A-Nicolas

A-Nicolas is a rope artist, teacher and photographer based in Brussels, where he runs a kinbaku dojo. For many years he worked as Yoroï Nicolas (also written Nicolas Yoroï); his own site says he adopted his family name, A-Nicolas, as his artist name in 2022.

Background and lineage

His site dates his first rope experiments to 1999, two years after he took up aikido. An earlier version of his biography places his first contact with Japanese bondage in 1998 and his first tie in 1999. He first traveled to Japan in 2004 and spent about four years there in total, studying aikido, Japanese culture and rope. He names Arisue Go as his teacher: the current site places that study between 2005 and 2010, while the 2017 biography dates its start to 2008. He also lists Doyama Tessin, Hajime Kinoko, Otonawa, Kazami Ranki and Felix Ruckert among the people he learned from or was influenced by. Outside rope he cites Thai massage, tango, contact improvisation and System A. The 2017 timeline has him teaching kinbaku in Paris from 2011, the start date his about.me profile also gives.

Teaching and performance

In 2012 he performed monthly in Paris and, with the model Niyouli Hana, at Bound, a monthly London event run by Nina Russ; a post on his former blog describes that performance as unrehearsed and notes that Isobel Williams drew it live. In 2013 the timeline shows him presenting at Xplore in Paris and teaching and performing at EURIX, the festival Felix Ruckert ran at Schwelle7 in Berlin. A 2014 blog post says Ruckert invited him to give three workshops at Xplore Berlin that year, before a second EURIX presentation in the autumn; he taught at EURIX again in 2017.

His international work began in 2013, his site says. For 2015 the timeline names the Helsinki, Vienna and Kyiv shibari festivals and a BDSM conference in Rome, and for 2015 and 2016 it notes work in more than ten countries, including BoundUK in 2016. A 2017 schedule listed workshops in Zurich, at BoundCon, in Montreal and New York, in Madrid and in Liège. The Zurich organizer luhmen d’arc hosted his masterclasses in October 2021, May 2022 (with the Berlin rope model and facilitator Saara Rei) and December 2022. Anatomie Studio in London lists a two-day class for improvers and advanced students with him and Burgundy Rose in November 2026, billed as his first time teaching there.

The Brussels dojo

His site says he opened a dojo in Brussels in 2015 and another Brussels dojo in 2024, which it counts as his fifth. In 2017 it ran a weekly jam and courses from beginner level to “Yoroï-Ryu Suspension”. The current dojo, The Boring Dojo (also called A-Nicolas’ Rope Dojo), plans a 2026–2027 season of monthly floorwork, suspension and “tying deeper” weekends, five-day intensives at three levels, research masterclasses on topics such as one rope and movement, guest presenters and an open jam on most Thursdays.

Approach

His site says he developed his own tying style, Yoroi-ryu, after returning to Europe. The dojo describes its rope as essentialist and organic, built on movement, and names five guiding elements: foundations and safety, fluidity, meaning, openness to outside influences, and presence. His former site called kinbaku a physical and emotional art and listed posture, body awareness, partner rapport, biomechanics and anatomy among the subjects studied. Event texts from luhmen d’arc describe his style as minimalist and organic and say he adapts mostly Japanese concepts to Western contexts, aiming to be inspired by kinbaku rather than to copy it. He has also worked as a photographer since 2008.