Switzerland
Switzerland's rope scene is closely tied to Osada-ryū, from the Seilschaften jam founded in 2007 to Osada Steve's 600th live show in 2019, with studios in Basel and a French-language group around Lake Geneva.
Cities
Numbers show studios and communities.
Coming up in Switzerland
Regular events
Shibari in Switzerland
Several threads of Switzerland’s documented rope history lead to one Japanese school. In July 2007 a group including Ibinuphis founded the Seilschaften, a rope jam and bondage get-together, and in 2010 he was part of the team that created Secret56. According to Secret56’s own history, the team and the rigger Harukumo organized Osada Steve’s first visit to Switzerland in 2018; Ibinuphis was allowed to teach Osada-ryū officially from 2019 and became an official instructor, entitled to hold kyū exams and train new teachers, in January 2022.
German Wikipedia adds that Osada’s 600th Kinbaku Live show took place in Switzerland in 2019, during one of his workshop series, and was the first show of its kind held outside Japan. As of February 2024 it counted Secret56 among four schools affiliated with Osada’s Tokyo dojo outside Japan, alongside schools in Vienna and two German cities, all teaching the same kyū-based content; the official Osada-ryū dojo list now names three outside Japan, Secret56 among them. The Zurich guide follows the dojo and the city’s other rope venues; the related dojos are covered on the Austria and Germany pages.
Basel and a focus on safety
In Basel, rope teaching has a strong medical strand. Isith, one of the teachers at Tying With Friends, describes herself as an expert in the medical aspects of rope bondage, with a focus on safety, nerve damage and psychological effects, and her mentoring work led her to initiate the founding of ropehelp.ch, a site whose German title offers help after bad experiences in and around rope. The city’s studios and community events are described in the Basel guide.
A national association and the French-speaking west
Beyond single venues, IG-BDSM, a Swiss association that offers a platform and advocacy for people interested in BDSM, publishes resources for beginners and an event calendar that lists rope workshops; its site is in German. In French-speaking Switzerland, Encordages Lémaniques, a group based in the canton of Vaud between Lausanne and Geneva, holds small-group rope jams with a workshop beforehand, rope picnics, courses and introductions, and its site is in French.
How it fits together
In the German-speaking part of the country, the Zurich and Basel guides cover a lineage dojo, studios and community jams, while the Lake Geneva region has its own French-language group. For what to expect at a first session, see What happens at a first shibari class.