These are the questions we have heard most often from people beginning their journey with Kinbaku over the past ten years.
DISCOVER
Kinbaku and Shibari:
frequently asked questions
Our answers to the questions people most often ask when beginning Kinbaku and Shibari
There is more information about Kinbaku available today than ever before. For someone beginning, this does not necessarily make things easier.
Over the past ten years of teaching, we have heard many of the same questions again and again. Where do I start? Is it dangerous? How much do I need to practise? When can I try suspension?
Here are our answers. They are not universal rules, but reflect what we have learned through our own practice and through teaching others.
1. Where do I start?
How do I start learning Shibari or Kinbaku?
Take some real life action. Rather than spending months reading books or watching tutorials, find a good beginner class and experience rope for yourself. Pick up a rope, try to tie, feel what happens and see whether it interests you. Look for a teacher whose work speaks to you. Different teachers have different approaches, and your first experiences will already tell you something about which direction you might want to explore. If you would like to begin with us, you can join one of our beginner workshops or come for private coaching in Berlin.
Can I learn Shibari online or do I need a teacher?
Online content can be wonderful for inspiration. It can expose you to different styles, people and possibilities and help you discover what kind of Kinbaku interests you.
For actually acquiring skills, we strongly recommend learning in person with a good teacher.
Kinbaku is an embodied practice. Small differences in tension, movement, touch and positioning are difficult to understand intellectually and even harder to evaluate when you are the person doing them. Feedback and correction are therefore essential.
You can watch someone tie for hundreds of hours without developing the skills that come from actually tying.
Invest in good teaching and practise what you learn.
How do I find the right Kinbaku teacher?
Start with the person, not the curriculum.
Kinbaku is an intimate practice. Learning often means opening parts of ourselves and our relationships in front of another person. Ask yourself whether you actually like and trust this person. Would you feel comfortable allowing them to accompany you in something so personal?
Then look at what they embody. Do their skills, values and actual practice reflect what they teach? A teacher cannot transmit something they have not developed themselves.
Finally, look for someone who genuinely likes teaching. Being an accomplished practitioner and being a good teacher are different skills. A good teacher is interested not only in demonstrating what they know, but in your learning and your progress.
2. How risky is Shibari?
Is Shibari inherently dangerous?
Kinbaku involves risk. Rope can compress nerves, restrict circulation and place considerable forces on the body. Suspension adds gravity and body weight, increasing both the forces involved and the consequences of mistakes. But the level of risk varies enormously depending on what you do, how you do it and who you do it with. Many risks can be substantially reduced through good technique, gradual progression, body awareness, communication and sensible choices about how you learn and practise. For us, safety is therefore not a state in which risk has somehow disappeared. It is an ongoing practice of understanding risk and making informed decisions about it.
What are the most common risks in Shibari?
The risk profile changes considerably depending on what you are doing.
Simple floor work, restrictive ties, demanding body positions and full suspension do not carry the same kinds or levels of risk. Nerve compression, circulation problems, falls and excessive pressure or load are among the physical risks practitioners learn to recognise and manage.
The important thing for a beginner is not to memorise an endless catalogue of possible injuries, but to understand that technique matters and that complexity and intensity should be introduced gradually.
Good teaching can help you understand where the risks actually are rather than simply becoming afraid of them.
How can I avoid nerve injuries in Shibari?
There are two sides to this.
The first is technique. Rope placement, tension, body mechanics and the construction of a tie matter. Over the past decades, the international Kinbaku community has developed considerably in its understanding of how rope interacts with the body. Look for teachers who take this knowledge seriously and continue updating their own understanding.
The second is body awareness.
We encourage people in ropes to become increasingly sensitive to what is happening inside their own bodies. Subtle changes in sensation can carry useful information and should be taken seriously.
Technique and body awareness belong together. Neither replaces the other.
What if I have an injury or medical condition?
Bodies and medical histories are different, and the relevance of a particular condition depends greatly on what you intend to do in ropes.
If you are unsure, ask.
Tell your teacher about anything that may be relevant before the class or session. A good teacher can tell you whether an exercise can be adapted or whether it would be better not to do it.
Where medical judgement is required, speak to an appropriate healthcare professional. A Kinbaku teacher should not pretend to provide medical advice beyond their competence.
3. Practice and progress
How often should I practise Shibari?
Practice matters, but practice alone does not necessarily make you better. Repeatedly practising poor technique can simply make poor technique more deeply embodied. Especially in the beginning, good teaching and regular feedback are invaluable. An experienced teacher can notice details that are difficult to recognise yourself and help you correct them before they become habits. At the same time, no teacher can practise for you. Kinbaku is not a conceptual art. Rope handling, tension, movement, touch and presence are embodied skills. They need to be experienced repeatedly until the body begins to understand what the mind has learned. Good guidance and regular practice belong together.
How long does it take to become good at Shibari?
It depends on what you mean by good.
Individual ties and technical principles can be learned relatively quickly. Mastery takes considerably longer and depends on many things: how regularly you practise, the quality of your learning, previous embodied skills, curiosity, passion and, yes, talent.
But we also think there is something misleading about postponing the pleasure of Kinbaku until you have become “good”.
In our teaching, beginners start creating experiences with each other from the very beginning. Technique gradually expands what becomes possible, but there is no point at which learning is finally finished.
Kinbaku is more like a spiral. We return to the same principles with greater technical ability, different bodies and new experience. Along the way we do not only encounter rope. We encounter ourselves, our partners and our relationships.
After more than fifteen years, we are still learning.
4. Pain, limits and consent
Does Shibari have to hurt?
Rope can be soft, comforting, sensual, restrictive, demanding or painful. Often several of these qualities coexist within the same session. Pain can be explored deliberately, but it is one possibility among many. Intensity can also emerge through restriction, position, closeness, anticipation, vulnerability, movement or simply through the quality of attention between two people. There is no required amount of pain that makes something Kinbaku.
How do consent and limits work in Kinbaku?
For us, consent is not simply a negotiation that happens before we take the ropes in our hands.
A conversation beforehand can be valuable, but bodies are living systems. What we want, what we can tolerate and how something feels can change while an experience is happening.
This is why Natasha’s teaching places considerable emphasis on embodied consent: learning to notice, trust and value the signals of your own body before trying to communicate them to somebody else.
Limits are therefore not merely rules established in advance. They can also emerge through the experience itself.
Learning to notice what is happening, communicate it and respond to each other is part of the practice. These are skills that reach far beyond Kinbaku.
Do I need a safeword for Shibari?
A safeword can be a useful tool, and many people choose to use one.
But a safeword is not a substitute for awareness and ongoing communication.
For us, consent is something that continues throughout an experience. Both people need to remain attentive to what is happening, including changes that may be difficult to anticipate beforehand.
A safeword can be part of that communication. It should not be expected to carry the entire responsibility for it.
5. Suspension
When am I ready to start Shibari suspension?
We prefer to think of suspension as a gradual progression rather than a threshold that you suddenly cross. In our teaching, suspension begins on the floor. We gradually introduce semi suspensions, where part of the body remains supported while the rigger learns the techniques, tie offs and additional forces involved. This also gives the person in ropes time to become familiar with the increased intensity that gravity brings. As skills and confidence develop, more weight can gradually be transferred into the ropes. Full suspension then becomes another step in a progression that has already begun rather than a sudden leap from the floor into the air. We grow from the ground up.
Do I need to learn suspension to become good at Kinbaku?
Suspension is a tool, not a destination.
You can practise Kinbaku for your entire life without ever suspending someone. Floor work alone offers enormous possibilities for restriction, movement, intimacy, intensity and play.
Social media has made suspension unusually visible because suspended bodies create striking images. Visibility, however, should not be confused with importance.
Learn suspension if you are curious about what gravity can add to your practice, or simply because you enjoy it. Not because you believe it is where “real” Kinbaku begins.
6. My body
Do I need to be flexible for Shibari?
Kinbaku should adapt to the body, not the other way around. Flexibility may make certain positions easier, but it is neither a prerequisite nor a measure of how "good" someone can be in ropes. Every body brings different possibilities and limitations. Part of becoming skilled at Kinbaku is learning to recognise and work creatively with the body that is actually there rather than trying to reproduce a shape seen somewhere else.
Do I need to be strong to tie someone?
For floor work and partial suspension, differences in size and strength matter much less than people often imagine.
If you want to fully suspend someone considerably heavier than yourself, you will need additional skills and techniques for managing their weight.
But you certainly don’t need to be able to lift your partner to have fun tying them.
What should I wear for Shibari?
Wear something in which you feel comfortable moving and being touched through rope.
For learning, clothes that allow you and your partner to see the body’s position and movement can be useful. Beyond that, there is no Kinbaku uniform.
Clothing itself can become part of the experience. It can create progression, contribute to an aesthetic, tell a story or allow someone to inhabit a particular role or character.
And if you prefer tying naked in private, that can be part of your practice too.
Do I have to take my clothes off at a Shibari workshop?
You should never be required to undress simply because you are attending a Kinbaku workshop. What you wear and how much of your body you expose should always remain your own choice.
Do I need BDSM experience to practise Shibari?
People come to Kinbaku from very different backgrounds. Some are already familiar with BDSM, while others encounter ideas such as restraint, power, surrender or deliberate intensity for the first time through rope.
Previous BDSM experience is not a prerequisite.
You can discover gradually what these elements mean to you and which of them, if any, you want to make part of your own practice.
7. Roles
Do I need to experience being tied to become a good rigger?
Experiencing both sides of the rope can certainly be interesting and offer valuable insights. Some people enjoy switching roles, while others feel clearly at home on one side of the rope. We don't believe that being tied yourself is a prerequisite for becoming a good rigger. Empathy does not require us to have the same experience as another person. It requires us to pay attention, listen and respond to the person in front of us.
Can I learn Shibari through self tying?
Self tying is a practice in its own right, and many people enjoy it.
It is not part of our own practice. Our interest has always been in relational Kinbaku and in what happens between two people through rope.
Technical elements of rope handling can certainly be practised alone, but we do not have enough personal experience with self tying to teach it or tell others how they should approach it.
8. Where can I learn more?