Ichinawakai (一縄会) - Tokyo Headquarters
Hajime Kinoko’s rope school, founded in 2004, uses a graded curriculum from 10th kyu to 1st kyu and holds a drop-in group class every Tuesday evening in Tokyo.
Ichinawakai is the rope school of Hajime Kinoko. The school’s English lesson page says Kinoko has run it since 2004, while his profile on the same site dates the founding to 2006, the year he began performing under the name Hajime Kinoko; the profile places his own start in rope in 2001. Its teaching is described on the Ichinawa-kai style page.
Curriculum
Every student begins at 10th grade (kyū) and works up to 1st grade, then on to a special 1st grade and a special grade, with an examination at each step and a graduation certificate after the special 1st-grade exam. Kinoko designed the order of techniques, and the school says the curriculum is revised every year. Transitions between suspended positions are among the advanced content taught in private lessons.
The Tuesday class
The headquarters class meets on Tuesday evenings in an underground studio in a residential part of Tokyo whose address is not published. No booking is needed. Kinoko teaches with his deputy ZIMA and a team of instructors, five or six according to his profile. Practice is clothed. First-timers are asked to come alone; without a partner they pair with another solo beginner or practice on a doll, rope can be borrowed for free, and a bulletin board helps students and rope models find each other. People under 18 and high-school students are not admitted, and anyone in regular classes with another rope group must choose one group after a trial session. As listed on the Japanese lesson page in November 2026, observing cost ¥1,000, a session at grades 10 to 7 ¥5,000 and at grades 6 to 1 ¥6,000, cash only, while models attended free.
Licenses and chapters
Only Kinoko issues instructor licenses, and they must be renewed every two years. A second-class license allows teaching up to 3rd grade, a junior first-class license up to 1st grade, and a first-class license everything learned from Kinoko. The published list of holders includes Otonawa and Louis Kordexe, and first-class holders in Australia, the United States, Singapore and South Korea. Chapters meet in Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kumamoto, Seoul and Perth.
Other offers
Kinoko also gives private lessons in person and online through Google Meet, and a licensed instructor teaches a workshop on his rope-conditioning method, covering the choice of oil, singeing and making new rope ends. SHIBAINU HOUSE, a practice and lodging space with suspension points near Ōkubo Station that Kinoko produced, can be rented by the hour or overnight.