Nicole (Rope-Cat)

Nicole, known in the scene as Rope-Cat or Ropecat, is a Hamburg rope teacher and longtime stage partner of the author and teacher Matthias T. J. Grimme. Bondage Project Hamburg, the workshop program the two run, names her as Grimme’s co-trainer and says she has worked with him for more than 20 years.

Stage work

The chronology Grimme publishes on the Bondage Project website dates their first joint appearance to a show at the Venus fair in Berlin in November 2000 and their first photo shoot together to January 2001. From 2002 on, she appears in almost every year of the list: in shows at erotic and fetish fairs in Hamburg and Berlin, at BoundCon in Munich from 2004 onward, at Xplore in Berlin, at Nawa Open in Copenhagen in 2006 and 2007, at the Porn Film Festival Berlin, at the Wacken festival in 2009 and 2010, and at the Obsession party in Hamburg. The chronology records trips to Tokyo with her in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2007 with various appearances, and in 2013 a show at Department H. Other entries place their shows and workshops in Barcelona, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Paris, Aarhus, St. Petersburg, Vienna and Switzerland. In a 2025 interview Grimme said he and Ropecat had stood on stages around the world for 25 years and spoke of more than a thousand shows. The interview announced their farewell show at the Passion fair in Hamburg in November 2025, which the chronology lists as their last official performance and the 25th anniversary of their stage work.

Teaching

The two sources give slightly different starting points for her teaching. The Bondage Project Hamburg team page says Grimme has taught mainly rope and Japanese-inspired bondage together with Rope-Cat since 2001, while his chronology dates the start of their joint workshops to November 2002. Early entries include a bondage seminar for the SMart Rhein-Ruhr group in Herne in 2004 and workshops in Paris, Leipzig, Dresden, Hannover and Aschaffenburg, as well as “Bondage and Tantra” workshops in Bavaria in 2011, 2013 and 2014. From 2013 the pair ran three-day intensive workshops in Hamburg, which became a regular part of their program.

Today their schedule lists weekend intensive courses in Japanese bondage in Hamburg St. Pauli for up to three couples, evening classes on bondage basics, and an intensive course in Berlin in June 2027. The Hamburg site states that the workshops are led by Matthias Grimme and Nicole, and the courses are booked by couples.

Approach

The pair describe their teaching as deliberately free of a rigid scheme. They teach knots, ties, anatomy and safe procedures, but put communication through the rope at the center, and call mindfulness, safety and consent the foundation of their work rather than side topics. The team page says the two shape their workshops together with a clear focus on presence, communication and a respectful setting, and that they bring different perspectives into them as a team. Their home page also describes the rope as an extension of the partner’s arms that can hold, embrace and restrict at the same time.