Seb Kinbaku

Seb Kinbaku is a shibari teacher, rope artist and photographer in Paris. He teaches private lessons at the Kinbaku Nest, a studio in the 16th arrondissement, and selects the rope and equipment sold by La Boutique du Shibari, which the shop presents as his own selection.

Background

His biography traces a path from personal training and tui na, a Chinese massage practice, to professional photography of erotic and artistic subjects, and then to BDSM and tantra, which he says shaped his interest in intimacy, consent and trust. He first met shibari while photographing for a BDSM magazine at the Paris club Cris et Chuchotements. The author note in his 2019 book calls him self-taught and says his work attends to both the look and the safety of a tie. La Boutique du Shibari’s home page calls him a shibari artist and teacher in Paris for more than fifteen years, while its training page says he has shared shibari for over ten years. He performs both floor work and suspension.

Teaching

His lessons at the Kinbaku Nest, a room with tatami, bamboo and Japanese rope, last two and a half hours and are booked individually or as a couple; the studio hosts no group classes. Each lesson is built around the student’s level, goals and limits rather than a set program. The topics he lists are rope handling and tension, safety and consent, fluidity and connection, and project work such as preparing for an artistic photo shoot. He groups progress into three stages he calls Origine, Ligne and Essence Kinbaku, moving from basics to fluid construction to feeling and embodiment. The shop states that all classes are taught only in French; it also sells a 45-minute online shibari coaching session and BDSM coaching for individuals or couples. In 2019 his book’s author note described monthly workshops in Paris, both group and private.

He also trained in neuro-linguistic programming, hypnosis and sexotherapy with SpiriVie Formations. He uses this coaching background in his teaching but states that his lessons are artistic and technical, not therapy, and that the school’s accreditation does not cover his shibari classes.

Publications

With Malice Kinbaku he published the Shibari Guide Book (Blurb, 2019), a 60-page English-language beginner’s guide with more than 80 color photographs covering safety rules and basic ties, modeled on the workshops he taught in Paris. His site also lists a beginner’s guide in French, Guide d’initiation au Shibari, now in its third edition and paired with demonstration videos; a photo book, Shibari — L’émotion de la contrainte, which contains no instruction; and an e-book, Shibari & PNL — Au-delà des cordes, on trust and communication in rope. Its status differs between his pages: the books page calls it a nearly finished project not yet available, while his biography says it is available digitally from La Boutique du Shibari. Shibari Crazy Year, a photo project with Malice, is listed in his portfolio.