Dakinawa: The Embracing Style of Rope

When people speak of kinbaku, there are usually two main styles that dominate the conversation: there’s semenawa (the tormenting style of rope, which can take shape as hard restriction, powerful endurance, and profound suffering) and aibunawa (the caressing style of rope, which can come across as gentler restriction, interactive eroticism, and emotional pursuit).

In attempting to study, savor, and share those styles in the Philippines, I came to learn that while they were exactly right for certain sessions — sometimes — they really weren’t.

Philippine kinksters carried a different cultural (trauma) background that made rope bondage appealing. Several sought it for rest, reclamation, and rebellion — sometimes more than they sought the conventional games for pleasure, power, and pain.

So the What, How, and Why behind rope bondage for me developed over time since 2013 to expand and include those motivations.

Recently, I started calling that category of play “dakinawa,” and my personal style and expression of shibari “Daki-style.”

What makes something Dakinawa

So the fancy “official” explanation is that the term dakinawa comes from daku (抱く), which is Japanese for “to embrace,” and nawa (縄), which means “rope.”

(Same kanji for “dakimakura” — the hugging pillows. :D)

The sillier “actual” reason is that Daki has been my nickname since before I was born and the most common way people described my tying was that it was very much like a hug.

And since hugs were versatile enough to be casual, comforting, constricting, or carnal, depending on what the players consented to — I thought that coincidence was too good to pass up.

So, put simply, if there’s an element of a hug or embrace present — physically, mentally, emotionally, or all three — you’re already doing it. That covers What we do in dakinawa.

The aspect of Why (to reassure, relax, restrain, reduce, rile, rule, or rough someone up) and How (platonically, romantically, aggressively, playfully, or cruelly) you would practice dakinawa is up to you.

A few things that make it its own category rather than just a mood:

• Semenawa and aibunawa tend to put two people in specific roles already (victim, target, punisher, pursuer, etc.). Dakinawa puts them side by side with enough room to decide which roles to take on. After all, in a hug, we can be both giver and receiver, simultaneously.
• It thrives in improvisation but doesn’t require it. You can plan, rehearse, or structure it however you want. The category doesn’t care how you hug or embrace as long as you do — much like how semenawa can be interpreted flexibly to mean physical, mental, or emotional suffering, as long as there’s suffering.
• The rope is your vehicle for the embrace. One of many.

None of this is mine to gatekeep.

If you find your own version of embracing someone through rope, physically holding them, meeting them where they actually are that day, letting them feel accepted rather than performed at, you’re already practicing it.

Different practitioners will build completely different things inside the same category, the same way two semenawa players can look nothing alike and still both be doing semenawa.

Daki-style

My personal interpretation and expression of shibari — for dakinawa, semenawa, or aibunawa — falls under “Daki-style.” It’s everything and anything that I would authentically do during rope (so I’m not going to try to lay it out fully here).

Daki-style is built from a strange enough mix of influences that I’ve never really seen anyone else throw together. It draws from my training and experiences with Human-Centered Design, Filipino Martial Arts, and — of course — Japanese Style Rope Bondage.

It changes as I change, so even if I pen it exactly today, it might be wrong after a year. I can live with that.

Right now, only a few people have seen it in full force. Fewer have heard me explain the many parts of the system behind it.

But what counts, I think, is the number of people who’ve tried, enjoyed it, and recommend it.

I think I like it better when people can see or feel it for themselves. It’s up to them how they’ll be describing it.

Not teaching it right now

With vanilla obligations entering the picture, I’ve stepped back from 1-1 kink work for a while. I hope to come back someday.

Right now, nobody’s gone through Daki-style from start to finish with me yet, so the closest anyone’s gotten is watching it live (or feeling it done to them).

Whether that changes is genuinely open. If it does, I’ll be sure to let you all know.

If you want to be there when it does, join our newsletter. There’s no program, performance, or photosets to avail of right now; just let me know if I have your permission to email you about my style, the studio, or shibari in general.