Current Creature

I am a rope creature; chimeric, unfinished. My rope is a cobbled-together morass of self-taught invention and bits and pieces from a few different people. I am unadhered to any ryu, and I mix some Western in with the shibari as needed. My practice is intermittent at best, and has been done on obliging bottoms who run the gamut from women even smaller than I am to men where my head is level with their top TK wrap; fat, thin, buff, bendy, stiff. A lot of it has been done on me.

 After three years of this winding path, I find myself frustrated by my progress and where I currently am. Still clumsy sometimes, still finding that the ideas in my head don't match up with what gets tied. I've tried planning and designing my ties going into scenes; I've tried freewheeling flow. Neither seem to be arbiters of success. Sometimes I just stare at shifted stems or uneven tension and wonder what I am doing *wrong,* after all this time, and how I can fix it. I look at pictures, at videos, and my brain picks over the lines and transitions: it looks so simple! That goes there, and then they move like *this* and then it works! Je comprende! I can do that! But then something just doesn't work, and I don't know what it is, or I do but it doesn't make any sense as to why it didn't work for me.

 When I started tying, it came so easily. I remembered ties quickly, replicating them after only watching a video a few times. I was suspending after (mumble) months (elided to avoid the inevitable gasps of horror at a single-digit number). Now, I struggle to remember even things I had memorized a few years ago. I hesitate; I improvise; I go back to notes and videos to check that I'm doing something correctly.

 So I decided that a journal might help. Specific issues and goals of what to work on (aside from "EVERYTHING HELP PLEASE FIX??") and tracking progress, recording practice sessions and scenes to remember what worked, what didn't, and maybe work out why.

 I debated whether to make this a private journal, either handwritten or digital, but then I considered that I have such a great community of people online, all around the world, who could offer perspectives, advice, encouragement, or even just the accountability of posting every week (yes: I will do some kind of tying practice, with a write-up, every week. I know this doesn't seem like a lot to some of you, but not all of us have regular, available rope partners and tying space. Hi, I currently live with my parents and get home around 7pm!).

But I know that I can, and will, make this a priority, and having a place to write down thoughts and progress will help.