Syd's Rope Goods

on community

if you've been in "the scene" for a minute, there's a good chance you've had some mixed feelings about the concept of community. for me, it comes in waves. sometimes, i feel so loved and so welcomed and so supported. so grateful to have found the people who "get it", who are into the same freaky shit as me, who are as stoked to nerd out about this extremely niche hobby as i am. and sometimes it feels like i'm back in high school, with the talking smack and the cliques and the feeling of nev...

*insert sun emoji*

i'm home and somewhat recovered after two long weekends of retreat facilitating. perhaps ironically, the actual rope didn't feel like much of a focus for me for either weekend, but here are some nuggets of moments i did get to drop in and get my hands on some rope and some flesh:

-a distressed and devoured foley during class with bondagious and thumper

-staking my claim (to foley's butt, of course) during my newest class "fLoOr TiEs aRe AeSy"

-a rope educator personality pi...

sweat, snot, and tears

foley and i had been in barcelona for just a few days at this point, but had already jam-packed in a whole freaking lot. we’d taught a day long workshop, performed, stayed up way too late, and spent probably just a little too much time wandering the streets in the direct sun. we were both a bit disregulated, to say the least. so we slowed down, we found time to tie just for us (a rare treat) in the sunny tatami nook of stuart’s apartment.

there was something special about this tie,...

cute n hot n casual

a voyeur's view of a just-for-us (and now also for you) session with gab (@b0ydyk3 on insta) and i on a recent rainy sunday afternoon. enjoy <3

performance at espacionos

this was a dream, in so many ways. foley and i have done this sequence (more or less) as performance many times now. and everytime is a bit different, of course. but this time, there was something special. i can’t put my finger why or what exactly, but there was some type of ecstatic energy in the room, between us.

with @bbropebttm at espacionos in barcelona, photos by @rsagaris

anna in torment

to pair with my last post: anna, during a close to the floor predicament tie, with special request for neck rope

day two with fede and marta

day two of a full day of private lessons with fede kirigami and marta tenshiko...

another request from me to them for these lessons: transitions. something i particularly love about fede and marta's style of tying and teaching is that there is very little cut and dry step by step. there's a whole lot of room for interpretation and improvisation. even in lessons, i feel the freedom and approval and trust to make my ties mine.

the first sequence (the first three photos) is...

day one with fede and marta

day one of a full day of private lessons with fede kirigami and marta tenshiko...

my biggest request for these lessons was to work on third/finishing rope: how do i pick one, how do i build one, what the heck do i do once i have. instead of giving me a few pre-baked patterns to watch and repeat, fede gave me two tasks. the first, to improvise a finishing rope that could be loaded from the front diagonal of the chest (picture 1!). the second, to improvise a finishing rope on a low hands ...

workshop with yagami ren

i'm very grateful to have a fair amount of education from different styles/lineages under my belt, some of which has come from Japanese Kinbakushi's, from either the creator of that specific style or an official deshi (more thoughts on why this is important later). Yagami Ryu was unlike any rope i'd learned before. in very few words, his style focuses on two things: body handling, influenced heavily by martial arts, and sex. his ties are simple and "useful". aesthetically, he seeks clean lin...

a trip recap…

pals! strangers! subscribers! heya. thanks for your patience while i’ve regrouped from my travels. they were wonderful, so so wonderful, and i can’t wait to tell you about them. i’m making the next couple weeks of posts a bit of a deep dive into my rope adventures during the past month abroad. here’s a lil summary:

- i landed in paris, and immediatly the next day took a speed train to brussels for a private small group workshop. this was my first time teaching abroad (woah). it...

baby pink

its always a bit of a trip going back through old session photos. i love these photos so, i love the human in them, i loved this tie, i love how the edits turned out, i love her little baby pink outfit.

i look at these now and have a hard time not fixating on things about the rope i dislike. or rather, technical rope things i've since learned or improved. it feels silly not to post old rope photos because of that. maybe you see the same "mistakes" i do, maybe you don't. but either way, ...

oil painting

a lil bonus from the last set with lavender: a single film photo i took during this session. the coloring is so strange and so vibrant, i feel like she sort of almost maybe looks like a painting and not a photo.

@lavendercloud9 on 35mm

don’t ask how we got here

don’t ask how we got here, because i genuinely have no clue. we decided to do a bit of an experiment: a full suspension with no chest harness whatsoever. madness, a lot of waist rope, and some unintentional extreme chest compression ensued.

@lavendercloud9 in may of ‘24

torment

a few snapshots from a recent-ish session with void. we don’t get to tie often these days, but when we do we’re still able to drop into intensity with ease.

the goal is always some version of the face in the last photo 😇

@voidd__ in may of ‘24

Backpack Tengu

beepboop, my second tutorial! Wee! If you've taken a suspension level class from me in person, there's a good chance you've seen this before. I call it "backpack" because there's so many damn frictions in the back it feels like you're wearing a tiny backpack.

some faq's:

-i primarily load this from the back and find that to be the most supportive option. the front works, yes, but i don't find that to be the most sustainable option for most folks

-TENSION IS KEY....

yeehaw

these are perhaps two of my favorite photos i've taken to date. i'm not sure i can explain exactly why. who doesn't love a fringed glove, a little bit of bush, and the perfect amount of film grain.

i've been meaning to have these printed since i took them, and have yet to research where/how to do it properly. someday we'll get there.

@divababy420_ in one of my first shoots at my current studio - august of '22

melty

just a few days til this cutie pie meets me in spain and i am positively giddy about it. so here's a little throwback to one of my favorite ties we've done.

expect many photos from our adventures. but for now, enjoy this memory.

@bbropebttm in october of '23

trend following

i've been debating myself on whether i want to brain dump to you about internet trend following in the rope community. how many of us do it, how many of us love to hate on it, how many of us love to hate on it and then do it (perhaps not on purpose) anyways. my conclusion is this: i love using the internet as a sort of virtual jam space. how RAD is it that i can compare my tie to someone's on the other side of the world? someone i may not otherwise ever interact with? how rad is it that we c...

b&w: a moodboard

a black-and-white-ish moodboard i've been slowly adding to for ages, that originally was inspired by a portrait shoot i did with a close friend at my og bushwick studio (remember when i had natural light? those were the days)

disheveled

this tie lives rent free in my mind. who knew it would become such a treat to take people's clothes off??

i had recently-ish taken a workshop with Bondagious @bondagious and Thumper @tie.me.thumper on clothing bondage (if you don't already follow their work, i suggest you check it out immediately) and was properly inspired about getting into some particularly pervy rope. i had excitedly told A about the workshop, not thinking much o...

reminiscing

as i spend my last few days prepping (panicking?) about spending the next month in europe, i went through some photos from my similar trip last summer. that trip was a huge shift for me. both in the amount of technique that i learned, but also witnessing rope communities outside of my own and how they flow and interact. its exciting to see that in the year since these photos were taken, i can can both see where my skill has improved, but also where each of these moments/ties influence how i ...

poor void :(

a little snippet from a particularly evil session with @voidd__ from august of last year. oh how i love her pouty face.

note that my hat says "can i be mean for a second?"

compact

our goal for this session was to get fully in the air with the tk loaded the least amount possible. so: what was a lower body structure that would give the most support if we decided to abort mission with the tk altogether? ah yes, the booty basket. we were pleasantly surprised with how dynamic this sequence became.

i'll do a lil breakdown of how to get into that first position in the next post <3

@kittenropes, in may of this year

pick up sticks

it feels slightly silly to post every single photo from this set, because they're all so so similar. but i love that if you look closely, you can see the itty bitty shifts between each. most of those shifts are the result of a single change in upline load or placement.

this was HARD. i talk a big talk about "unstructuring" rope whenever possible. this was unstructure on steroids. there's exactly one rope that goes from her body directly to a hardpoint, and there's no harness-type struc...

documenting

how do you photograph a tie without making the whole tie about the photos?

my response to this is: are you taking pauses in your scene to admire your work? to admire the person in rope? i hope you are. rope is beautiful, so take a second and look at it. that's when you should take your picture, if you want to.

these photos are moments that i thought anna looked pretty damn good. please admire with me.

@anna.in...

*testing testing*

just doing a wee test to see if i can get a video to upload here...

a lil time lapse of a rehearsal / experiment sesh with @bbropebttm as we prep for many adventures in the next few months

is suspension superior to floor work?

nah. of course not. you don't need me to tell you that. is suspension more technically challenging than floor work? yes, duh. is it more dangerous? yes, duh. is it more physically more demanding? ...maybe.

here's a challenge: make a tie that's only on the floor, that feels as physically strenuous to the person in ropes as it would in suspension.

my guess is, this won't be as hard as you think it might be. 

melty

Of all the folks I regularly tie with, Gabii is one of the more quiet humans. Actually--that's not true. She's one of the most chatty folks I know (positive!) but in rope, she sinks in to nearly dead silence, even in the most process-y of moments. We've been tying consistently for something like two years, and in that time I've learned to read her silence. I know what pattern of heavy breathing means she's struggling most, I know what squinty facial expression means she needs a weight shif...

splayed

i have been *vibing* with this “sex swing” shape the past month or so (see last photo). i love the unstructured-ness of it. i love that the entire system gets built in the air. i love that it never looks the same twice. i love that i only sort of have a game plan of an exit strategy, i love the puzzle of the undoing.

chaos and cartwheels and a wrinkly LittleDress™️

@faeriebruises.link in march of ‘24

heat

there was something in the air during this event. like the energetic volume had been dialed up, just a hair. the intensity that i'm constantly searching for within my practice was there, easily this time. i more often than not get a bit of a "top high" after performances. like all the chemicals in my brain are sizzling. after this, they were downright on fire.

tj vance throws one hell of a party, let me tell ya. check out @hotstuffzine y'all

myself and @anna.in.ropes tying for the...