A note about
Wykd_Dave & Clover
May 2021 Presenters:
Wykd_Dave & Clover*
Subay
Tifereth
Soptik
knot_head
Miss Doctor
JD-66
IPCookieMonster
*Wykd_Dave & Clover are committed to attending health-permitting. We will not be able to confirm their ability to attend until close to the May 2021 event. Please see our note on their status.
Presenters are subject to change.
(Teaching Rope)
“Rope is not about rope.”
WykD Dave is a rigger from the UK who has in the past few years been teaching and performing throughout the world with his partner Clover. His work has appeared in films, music videos, international fashion magazines and even in Paris’s Louvre gallery. He ties models anywhere from local kinksters and friends with no modelling experience to internationally-known stars like FKA Twigs and Lady Gaga.
His teaching has revolutionized rope bondage for many students around the world as he shares his own take on what’s important to understand about rope. His views are the result of years of experience, analysis and thought after tying, teaching and performing all over the world. He almost always teaches with his partner clover providing her perspective as a rope bottom, and he believes that education for bottoms is just as important as for tops.
Time and experience are constantly changing and evolving his bondage and his classes, making them a different experience every time. It is his proud boast to have created some of the most copied rope bondage classes in the world. He has also accomplished the rare and almost unique feat of having created ties and techniques that are now used and taught in Japan.
(Teaching Rope)
Love and connection is at the heart of Clover's rope bottoming. Best known for her rope bottom guide, spectacular photography, and beautiful suffering in rope, Clover performs and teaches around the world with her partner WykD Dave.
It is in her genuine vulnerability and transporting beauty in suffering that she shines in performance; in fact, it’s the lack of pretense and the genuine nature of her interaction with WykD_Dave that she stands out.
She is also well-known for her photography, where her sympathy for the subject and desire to capture emotion leads to her producing some of the very best bondage photographs and prints to be found.
When teaching, her knowledge, empathy and experience allow her to connect her audience with the subject and experience that she loves.
(Teaching Rope)
Subay is a Shibari artist and founder of Kokoro Studio based in Hong Kong.
Subay was first introduced to Shibari eight years ago when she was fascinated by its aesthetics, eroticism and emotions. She spent the first few years exploring and learning the different styles from several well-respected nawashi in Japan. In 2014, she met and was deeply inspired by Yukimura Haruki sensei. Afterwards, she dedicated herself to the study of traditional Japanese style. In 2015, Subay met Naka Akira sensei and chose to focus her study on sensei’s style of semenawa. She continues to explore her own style of semenawa which is both feminine and inclusive.
In March 2018, Subay had the honour of performing at Onna Matsuri (おんあ祭り) in Tokyo. In 2018 and 2019, she had the privilege to tie and assist at Naka sensei’s satsuei-kai (縄奈加會緊縛撮影会) and in November 2019, she assisted Naka sensei in his workshops in San Francisco.
Subay teaches and performs internationally, including Asia, Europe and US. Her teaching focuses on the “why”, the feelings, the emotions, and provides insights on the perspective of both the rope top and the rope bottom. She is available for private lessons and private sessions.
Arashi (嵐) is a rope bottom based in Hong Kong. She discovered her passion for traditional style of rope when she saw Subay’s performance in 2015. She was attracted to the aesthetics, the sensuality and the emotions in kinbaku. In 2018, she began her rope journey with Subay. Since 2019, she has been a staff at Kokoro Studio and has worked with a number of talented rope tops.
She deeply enjoys the communication and connection with Subay, as well as the dualities of suffering and sensuality in kinbaku. She looks forward to sharing her thoughts about kinbaku while getting more inspirations from the worldwide community.
(Teaching Rope)
Tifereth's introduction to rope bondage came in 2011 in the form of a surprisingly enjoyable futomomo tsuri. Since then she's drawn on her dual background in high-performance athletics and figurative arts to push herself physically and aesthetically on both ends of the rope. Known for her dynamic style of sadism, performative rope and creative approach to harness construction, she loves conveying her passion through engaging hands-on methods of instruction. A veteran educator and performer with credits including Prague Shibari Festival, Bondage Expo Dallas, Eurix, Shibaricamp, Helsinki Shibari, Shibaricon, as well as weekend workshops and performances all over the globe, she is most often found wherever the weird stuff is.
(Teaching Rope)
Soptik is a bondage teacher and event organizer. He created his first educational website with information on rope bondage in 2000. After ten years of self-education, Soptik I met Kinoko Hajime who became his first teacher of Japanese bondage. Afterwards, his tying was shaped by Osada Steve and Kanna; however, Kinoko Ryu is still his first choice for most of his rope partners. A year later, he started teaching regular bondage workshops and have kept this hobby till today. In the meantime, Soptik met two other teachers who influenced him greatly. The first was Yoroi Nicolas who taught him movement, intimacy, and simplicity in ropes. The second and the most influential was Riccardo Wildties. He introduced Soptik to Naka Ryu. The more Soptik studies with Riccardo and Naka Akira, the more he falls in love with this style.
In recent years teaching ropes and organizing foreign teachers’ visits has become almost a part-time job. Soptik loves to teach topics he is passionate about, such as predicaments and sadistic, overpowering, and dynamic ways of tying, breath play, and many others. Soptik loves his job. :-)
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(Event Photographer & Teaching Rope and photography)
Beginning 25 years ago with a mix of flea market handcuffs, bathrobe belts and neck ties, knot_head has always loved bondage.
Although he began with Japanese-style rope, he’s since gravitated to the strict, clean, efficient, Western style of riggers like Jay Edwards, Matt Williams, Lew Rubens and Claire Adams. For him, it IS about the simple, strict, positional bondage, and "what happens once she's tied", challenging predicaments being his favorite.
In the past two years he caught the photography bug and loves showing kinksters how easy it can be to get a quality shot with their gear, in almost any setting.
His shtick is to make bondage (and photography) simple and fun for anyone willing to learn.
(Teaching Rope)
MissDoctor is a kink-friendly practicing physician who works in primary care with an emphasis on musculoskeletal medicine, endocrinology, and women's health. She has been personally involved in the world of bondage for 18 years, and she started to explore Shibari over 4 years ago.
Her experience as a rock climber, athlete, and artist provide her with a practical perspective on both bottoming and rigging. Her years of experience as an educator help her make safety, anatomy, and health concerns easy to understand and apply. She encourages hands-on exploration and helps kinksters develop a more intimate understanding of themselves and their partners.
(Teaching Rope)
JD-66 is a Toronto, Canada based rigger who started tying in 2008. His style has evolved over the years but is mostly a playful semi sadistic style of rope. He loves playing with balance and unbalance in rope and reading his partner and taking them to places they didn't expect. He owns and runs The Toronto Kinbaku Salon which just had its fifth anniversary in Oct 2018. The Salon as it is commonly referred to is a Kazami Ryu where the Kazami style of rope is taught to its many students. We also host other presenters from around the world of various styles.
He loves helping and teaching other Kazami Style but has some background in other styles so he is able to meld various styles to help people with developing and adding to their repertoires and creating their own individual style.
Steve (Niho_Mano)- is an ever-evolving man of many devious devices from needles to rough body play. His greatest passion lies in rope bondage and suspension. He is a Master, sadist and rigger sprinkled with just the right amount of sick fucker to keep things interesting. Steve has been in the greater Houston scene since 2014 and practicing rope bondage since 2015. He has taught and performed for the past three years with his slave, Nkay. Together they present classes with the perspective of both sides of the slash.
Nadia (Nkay)- Nkay, slave and sadomasochistic rope switch, is equal parts twisted mind and ball full of giggles. She is a passionate medical professional and yoga enthusiast with three years of rope bottoming experience. She brings a different perspective to bottoming and body mechanics through the mingling of her combined passions. Locally, Nadia loves to perform, co-present with her Owner Niho_Mano, and lead rope bottoming education classes.
iambic9 is a self-taught photographer based in Phoenix, AZ. He has developed a reputation for reliably capturing event/performance photos in challenging lighting conditions, without the aid of flash photography. Conversely, his home studio work is heavily lit, continually experimenting with advanced multiple light configurations and modifiers.
In his personal life, iambic9 is a bondage fetishist and bottom-leaning switch, using a mix of leather, rope, pantyhose, and custom gear. He believes there is no such thing as adding "too much" bondage to any situation, and that you can always tighten the buckle another notch...
(Event Photographer)
(Teaching Rope & BDSM at Week 2 and the last day of Week 1)
IPCookieMonster is a sexual gymnast. She has been a kinky pansexual polyamorous pagan freak for several years, and has written extensively about about her deliciously deviant lifestyle on fetlife and her blog, slutphd.com. In the “vanilla” world, she has one of the best jobs ever: she’s a professor of sociology who studies the BDSM scene. In the “chocolate” world, she writes about and teaches kink, is a founding member of the firespinning troupe Hubris, and is an occasional burlesque/ropelesque perfomer. Having gone through everything from ballet to tap to fire to pole, she was starting to run out of forms of dance to study in her insatiable quest for new ways to sexily manipulate the human body when she was captured by some divinely inspired ropes. And lo, she found a new form of dance to obsess about (bondage) and got some new gods as a bonus. Once she had the epiphany that bondage is fucking awesome, she decided to start preaching the artistic, spiritual, and seductive powers of rope from the bottom.