Articles tagged: Ryuha (流派)

Created by Nawashi Akechi Kanna (縄師明智神凪), the Kanna Ryu (神凪流) is a kinbaku style built around a very specific idea of transmission: technique can be taught, but understanding the rope, how one relates to it and the responsibility of passing it on are part of a broader learning process.

Literally, it can be translated as “the way of shibari”.

It means “method” or “technique”.

An Osaka native and a regular event organizer in Tokyo, Kazami Ranki is a well-known name on the Japanese shibari circuit.

Miura Takumi was a leading rigger of the Heisei era and yet little known outside Japan.

If there is one name closely associated with semenawa, it is Naka Akira. Through his work and, especially, through training his students, he has played a decisive role in defining and spreading this way of understanding shibari.

Osada Eikichi (長田英吉) was born on March 15, 1925 (year 14 of the Taisho era) and began his public activity on the kinbaku scene in the mid-sixties; in 1976 he organized events with Tamai Keiyu (玉井敬友).

Created by Osada Eikichi and currently led by Osada Steve, the Osada Ryu has official dojos in several countries and a particularly strong presence in the Americas, driven, among other factors, by the work of Camelia Tsubaki and her students in Argentina.

Telling apart the concepts of style, school and ryu can be confusing. In this article we offer a summary to serve as an introductory guide.

In its most literal sense, it can be translated as “torture rope”. Yukimura sensei defined it in these terms:

Semenawa (責め繩) is one of the ways of understanding shibari that has gained the most presence in the West over recent decades.

Tenma Haru (天馬ハル), a cheerful Japanese rigger, was born on May 20, 1975 (year 50 of the Showa era) in Kanagawa Prefecture. He has blended classic and modern concepts into a style of his own, Tenma-ryu (天馬流), which explicitly separates kinbaku from sadomasochism and steers it toward emotional connection between two people.

Yukimura Haruki (1948–2016) was one of the leading Japanese riggers, for his influence, his output and his singularity.

The shibari style developed by Yukimura Haruki (雪村春樹) represents a particular way of understanding kinbaku in which rope stops being merely a tool of restraint and becomes a vehicle for non-verbal dialogue.