London

The London scene

London’s Japanese-style rope scene began with performance. Dazed reported in 2016 that the Japanese bakushi Arisue Gō gave the first show by a shibari master in the city in 2005, in the living room of the rigger Esinem, whose teaching site names him as a co-organizer of the London Festival of the Art of Japanese Bondage and of the show night BOUND; that story is told in Kinbaku in Europe. This page picks up with the teaching spaces that followed and what the scene looks like now.

A school that filled its nights

Anna Bones and Fred Hatt became tying partners after meeting in 2013 and opened Anatomie Studio in June 2015, starting from their own home, as a place to learn and practice rope in the Japanese manner. Speaking to Time Out in 2019, Bones recalled that people had doubted the studio could fill two nights a week when it opened; by then its jams were drawing 30 to 80 people, twice a week. She described many visitors as young professionals exploring kink in an ethical and educated way, and said the scene had become more focused on consent, accessibility and gender diversity. When Covid-19 forced it to move classes online in 2020, online teaching and rope sales became its main income through the lockdowns.

More studios, more approaches

Other dedicated spaces now sit alongside Anatomie. Rope Jam Studio, founded by Lola Tiger Nawa, opened its new studio in north-east London in September 2025. It teaches its own seven-level curriculum over twelve months, which it says is “not a race towards suspension”, and describes itself as inclusive of LGBTQIA+, queer, trans, non-binary and BiPOC people. In East London, Studio Ma, also called the Tatami Room, is now run by a collective that came together to keep the space and its character going for local rope practitioners. It takes its name from ma, the Japanese idea of the interval between things, and hosts classes in several styles.

Some London teachers work mainly one to one. Conor Aphilia, who runs Aphilia Studio in East London, says private tuition is the backbone of their practice, and outlines a path of about six to twelve months from basics to suspension with one core rope partner.

What the city offers now

A newcomer in London can choose between beginner weekends and courses, studio rope jams, structured curricula, private lessons and performance nights; every studio named here publishes its program in English. Studios differ in how fast they move toward suspension and in whom they put first, so it is worth reading each one’s own description before booking. For general advice on picking a teacher, see Choosing a teacher.