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| Sauvage_x |
A diary of events while learning from Osada Steve sensei, on Hedwig's suggestion...
Day 1
You know it's going to be a heavy week when you start with one hour's sleep. Early flight, up at 4am. Blue_entropy, bunny extrordinaire, is insane and worked until 3am but shows no hint of tiredness. She finds that last sentence amusing. And that one after.
We're staying in a B&B apartment in a suburbian utopia in Copenhagen. People don't close their gates, kids play in their front gardens, cycle lanes are divided from the main roads. It's nice here.
After stocking up with food and having a couple of hours shut-eye, we decided to head down to the shibari dojo a little early so that we could make friends and soak up the atmosphere before starting.
Everyone is so extremely personable and modest. The atmosphere is one of a family. I mentioned Hedwig, who has visited the dojo twice from what I understand, and everyone clearly has fond memories of her charm and enthusiasm.
We bumped into Osada Steve walking into the venue. Personable, he and everyone else put me at ease. I'm not sure people knew exactly what to make of me and Blue_entropy, because everyone else was a member of the club there already, was Danish, they all knew each other, and Osada Steve commented on how young we were: "it's good to have new young blood learning".
The standard of the dojo members is extremely high, and their modesty equally impressive. Imagine a room full of nawa_konekos. Ehrm, and me flailing about.
Today the dojo members wanted to check I met minimum standards for Osada Steve to teach us. One member in particular kindly spent most of the day with me. Given that they wanted to check I knew the two-rope Takate-Kote, and single limb and double limb ties, I wasn't too worried.
Oh my god is there an infinite amount of detail involved in tying all the possible elements of the Takate-Kote correctly. I've tied it probably at least a hundred times in play and previous tuition combined so I thought I would be ok, but every fine detail of tension, distance between ropes, how to keep control of a struggling partner while tying it, etc. was covered.
To not touch ropes for a couple of months, get one hour sleep, feel a bit like the baby odd one out and to be the only one who wasn't already a qualified known in the school, and tie with Osada Steve sensei's exacting eye on every move was, well, a challenge. But what's life for if you don't rise to these occasions?
It was a challenge and a taste of how high-calibre the week to come will be. I am *just* (just) passable enough in rope skills to not completely drown in these lessons. I hope. And the roughness and great tension in the tying would be a big deal for any bunny - I was surprised at how tight the ties were supposed to be done.
Shattered, going to sleep now.
Edited Wed 22 Sep 10, 10:59 PM by Sauvage_x
