Being with Pain in Rope

In this shibari skills class, Shakti Bliss and her tying partner Margherita share Being With Pain In Rope, an insightful exploration of sensation not as a problem to be solved, but as an invitation to listen.

If Shakti and Margherita’s chilly pain-processing Ice Game was all about recognizing the little ways in which your body inherently knows how to self-regulate and deal with discomfort, this exercise is about putting them into practice in ropes. The goal? Neither to avoid pain entirely nor to charge into challenging sensations carelessly. Somewhere in the middle is pain as a journey, and it’s this journey that you get to create or receive every time you play with ropes.

In the first video, Shakti shares two core perspectives that shed light on how we manage intense sensations: pain gate theory and turning inward. As she explains, the first is useful for “overwhelming” the brain with things that feel good – comfort, gentle touch, physical closeness. Alternatively, the second is all about surrendering to difficult sensations and finding the “little seed of ecstasy” at the nucleus of that suffering.

In the second video, Shakti and Margherita demonstrate how your shibari sessions are an opportunity to use both sets of tools – closeness and distance, relief and intensity – with advice on how to build up the intensity in increments. At the same time, Shakti details the subtle reactions she observes in Margherita, the little clues – sounds, breath, tension – of the work she’s doing as she processes the sensations of the tie.

This class is suitable for all levels. While they use a suspension for this example, Shakti emphasizes that this is not a copy-paste exercise, but rather a blueprint that can be adapted for experience, flexibility, body awareness and skill set, to meet your practice where it’s at.

* Captions available for this series: English