KSB Magazine #4

Now we are presenting you, dear reader, already the 4th issue of our magazine: Autumn, Winter, Spring – Summer now. We assembled again a crowd of creative people, enthusiastic about Kinbaku and keen in their research of our own cultural roots and curious to find out why we engage into something such alien and strange as Japanese rope bondage can be. This issue is about the Summer: the heat, the suffocating, oppressive, heavy one, that makes damp clothing stick to the skin. We wanted to make it about the draught, the endurance, the imbalance of long summer days in scorching heat, when people are sweating and suffering, barely making their way through the long heavy days. We are happy to present again a great photographer to you. I’ve met Amaury Grisel in 2018 during the workshop Sugiura Sensei gave in Copenhagen, but of course I knew his pictures before. Who, in the world of Kinbaku, wouldn’t? For this issue he gave us a selection of his photography, depicting his beautiful Muse – Frankie. Maybe it is not pure incident, that Sugiura Norio Sensei is also in the focus for the reportage that WykD Dave wrote for us, having witnessed the master for one day in Tokyo during one of his famous shootings.

This great master of contemporary Kinbaku aesthetics is a great inspiration for us all.

Last, but not least, his work also inspired another contributor, Vera, to draw. This is strong visual content we provide – but it is capturing rough light and the colours are fading, brownish tones dominate, as if the heat took the life out of them. Kinbaku as a hot summer day can be tiring and exhausting. What else is left other than giving up, resignation, and finally surrender to the circumstances? And who knows more about suffering and the blissful surrender in Western civilisation than the Catholics. Mari is contributing a wonderfully researched, poetic essay on this topic. With the contribution of Cand’or we continue to celebrate the heritage of contemporary Kinbaku and the maybe not so well known contributors, who paved the path we now are walking so easily. There was a nordic ritual celebrated by Dark_Path and Tosen_K. And Natasha NawaTaNeko was put back into her childhood enduring a long painful session on Hashira. With Red Sabbath, Margout Darko and Bettina, three very different woman, rope bottoms with different background and experience – contributed a beautiful poetry reflecting on their way to experience the ropes. Over this summer, there was another magazine born. It seems to follow a different concept but points into the same direction: back to paper, print – touch and feel. Welcome to this world: Kinbaku Stories! But for now, take our magazine into your hand. Flip it through. Let your eyes rest on the pictures. Delight your mind reading it through. Hopefully we can create again some wonderful feelings in your body and heart… September 2020 | Alexander MA