Shibari 102: Foundational Skills
Progressive Rope Classes in Downtown Los Angeles
Shibari 102 is the foundational track of our in-house curriculum – the Studio Series – held at Devil Mask Studio in the Historic Core of Downtown Los Angeles. These are the skills that underlie everything else in rope: handling, flow, harness construction, cuffs, connection, and how to build a sustainable practice. Topics rotate on a six-month cycle and are taught twice a month; you can drop in at any session without having attended the previous month.
102 is where we recommend most students start after Why Knot, but the skills covered are things we practice at every level. Whether you’ve just tied your first single-column or you’ve been at rope for years, there’s always something worth returning to.
The Studio Series also runs Shibari 201, Shibari 301, and Shibari 401 for students progressing through the curriculum.
Schedule & Pricing
📅 First Sunday of the month · 4:00-6:00 PM (includes access to the following Open Studio)
📅 Fourth Saturday of the month · 10:00 AM–12:00 PM
📍 Devil Mask Studio · 529 Lindley Pl #305 · Downtown Los Angeles
🎟 $50/person · $100/tying pair · $35 to audit · Memberships accepted
Prerequisites: The ability to tie a single-column tie (as taught in Why Knot) and a willingness to learn.
Supplies: Bring your own rope or use ours – loaner rope is available. You’ll generally need two to four 8m/30ft lengths.
102 Class Topics:
Handling & Flow
Everything flows from handling – your ease, your efficiency, and your connection with your partner.
This class focuses on foundational drills that build better flow and increase precision, confidence, and grace in rope. Expect a low-stakes environment with plenty of time to experiment and play.
How to Build Harnesses
Frictions are the covalent bonds of bondage. Or the punctuation. Or the glue.
Point is: without them, things fall apart. Just learned your first single-column tie? Join us to learn how to glue them together to build ties on the body. Fine-tuning a harness for suspension? Let’s take your frictions from fiddly to fluid.
Improvising With Cuffs
A well-tied cuff is invisible; a poorly tied cuff will end a scene. A deep dive into the physics of constructing cuffs – an essential building block in rope bondage. We’ll cover how to create in-line cuffs (or ‘hojo cuffs’) to both secure limbs and create sturdy harnesses, and students will leave able to cuff on the fly for adaptable, restrictive ties.
Manhandle With Care
The moment you add rope, moving a body becomes a whole new challenge. A hands-on exploration of how to reposition, lift, roll, and interact with your partner’s body while maintaining connection, care, and control. We’ll use physics and anatomy to move smarter, not shove harder, no matter our partner’s size.
Connection & Attention
Connection isn’t a formula – it’s a feeling. And what deepens it varies from person to person, pair to pair, moment to moment. This class offers frameworks to help you define and pursue your own version of connection, through conversation, intention-setting, and focused exercises designed to prioritize presence over perfection.
Building a Sustainable Rope Practice
Rope isn’t an innate skill, it’s a creative practice.
This workshop steps back from patterns and frictions to explore how we approach learning rope: identifying what you want out of it, building a learning path around your “why,” and getting the most out of classes, intensives, and private lessons.
F.A.Q.
Not necessarily. 102 classes requires a single-column tie – if you can already do that, you can join without having taken Why Knot. If you’re not sure what that means or brand new to rope, Why Knot is the right starting point and runs twice a month.
You can drop in to any session. Topics rotate, so each class stands alone. There’s no fixed sequence to complete, just show up when the topic interests you.
Many students attend 102 solo, either to tie themselves or work with a practice dummy. If you’d like to find a practice partner, our Discord #class-buddies channel and monthly Rope Socials are good places to connect.
Loaner rope is available if you need it. If you’d like to work with your own rope, bring two to four 8m/30ft lengths. When you’re ready to invest in your own kit, we sell conditioned jute, nylon, and POSH ropes available to pre-order for pick up at class.
Auditing means you observe without tying. It’s a good option if you want to see how a class runs before committing to a pairs ticket, or if you’re still looking for a tying partner. Audit tickets are $35.
While many classes work well for self-tying, some (like Connection & Attention) require a tying partner to participate. We offer audit tickets for those classes to offer folks the opportunity to observe, take notes, and ask questions.