such a good reason, jute is hugely prevalent (just look at the educators on our site). I do think people often misunderstand the traditional history of it is more recent that they imagine. When I look through some early kitan club magazines, as you say they used to tie with all sorts of materials, from rice rope to obi or silk ribbons and torn cotton. The early shoga era bondage really did experiments heavily with materials before jute floated out as the rope of choice.

i also started on hemp, but jute flows much nicer in the hand and weight is a big part of that. I do think its really common to have the jute harness, posh upline combination. Its a great balance of "the best of both worlds" and with the right treatment of jute the colour can be almost identical

the ability to clean nylon is a massive advantage. Im a self confessed jute lover, but it does dishearten me if a rope gets dirty as I despite wet treating or washing jute with a passion. I do have some hempex for outdoor stuff and its so easy to just throw in a washing machine

thats interesting, how do you find mixing the medium of rope that you use with Jute Harness and Nylon uplines?

haha nothihng wrong with having a few shorties that you can pull out when you need it. I recall being taught by a very famous rope artist who had what he called "secret ropes" hidden in his pocket, only for the times his ropes weren't quite long enough and tied as secret extensions with the model blocking an audiences view.

Aspero in terms of the uplines there's definretly been a number of evolutions and "vogue" moments for different types of lock offs, which is a natural part of the evolution of rope. I know I have many different ways that I lock uplines, one of which is quite similar to Arisue's method, sometimes it just the right application for a certain situation (sometimes is also not but thats a whole different story 😅)

hey Aspero so from the video its definitely Arisue, the description translates as "Tokyo Bakuonmai" Bondage -Go Arisue Music - Jouji Sawada & Akinori Inaba Performance -Maki Tazawa  Belly Dance -Akiko Takada  May 17, 2016 Koenji Show Boat

I cant be 100% certain from the photo but that looks like it might be Arisue Go. Do you have a link one of the videos and I might be able to confirmHe was quite well known for the 2000 remake of Hana to Hebi (flower and the snake) and his series of books and videos.

Vagevuur a great way to approach your rope learning, I always find intuitive tying to be the most interesting to watch, but probably the hardest skill to acquire as a top. 

that looks really good, basket ties really do rely on getting a good balance of tension and yours is looking really good.