Week 25 of 52: Sword Hilt Wrap
For week twenty-five of our #kinbaku52 project we have picked out a few of our favourite photos that utilise a sword hilt wrap in some way.
The name speaks for itself and refers to the way in which the repetitive circular wrapping is reminiscent of a sword handle, although it's probably fair to say that actual handle-wrapping techniques can become rather more complex than this.
In the image below, an M-Shaped Tie (that we learned from Upper Body Ties Made Easy) is combined with a simple crotch rope and finished off with a decorative sword hilt wrap.
Below, an improvised hands behind the back tie is combined with some simple upper-body wraps. The sword hilt wrap uses up some spare rope in a pleasing, decorative pattern.
And finally, in this cross-legged futomomo style tie, a small sword hilt wrap detail helps maintain the integrity of the friction and keeps a small separation between the friction and the ankle tie.
What more is there to say? The sword hilt wrap is a handy technique to experiment with. Have fun! ;-)
References
The technique itself is pretty intuitive - wrap and finish with a hitch, or split the lines and tie off. However, if you want a good starting point to explore rope, we'd recommend the following.
We bought or ropes at Esinem-Rope where there is a great selection of shibari supplies. In most of our photography the rope you are seeing is 6mm Okinawa jute.
Next week we're drawing together our last few posts into our current favoured method for a gote shibari... inappropriate outfit to be confirmed! ;-)
