An Evening With Rope Master Akira Naka

Rope bondage expert Akira Naka is a kooky kind of guy, a man with a shaved head and wire-rim glasses who I could easily picture spinning vintage vinyl at a trendy rooftop party or cultivating rare orchids, instead of what he actual does, which is tie up nubile young women in knots, suspend them, and then whip the baby hair off their bare asses. And he gets paid for the privilege (as do the whippees). No wonder on the evening where a small crowd got to see his work up close he was all smiles and jokes, sticking out his tongue at nobody in particular. This was in absolute contrast to the majority of the audience, many of whom take the art of shibari (also known as kimbaku) very, very serious indeed.

My fiancé and I bought tickets to this show after seeing it advertised on Fleshbot (props to you guys!) and we had brought along our married friend as well. The evening was sponsored by LA Rope Dojo, who had convinced Naka to visit the States for this show, and took place inside a darkened studio on Sunset Blvd., where it shared a parking lot with a church. (Did the reverend across the way have any idea? Was he in the audience? Who knew?)

Now in our bedroom, our bondage behavior is enthusiastic, but very much n00b status. I never was in the navy or the Boy Scouts, so my rope tying is for shit. Hell, I can’t even keep my shoes tied. The Japanese, on the other hand, have a way of turning things like making a cup of tea and folding paper into an art form, and they’ve done so with shibari, which over the last few decades has gone from an exotic secret of darkest Kyoto to a Kink.com bookmark. 

The evening was a chance to see Naka and his partner Iroha Shizuki work the ropes, and maybe pick up some tips along the way.

Naka passed on his viewing instructions to the audience: watch as if we were looking through a keyhole. A large wooden frame with a bamboo crossbar stood in the middle of the stage and Naka and Shizuki entered, both in white, her in a loose yukata robe and he in shirt and beige pants.

Having lived in Japan for a few years, I’ve been used to the odd juxtaposition of rank sentimental music and sexual weirdness in their movies and videos. For example: The great Nikkatsu romanporno “Wife to be Sacrificed” has an unintentionally hilarious forced enema scene scored to something out of a Douglas Sirk weepy. (Check it when you can!) So when the shibari began, so did the music, a guitar and string laden score that made the following events melancholic and melodramatic. Maybe *this* is what we’d been missing from the bedroom, I thought.

Naka and Shizuki started on the floor, out of view of most of us in the fold out seats. A small group of us got up and lined the walls to watch the action.

With a methodological concentration, Naka brought out rope after rope and soon Shizuki’s arms were pinned behind her in a reverse prayer pose, her back one big convoluted knot. And then Naka threw a rope over the bamboo pole and hoisted her into view. Feet got tied, knees and thighs, even the end of her long black hair, which then was pulled up towards the bar too. (The letting down of her hair turned out to be the erotic highlight to me, but there you go.) Naka gagged her mouth with white fabric.

At some point Shizuki was vertical, then horizontal, then diagonal, with Naka working the ropes like a puppeteer. He brusquely pulled her yukata apart, exposing her perky tits. 

Occasionally Naka would scoot back on his butt and just take in the helpless Shizuki, mulling it over like a sculptor and a hunk of stone. 

By this time, I was beginning to wonder if this traditional rope bondage was just about the tying and suspension and nothing else. That’s when Naka took off his shirt, getting down to a white vest, and brought out the flogger.

Maybe it was the atmosphere or that music, but when that whip cracked across her bare ass, it made me jump. And he went in for more, another nine or so flogs, with diminishing intensity. Shizuki whimpered. 

And then the floor show was over. Having reached the summit of our shibari journey, now we got to watch Naka untie her with the same concentration that he put into the beginning. Finally loose, Shizuki crumbled into his arms, the pleasurable ordeal over.

Applause. Intermission. 

I tried talking to a few people around us about what we’d seen, but all I wanted to do was make jokes, really. I mean, sex is fun, and this is safe role play, but the general mood was austere gravity. 

In an interview slightly drowned out by the air conditioning unit overhead, host Master K, who looked appropriately enough like Stanley Kubrick, tried to get some serious answers out of Naka, who turned on the self-effacing charm. He had once been the manager for bdsm models, but when he saw his mentor at work he changed his career path. Despite the interviewer’s search for a deeper truth, a discussion about power dynamics in modern rope play, Naka kept it real, roughly translated by his interpreter.

“I am just a pervert, and I am amazed that people actually want to see me do this.” 

Now, that’s the spirit, Naka!

I felt I had seen a master at work, no doubt, from the intensity and speed with which he worked the ropes, to the final poses he created with Shizuki. There was no hesitation in his work, and learning later that he improvises everything made it even more impressive. For my fiancee, she just a bit meh about the whole thing. For myself, I want to get a bit better at knot tying, especially if it involves my lady, but for now, I think we’re going to keep the music out of the dungeon.

Follow Ted Mills on Twitter