It’s been awhile since I posted a new tie I like, but I quite enjoy this one. It’s pretty cute, it’s fun to tie, and it gives another option to tie hands behind the back. I only recently learned it, so I’m taking notes and putting it on my website for other people to enjoy. Rookie mistakes included.
This is a variation on a “rifle tie”, or a “teppo shibari” as it’s sometimes known. For most people, this position can be a bit challenging. One of our friends doesn’t like it at all, as she just doesn’t have the flexibility. That said, it’s handy to have options. Sometimes people have shoulder or nerve issues that can get in the way of your more common behind the back ties, so this one can actually be a bit more sustainable. This is not a suspension tie, more a bondage and play tie.
The final tie position ends up looking like this:
We start with a single column tie on one wrist.
Then you want to move that back over one shoulder so you end up with the palm facing downwards, and the elbow roughly vertical. Pro-tip; try to position the knot so that it’s under the hand, or between thumb and forefinger. It digs into the back of the hand otherwise and is uncomfortable for your partner. In most of these photos I have the knot on top, and that was a rookie mistake; my partner didn’t enjoy that, and it left a mark. Learning experiences!
You want to bring the rope down in a diagonal moving across the upper arm. You’ll want your person to have their lower arm coming back up across the lower back, as pictured below.
The rope goes over the upper arm, and then we start wrapping the forearm and upper arm together, reinforcing the position that my darling muse is in already.
We’re then going to take our working end of rope, and bring it over and then under our current strands in this area. This binds all the strands together in one place, and stops them from slipping around all over the place.
It also turns these new strands into what’s effectively a cuff that contains both upper arm and forearm. Once we’ve wrapped under our strands, we send the rope back in the direction it originally came from. It’s useful to maintain a steady tension on the rope as we go to prevent our rope from getting messy.
Once we get to back to the upper arm, we’re effectively going to repeat what we’ve just done, wrapping around it and creating another cuff.
Once the cuff is complete, we send the rope back down our diagonal stem along the back yet again.
Here’s where it gets interesting. We’re going to get to a certain point above the forearm of the lower arm, and then we’re going to loop the rope at a sudden right angle in a hitch around our diagonal stem to change direction, while also binding all that diagonal rope together.
It’s about this point where I’ve had to join some more rope. The reason I’m telling you that is so you’ll understand why there’s a knot poking around in the next few pictures. Really don’t want to confuse you about that.
We’re going to create a new cuff around that lower arm to help hold that in place too. The rope strands are effectively going to wrap around the forearm, and the hitch that we just made.
Once we’ve done the wrist, we can add an additional strand across the hand. My muse tells me that she really likes that, and it adds a welcome bit of additional support.
After this, the tie is effectively done. We just need to work out how we’re going to finish it up. I’ve chosen to do a lot of wrapping to try and tidy things up and also create some convenient handles.
I’ve quite enjoyed this version of the tie; it seems more comfortable and a bit more graceful than the versions of the rifle tie or teppo shibari I’ve seen previously. It’s also pretty fun to tie, and I like that it offers a lot of support to my muse.
Plus, once it’s complete, that big diagonal across the back makes a convenient little handle for pushing or directing the movement of my bound little muse, which I find super fun. She does too!
