Ichinawa-kai 一縄会

Ichinawa-kai is the rope school of Hajime Kinoko, a Tokyo rope artist known for performances, photography and installations. It is run from Tokyo, with a weekly group class and chapters and licensed instructors in other Japanese cities and abroad. Because only Kinoko can license its teachers, every authorized Ichinawa instructor, in Japan or abroad, holds a license issued by him directly.

Origins

Kinoko’s own sites give two founding years. The lessons page says he has run the classroom since 2004; his profile says he founded Ichinawa-kai in 2006, the year he began performing and making rope art under the name Hajime Kinoko. His profile describes how he came to rope in 2001, learning largely on his own with the support of a first mentor whom he later named his shisho (master teacher). He came to understand what it means to tie a person at workshops that Akechi Denki held around 2003 at the fetish bar Kinoko managed, took lessons from Nawashi Kanna from 2008, and studied for several years with Yukimura Haruki, who taught him how to relate to models and show the lines of the body. In 2018 he named Yukimura and Kanna as his onshi, teachers to whom he owes a debt of gratitude.

Kinoko describes his rope as centered on connection rather than capture: the lines he makes, he says, exist only between him and the model. His wider work combines erotic rope with a pop sensibility and treats it as art, from ties around trees and rocks to large installations.

Curriculum

Students begin at 10th grade and work through a beginner and intermediate curriculum to 1st grade, followed by special grades. Each grade ends with an examination, and a graduation certificate follows the final exam. Private lessons cover advanced material such as suspended transitions. The school states that the risks of kinbaku can never be reduced to zero and puts safety first.

Licensing

Graduates can work toward three levels of instructor license, each allowed to teach a wider part of the curriculum, with the highest covering everything learned from Kinoko. The lessons page estimates the extra training for the two higher licenses at a minimum of about 32 and 40 hours. Only Kinoko, as licensor, can issue a license, and license holders cannot license their own students. Because the curriculum is revised every year, licenses must be renewed every two years. The school lists holders of its highest license in Japan, Australia, the United States, Singapore and South Korea, and warns that some people teach its techniques without certification.

Characteristics

• Graded curriculum with an examination at every level
• Instructor licenses issued only by the founder, renewed every two years
• Curriculum revised every year
• Safety presented as the first priority