Naka-ryū

Naka-ryū, also called the Naka style, is the way of tying taught by Naka Akira, a Japanese kinbakushi and director of adult video. Atelier Simonet in Paris, which describes itself as an official venue of the style, calls it one of the major forms of kinbaku practiced in Japan.

Lineage

The style grows directly out of the rope of Nureki Chimuo. Naka first saw Nureki tie at a video shoot and was invited to the Kinbiken, Nureki’s private kinbaku study group, which he attended for about five years. Nawapedia dates that first encounter to around 1990. In an interview with i-D he said he learned everything from looking after his teacher to preparing and cleaning the rope, mostly by watching, and that about two years passed before Nureki let him untie a model; Shibari Dojo says it took more than a year. Shibari Dojo describes him as the only student Nureki recognized as a direct deshi. Nawapedia adds that Nureki gave him his professional name and lists Sugiura Norio as his second teacher.

French Wikipedia notes that the style claims a link to hojōjutsu. In the i-D interview Naka himself was more careful, describing kinbaku as distinct from the Edo-period restraint art while allowing that it may have been influenced by it.

Character

Julia Seifried places Naka within semenawa, the stream of rope in which the person tied endures something physically or mentally. French Wikipedia calls the style clean, symmetrical and aesthetic. Shibari Dojo lists extreme precision, clean lines and closely controlled tension, together with twists and arches that shape the body. It notes a slow, meditative rhythm, attention to pause and distance (ma), and the deliberate irregularities known as kuzushi that keep the rope from looking mechanical. Julia Seifried names his MURU-ZOU group, founded in 2008, and his own phrase for the work, “aesthetic torture bondage”.

The rope does the work alone. Shibari Dojo notes that Naka’s Nawa-etsu video series leaves out candles, whips and other SM elements, and that he ties with hemp rope (asanawa), uses bamboo for suspensions and avoids metal hardware. Nawapedia also names hemp as central to his practice. The i-D article, written after a performance in Brooklyn, describes a model carried through several positions in one unbroken flow. In the same interview Naka linked the origins of rope restraint to a Japanese appreciation of graceful movement that he also saw in the tea ceremony, flower arrangement and the martial arts.

Shibari Dojo cites one of Naka’s principles, “the rope is free”: semenawa should adapt to the body in front of the rigger rather than follow a fixed sequence of shapes.

Teaching

According to Shibari Dojo, Naka teaches mainly through observation and steps in only where something could become unsafe, leaving students to pick up the rest themselves. Since 2011 he has run the Nawa Naka Kai sessions and has taught and performed widely outside Japan; Nawapedia lists workshops in Moscow, London, Berlin, Los Angeles, New York, Paris and other cities. Atelier Simonet records that he authorized its teacher to teach the style officially in 2019.

Characteristics

• Semenawa with precise lines and finely controlled tension
• Slow, continuous movement between positions
• Rope only, without other SM props
• Natural-fiber hemp rope and bamboo, no metal hardware