge and skills that are distinct from one another, and that this understanding is vital to truly successful rope interactions.
How To Use This Site
There are two organizational principles on this site: topics and progression.
The TOPICS on this site organize content by the major topics we addressed in our original, in-person classes.
However, our classes didn’t address a single topic per session. Instead, we would address parts of multiple topics per class, building on prior knowledge as we went–an approach that would be more difficult to follow in an online-only format.
Therefore, in addition to the main courses organized by topic, we also offer an outline of the PROGRESSION of our original class sessions for those who would like to gain a sense of the order in which we explored those topics.
If you’re new to rope, we recommend that you start by exploring the PROGRESSION from our original class sessions, starting with Rope 101 and moving on from there. This approach will help answer the questions: Where should I start? What should I learn first? What should I learn next?
If you’re already familiar with rope and want to take a deeper dive into specific concepts, we recommend heading directly to the TOPICS that interest you and returning to the progression to understand the context in which we originally explored various parts of those topics. This approach will help answer the question: What did Rope Study teach about a given topic?
We are currently rebuilding these courses. If you’d like to be notified when new courses are available, please subscribe to our newsletter. Otherwise, please check back soon. Thank you!
Progression
- Rope 101 – For beginners … an introduction to the world of rope bondage, the various styles and approaches available, and some suggestions for where beginners should (safely) invest their time.
- Rope 201 – When you’re ready to “get serious” about rope … a focus on safety and the concepts of “tying well” and “tying together.” Some might also refer to this as a focus on “floor work,” and we believe it’s essential to develop genuine competency in this area before moving on to Rope 301.
- Rope 301 – When you’re ready to start adding up-lines … a focus on the technical aspects of suspension (anchor points, suspension gear, loading and locking up-lines, etc.), the impact of suspension on both the body and the tie, and the importance of evolving the way you “tie together” as load and timing become essential components of the experience. Once again, we believe it’s essential to develop genuine competency in this area before moving on to Rope 401.
- Rope 401 – When you’re ready for full suspension … a focus on refining the skills from all previous courses under more intense and time-focused conditions that bring greater risk. We discuss concepts like levels, order, and timing as well as approaches to active bottoming in full suspension.
Topics
Coming soon …