Troy Yung I think you're all talking about the same thing by saying counter tension and larks head! Really glad you're enjoying the content and we hope this helps! Also, for what it's worth, sometime later this year another basket harness tutorial similar to this one will be being released with another rope handling trick for the single column tie, so keep your eyes peeled for that!

There is a potential for the half hitches at the top to slide up. The friction/U lock that Gorgone mentions in the videos will do a lot to prevent slippage and also makes the half hitches much easier to untie. The really dangerous option here would be to use half hitches without that lock at the top!

Hi! And welcome! You can find an explanation of different types of rope and their pros and cons in a video here or you can read our rope guide on our blog (there are some vendor recommendations on there too). On our site, you'll see that all of our instructors tie with jute rope, which is the most traditional choice for shibari, and comes with a lot of advantages in terms of how it behaves, but you might develop other preferences based on what your needs and interests are. Finally, you might want to join the Discord community and ask folks for rope recommendations that are more local to you. 

Yes, that's possible. A few things to be mindful of how much bulk is in the back of this harness, which might not make it the best candidate for hashira suspension. (Something you'll notice in Tamandua's Hashira Session is that he starts with a simple harness for the body and builds a "third rope" around both his partner and the pole. This can be really supportive, and so choosing harnesses that are easy to layer on top of can be a nice choice.) Also, the way that Kinoko builds his uplines in this video would likely not translate to a hashira suspension. If you're quite familiar with the techniques for tying onto a hashira, then experiment and let us know! If hashira is newer to you, we would probably recommend starting with something simpler. (And of course, we always encourage in person learning, especially for very advanced techniques!)

At 16:25 Kinoko shows the point at which he would go back up the stem rather than tie across the butt! Hope this helps :)

We didn't film a tutorial on this specific Tengu but check out Tamandua’s Tengu for a similar pattern, and remember that shibari is like Lego. Maybe you can use his pattern as a starting point and this harness as inspiration to create something you love :)

Hi! Thanks for your question. How would you bring the arms into position? Simply changing the position of the arms (without wrapping them independently of the body) would likely not be something that a model could hold. The arms would want to return back to a more neutral position. But we always encourage safe, thoughtful experimentation and believe that shibari is like Lego (meaning you can create all sorts of things with just a few building blocks). Check out Armbinders for Everyone for some ideas on how to modify the strappado/armbinder position for different bottoms. And if you're feeling inspired by something in the mayfly harness that you want to try out, give it a go and let us know what you discover.

Yes! Great question. These hangers are sometimes called Epsilons (which reference the loopy, circular nature of both how we tie the hanger and how that letter is often written). They are also sometimes called Y hangers because, when finished, they look like a Y from a Latin alphabet. 

Hi! Thanks for your question! This tie is designed to be pretty torturous, and the easiest suggestion for how to keep it more sustainable would be to simply play with it as a partial. However, you could try incorporating a Hip Loader into it (as you see Gorgone do with the Butterfly Harness). It's possible that just that extra support would be helpful, and if not, you could more directly load the hips with an epsilon that you could pull from the front (like you see in the Study on Falling class, but loading from the front of the body not the back). If you give any of these things a try, come back here and let us know how it goes!

You're right! Back in the day we edited videos differently than we do now. Now we make sure to show you everything that happens. But you're totally right that something was edited out here :)