Syd's Rope Goods

tk // kata ashi

first of all, forgive me for the vertical video. second of all, forgive me for the absolutely horrendous sound of the space heater.

here's a video that kitten and i filmed to submit to a weekend intensive in the fall as a sort of skill assessment. i love realizing that i have the exact same flow/choreography/body movement every time i tie this tk. it feels so ingrained in my body.

if you've been on rope-internet lately, you know that kata ashi is having a moment. to...

preview

an itty bitty little preview of a shoot kitten and i did recently to promo a very exciting soon-to-be-announced thing i can't talk about yet 🤫 which i think pretty perfectly captures how i love to play

photography by @cabwhat

new fixation

if you've been following along for a while now you know that i have a bit of a pattern: i find a thing (a harness, a shape, a sequence, etc) and i FIXATE. the current fixation is the hip harness you see here. i've found that it's the perfect recipe for broken dolly cartwheel fliperoo (official term), but doesn't have the rock climbing harness aesthetic i dislike from many other hip harnesses. it's essentially naka panties with a cinch across the belly at the end. it's nice and simple and not ...

syd x mrghy

i walked into this sesh with about a half of a brain. january was a roller coaster of a month for me in many aspects, and this day was a toughy. margherita asked what my wants were for the day, but my mind was a blank slate. i'm not sure i had an ounce of creativity in my bones that day. generously, she offered to boss me around. in other words, she said she had a sequence in mind--she'd tell me what to do and i'd tie it. here's what that sequence was.

and wouldn't you guess, i even ...

a treat for syd

i know, i know, instagram already saw the first photo. but honestly, its one of my favorite rope photos i've taken in a good while. this tie was a TREAT.

what was not a treat: me having to wear my anya-spit-soaked sock home afterwards. oopsies.

cutie pie sock face @anyalita.tied from early january

patience

on complexity, patience, stillness, and how they fit into each other....

i had a silly realization a few days ago: i am quite impatient when i'm tying. i find that sort of funny, because i consider myself an extremely patient person in other aspects of my life. i was tying for a photoshoot, and tying a chest pattern similar to this one, and felt myself tying faster and faster because i felt like i needed to finish that rope and get to the final shape already! how dare i be so slow! bu...

on vulnerability

i saw “the last showgirl” (staring a very beautiful and very sparkly pamela anderson) last night. i won’t spoil it, but i’ll tell you that i cried through most of the movie. i’ve been thinking a lot lately about longevity. mostly i’ve been thinking about how, if i plan to continue this practice as my career, to make it feel sustainable and rewarding and wonderful and nurturing for as long as i do it. if i’m being fully transparent, it’s not feeling like that right now. that’...

debut

will's flippy dippy debut to this page * insert sparkle emoji *

aguras in suspension are rare-ish for me these days. they require a model with shins of steel (or a particular desire to suffer as such) and sometimes i feel like i'm spending so damn much time tying harnesses that i can't drop into a particular scene-y vibe. but sometimes it pays off! an agura and a sturdy chest harness can mean a downright washing machine of a sequence. perhaps you can see here, but my ches...

on unexpected exits

you know, i’ve been typing and untyping a paragraph for about twenty minutes. instead i’ve decided to keep it short and sweet-ish. here’s a lil reminder that it’s ok to un-tk mid tie. here’s ALSO a reminder that it’s ok to un-tk mid tie and *keep going*. something feeling off (your brain, your nerves, anything) can mean it’s time for the scene to end, but it doesnt necessarily have to.

ok. love you. xoxo.

this human is @kittenropes 🐆 from december

happy new year!

happy new year, rope folks! i'm back and i am absolutely kickin'.

i am absolutely a resolutions girly. i love the new year. i'm only mildly joking when i say it may be my favorite holiday. i love reflecting, i love goal setting, i love writing my hopes and dreams in my silly little notebook. not to mention, i love redoing all of my finance spreadsheets for the year. every year i make a written list of my goals for the year-- some big, some small. almost every year i accomplish almost n...

happy holidays ♥️

just dropping in to offer some sweet holiday cheer and a big and resounding thank you to each and every one of you. as the year comes to a close, i reflect on what a wonderful, challenging, inspiring, and adventure filled year it’s been. thank you for making it so.

i’ve spent my day getting up to no good in my mama’s kitchen and will spend most of tomorrow cozied up with a book and various delicious treats. i recommend the same, or whatever brings you joy and comfort.

your ...

an [advanced] task

i know, i know, this is already on instagram. don't you worry, more ~exclusive~ content is on it's way. but for now: this sequence had me thinking about an exercise/task/game/challenge that i want to offer to my advanced folks in the room...

in an improvisational sequence using two futomomos, fully tie one of your futomomos while in suspension. load that futomomo and fully untie the other one before returning to the ground

even harder challenge: the same concept, but not futomomos...

a particularly special handshake

a theme of the year: befriend your greatest inspirations

ya'll, i try hard not to pedestal people. especially in the ~age of social media~ it's pretty easy to see some one with a bazillion followers and assume they're rad as hell. in tam's case, he actually is rad as hell. i first learned rope things from him in february of 2023. it was my second weekend intensive ever and i flew to oakland for it after just about begging voxbody for a waitlist ticket. that weekend lives in my short-is...

object

this may still be one of my favorite ever sets of rope-for-photo. i love that anonymization of teo, i love the rawness of being able to see the “behind the scenes” of the backdrop. perhaps ironically, about a month later i learned the shape i improvised this one from fede (@rope.tales2) in person. i think it’s time we retry it, with some improvements // new information.

a dangly @b0ydyk3, nearly a year ago

archives

my love of futomomo-knee-balance is no secret. if you look closely, you’ll see a tiny spikey addition to this particular one

many moons ago, with @simply.specimen , on 35mm 💝

on display

i tie hashiras so infrequently. i love the stillness, the complexity, the rigidity. they are quite challenging, both for myself and the model, for many reasons. that rigidity can be infuriating to some folks, boring to others, calming to some. maggie (@baby.girl.bites) fits into the last category, but is perhaps a bit of an anomaly from my personal experience of tying hashira.

scroll down in this feed to one of my first few posts to a link to an article written by RedSabbath that i qu...

delicious

myself and my favorite chew toy tyin and shootin for Hot Stuff, something like a year ago. i so rarely get photos taken of me tying, and this was quite the treat (pun intended). i even broke out the assless skirt for the occasion

check out volume 1 of Hot Stuff Zine To see this whole spread!

belated halloween?

tell me the hair to backdrop coordination here isn’t ~perfect~

from a conceptual shoot dreamed up by @aerielmoonpie earlier this year, definitely not at all related to halloween

handshake

caption coming soon 😉 for now, enjoy stevie in my ropes for a sweet handshake tie

"a fuzzy hat makes the suffering easier"

the title says it all ;)

some casual playtime with my favorite @bbropebttm, who's wearing some ~accessories~ i got her for her birthday.

i'm gearing up to teach my first full day workshop on tengu! the one you see here is just about the same as the tutorial from a few months ago, and one i workshopped specially for foley. i've since updated it slightly, and i'm excited as heck to teach the new and improved version both at the upcoming workshop in portland (!!) and as a lil video ...

squish

from the archives of accidentally forgotten rolls of film... a quick trip to the bay for an escape from the city and some rope nerdery with a few of my favorite humans.

pictured here: @notyranything at voxbody, sometime in the spring of 2024, captured on 35mm

this may re-spark my inspiration of inverted hashira...

syd and anna x wisebodies

this was previously posted as a treat for my high tier folks, but i love this sequence and this human too much not to post for all of ya'll.

some of you may know already that anna is leaving for a year to travel the US with a national broadway tour. i'm so damn excited for her, so proud of her, but of course also sad to miss her for the next year. and so i've been reflecting on what it takes to build a relationship in rope-- a relationship of such extreme trust and care. a relationship...

suggestions?

hey rope folks. i'm curious, what type of content are you most excited to see on this page? what are you here for? what do you want more of?

(feel free to comment too!)

broken barbie

you'll have to forgive me for one of those photos being a cellphone grab, but i was so enthralled with this tie (also kitten's lingerie) i nearly forgot i had my camera setup.

i've been vibing with this armbinder lately as a chets harness option. i haven't quite figured out the perfect pattern yet--for those of you in Group Project this month, thank you for contributing to this brainstorm!

@faeriebruises , from a session about a month ago <3

bend but don't break

...a fun game i like to play with teo's bendy bendy back. bonus: can you spot the sneaky ass rope in the last photo?

a sultry session from august with my favorite wiggly bottom, @b0ydyk3

a (heavier) playlist

created originally for a performance at a berlin nightlife themed play party, now my go to playlist for a heavy/dirty/gritty type of session (a rare treat)

team work

a playful yet labby afternoon with two of my favorite humans.

@anna.in.rope in my and @theropejourney's ropes , captured on 35mm

underexposed oversaturated

yes-- underexposed and oversaturated, but these photos feel special nonetheless. it's rare these days that i "risk" only capturing a tie on film. partly because i don't trust myself to get them developed in a timely manner (for example, this tie was in may and i just developed this roll), partly because my light meter is on the fritz, partly because my phone camera is so easy. but we don't do this because it's easy, do we?

@simplyspecimen in may of '24

somewhere between learn and play

(a gentle content warning for neck rope)

remember when i said the last post was the end of my europe posting? oopsies.

anna had one request for our lessons with fede and marta -- "some type of choking predicament". i believe this was our last exercise before a lunch break, and i was grateful for something close to the floor. the goal of the predicament was for anna to have to balance between the neck rope and the backbend, but fede and i pretty quickly discovered that with anna's...

performance at kor

is this a foley fan girl account now? maybe.

the last of my shareable photos from my european adventure — foley and i’s performance at kor berlin, captured by sweetie pie marcos mangani

these photos feel particularly accurate for how the two of us interact on stage. we’re playful, we’re mischievous, i’m a little mean, foley’s a little sassy. besties for the resties, after all ✨

myself and @bbropebttm at @korberlin, photos by @marcosmangani