I bought some rope today. From Fesseltrieb in far east Sonnenallee, biking through a first biting day of winter, clear and cold. Seven 8 metre lengths of 6mm diameter jute rope, uncoloured (plus a DVD from Osada Steve). Quite a necessity it feels, to have for my own these.

The first time rope came into my thinking was during the first rehearsals of extermination, though as with all other occasions, it never made it into performance. And now after several months with Dasniya learning Shibari, and thinking properly on my next piece, a solo called abjection (yes, I am reading Julia Kristeva), somehow it makes sense that rope will finally come into this.

Self-suspension. I suppose it is like climbing solo, something I would do a lot, bouldering or elsewhere due to lack of regular climbing partners. And somehow it also comes to the reasons of why to do something, becomes very personal. So, to hang on my own is both from circumstance and from personal compulsion.

I have been climbing again also, come to mention it, with Trudel and the Frauenklettergruppe, twice in one week, almost more than I have done in the last two years. And to think I would climb daily, those endless laps and problems on bluestone bridges in Melbourne, the one bridge I never completed, though did all but one move, which is, I think by far the hardest thing I climbed.

Pain. Emotion. Why do I do this, I wonder? Today I only led once because I didn’t have the emotional stability to confront myself. It was not all enjoyable, and also so long since, I have forgotten what it feels like to be comfortable with this, and with falling. Something in all of this, yoga, ballet, dancing, climbing, shibari.

I think about this, and tie myself, and find myself at the beginning. So maybe I know some ways of tying, but now is to begin to learn. Anyway… some photos.