Hip harness 腰縄

A hip harness is a rope structure built around the hips. Rope365 defines it in just those terms and gives koshi-nawa (腰縄) as the Japanese equivalent. Shibari Study describes koshi nawa as rope tied around the hips and separates it from dō nawa, which sits higher, around the waist below the rib cage. Many named versions exist; Crash Restraint’s tie index, for example, lists a Leto hip harness among its miscellaneous ties.

Uses

Sources disagree on what a hip harness is mainly for. Shibari Study counts it, with the chest harness and the gote, among the structural harnesses that are commonly load-bearing for suspension. A ShibariClasses course presented by the London educator Nina Russ goes further. Leaving aside decoration and versions combined with a crotch rope, it sees the hip harness essentially as a firm foundation for suspension, which has to be built to carry weight and should still look good on the person in rope. The course describes the original version of the tie it teaches as unsuitable for suspension because of its engineering.

In named suspension forms the hip harness usually works together with an upper-body tie. Shibari Study’s hashigata zuri, a face-up bridge suspension that emphasizes the arch of the back, commonly uses one. Kinbakuwiki gives a hip harness as an alternative to a waist corset in aomuke zuri, the face-up suspension taught early in Osada-ryū, and describes hashira ties on a post as mostly a combination of an upper-body pattern with a hip or thigh harness.

Where to see it tied

For a comparison of materials and lengths, see the shibari rope buying guide.

These are free public tutorials by the teachers named below. Kinbaku World has not tested them. Read safety before you start, and find in-person teaching on the places pages. This page describes the tie; it does not teach it.

• Rope Art & Body Harness: Rope Art | Hip Harness is a 3:41 video in English with spoken explanation (automatic English captions), tied by the narrator on their own hips and legs. The description labels it for beginners and gives 4 to 8 metres of rope depending on body type; the narrator uses one 10-metre rope. It shows two ways of finishing the end of the rope, at 2:04 and at 2:49.
• Anastasia Suazo (Voudou Ropes): Festive Wave Hip Harness is a 15:49 video in English with spoken explanation (automatic English captions), tied by the narrator on their own body. Its description calls the harness decorative. The narrator starts with two 8-metre cotton ropes (0:46), adds more rope part-way through (from 5:20), and says early on (1:40) that some steps are better watched than explained.

Variations by teacher and school

• Nina Russ (ShibariClasses): her course takes apart a hip harness from an unnamed well-known manual and builds her own version to overcome what the course calls its deficiencies, using single column ties and a few frictions. The follow-up tutorial for Nina’s hip harness says it addresses the tendency of simpler hip harnesses for the frictions to slip and tighten the leg loops, and adds further suspension points.
• Osaka Dan (ShibariClasses): ShibariClasses describes Osaka Dan’s hip harness as a variation of the climbing-harness-style koshi nawa and says its range of use includes side-accented hip inversions.
• Other named versions (Rope365): the hip harness section of Rope365’s Week 19 lists tutorials by many teachers under names such as Swiss Seat (Topologist, Lily Adar), Leto (Hitchcraft, Mister Leto), Drum harness (Rory’s Brainworks, MiShibari), “Naka Pants” (Bondage Tuition) and Pentagram (Selkie), and two Bones and Rope versions dated 2014 and 2016. Rope365 only lists them; it does not compare how they are tied.
• Purpose: Rope365 says most hip harnesses are designed to support weight but can also be a decorative panty or an attachment point for tying other body parts. The KinkRx class on hip harness design teaches the parts of a hip harness and how they carry load so that a harness can be fitted to the tied person’s body.

How it developed

ShibariClasses says the climbing-harness-style, three-tiered koshi nawa was popularized by Ichinawa-kai (Ichinawa-kai) and that Osaka Dan’s version, his first attempt at original rope engineering, took that harness as its influence. ShibariClasses reports that an earlier version of Nina’s hip harness video had around 150,000 views, which is why it made the longer tutorial. Rope365’s listing shows teachers publishing more than one version, for example two Bones and Rope hip harnesses labelled 2014 and 2016.

Difficulty and risk

None of the sources consulted grades the hip harness on its own. Kinbaku World lists it as intermediate because its main use, according to these sources, is as part of a suspension, where it has to bear load. For suspension, sources point to the front and outer thigh, where rope or harness pressure can compress the femoral nerve or the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve.