Yukimura Haruki 雪村春樹
Japanese kinbaku master, photographer and performer (1948–2016) whose approach became Yukimura-ryū, a gentle, emotion-centered style of rope.
Born in Japan’s Hyōgo Prefecture on May 11, 1948, Yukimura Haruki worked in several fields besides rope: he was also a photographer, a reggae musician, a performer and a producer of audiovisual work.
Over the years of his teaching he developed his own approach to kinbaku, known today as Yukimura-ryū. He put feeling at the center of his rope: emotion, shame, and the wordless exchange between the rigger, the rope and the person in it. Yukimura himself called his gentle, loving way of tying aibu no nawa, “caressing rope”.
Practitioners from Japan and abroad came to regard his studio in Shibuya, Tokyo, as a point of reference. Yukimura was selective about succession: only a handful of students ever received a bakushi name or his license to teach.
Yukimura died at 67, in a hospital in Tokyo, on March 3, 2016.