State of Ropes

State of Ropes is a Bay Area shibari school that calls its teaching connection-first: Japanese-inspired technique taught in an accessible, modern way, with weight on solid fundamentals, safe technique and fluid tying. The site names no founder and gives no founding date.

Curriculum. The core program is a cohort course of four modules, each building on the one before:

1. Bootstrap: rope handling, tension, moving a partner’s body, communication and safety, with single and double column ties, hojo cuffs and futomomo.
2. Groundwork: floor-based harnesses (functional, suspendable and traditional Japanese) as preparation for partial suspension.
3. Elevate: uplines, lock-offs, suspension hardware and controlled partial suspension.
4. Arise: full suspension, transitions and advanced tension management.

In November 2026 the site listed the first two modules as sold out for the year and gave March 2027 as the next cohort start.

Continuum. Graduates, and experienced tyers from the wider community, can join Continuum, a monthly advanced class at the Kink Store in San Francisco that can be taken as a drop-in or by membership and is explicitly not for beginners. Its 2026 topics ranged from tengu and agura suspensions and bamboo work to hashira, a guest session by Nox on slack uplines, and planned classes on strappado and Naka-style tying.

Rope jams. Regular rope jams at the same venue, organized by Davide, Gina and Ben, combine a short workshop with open practice, tea and snacks. The venue has suspension points, and the jams allow play within shared norms of consent and negotiation.

Private teaching and SUSPND. The school offers one-to-one, couples and small-group lessons at locations around the Bay Area, and other communities can book it for single-technique workshops, introductions, themed floor or partial-suspension sessions or a custom curriculum. Its sister project SUSPND pairs live shibari with DJ sets, so that music and tying shape each other.