Tasuki 襷

A tasuki (襷) is a sash or cord that loops over both shoulders and crosses on the back, so that the wearer can tuck kimono sleeves out of the way. The dictionary Daijisen describes it crossing in a diagonal X before it is tied, and English Wikipedia notes that manual laborers of the Edo period wore one to keep their sleeves from hindering work, that festival dancers and float pullers still wear them, and that much earlier the sash was an accessory of Shinto clergy at ceremonies.

In rope

Rope practitioners borrowed the name for ties with the same crossing line. Shibari Study explains tasuki shibari as rope that crosses the chest or shoulders, after the kimono cord, and Andrea Ropes glosses the word in her entry for ushirode tasuki shibari, a hands-behind-the-back form, as a kimono string. English Wikipedia’s list of Japanese ties includes a tasuki tie under the gloss “kimono string”, without a citation. The crossing pattern also shows up inside other ties: Shibari Study describes mune hishi gote shibari as a chest harness that begins as a tasuki-style tie and then adds a diamond pattern, and Nawapedia records a usage of the name takatekote for a tie whose rope crosses the shoulders in an X on the chest, often with the hands lifted high.

Variations by teacher and school

• Shibari Study: its glossary uses tasuki shibari for rope crossing the chest or shoulders, and says the term can also refer to the shoulder lines of the third rope of a gote. Its separate ushirote tasuki shibari entry distinguishes the form from gote and says it is sometimes also called tasuki shibari.
• Nawapedia: Nawapedia lists several distinct usages of the name gote takatekote, including an X-shaped chest pattern.
• Shibari Dojo Barrie: its Shoden curriculum teaches tasuki shibari, which it calls the sash tie or kimono tie, as a separate kata from its gote ties (haya gote, gyaku gote, kōtō gote).

Difficulty and risk

Shibari Dojo Barrie, a school that teaches Japanese rope, lists tasuki shibari (written 襷縛, which it glosses as the sash or kimono tie) first in its Shoden curriculum and describes it as a basic chest tie, so Kinbaku World lists it as beginner. Kinbaku World gives its risk as moderate because the rope crosses both the chest and the shoulders, the areas covered in the safety notes. The sources in this entry describe the tie only in general terms, and versions differ between teachers. This page has no tying steps because the sources reviewed for it do not give a public written tutorial by a named teacher or school. To learn it, read safety first and look for teaching near you in the places directory. This page describes the tie; it does not teach it.