I keep being told to go to Nawajutsu.
By my teacher. By people who've been. By whoever wrote it on the schedule with the word "recommended" next to it.
Why should I???
I already take Floorplay. I'm thinking about working moving onto partials already. I have a partner. I know I can manage moving around a body. What is Nawajutsu going to give me that I don't already have?
Nawajutsu is not:
A pattern technique class. You will not leave with a new pattern or specific harness (except you will...). There are no elaborate patterns (Only simple ones that can be elaborated on), no sequences to memorize and bring home to your partner. (But it will make you want to feel your partner into positions adapted for them)
It is not a prerequisite to any other class, it is not remedial, and it is not for people who "aren't there yet."
It is not just about bondage. but it is...
Here is what it is.
It is for anyone who wants to better understand the martial, somatic, and proprioceptive aspects of rope; for those who feel there is something happening beneath the rope that they cannot yet quite name. It is a class about what happens before the rope goes on.
Before a tie there is positioning; and learning what resistance feels like. Before a restraint there is connection; how the body relates to itself. Before placing a friction, there is thought about intention. Many rope classes start at the frictions. Nawajutsu starts before the rope, at the moment two bodies are in the same space and one of them is about to affect the other, or before touch even occurs.
That is the subject. Not the rope. The relationship between bodies, and how rope expands on what is already happening between them.
Some of the framework draws from Aikido and Kenjutsu; not as lineage, but as vocabulary. Center mass. Triangulated weak points. Leverage. Controlling center. The difference between opposing force and redirecting it. Tori applying, uke receiving and listening, following momentum.
If you've ever watched a skilled rigger and thought how are they doing that without effort — this is the answer. They may be using knowledge from other practices; Thai massage, Martial arts, Contact dance. They are not stronger than you; although they might be & actually overworking. They should be working with the body, not against it. That is learnable, and that is specifically what this class teaches. Those other amazing riggers have had their own personal paths; you will have Nawajutsu.
The other thing Nawajutsu gives you: different bodies.
You register solo. Partners rotate. That is not a logistical detail; it is the entire point. You cannot develop real sensitivity to pressure, weight, and resistance by working exclusively with someone you already know. You may have compensated for your partner's habits and they have compensated for yours. You have built a shared language and stopped noticing what it is hiding.
Every different body breaks your assumptions. Every different weight distribution, different threshold, different way of receiving tension; something your regular partner cannot teach you. You build a vocabulary of feel that transfers everywhere; to your partner, to your classes, to every tie you do after, to LIFE.
So why should you go?
- Go if your ties feel technically correct but somehow inert.
- Go if you've been told your movement is stiff and you don't know what that means.
- Go if you have ever had trouble manipulating your partner and or they wince when you place them.
- Go if you tie the same way on every-body and haven't questioned it.
- Go if you want to understand not just what to do but why it works, and why it sometimes doesn't.
- Go if you've ever wanted rope to feel less like something you're doing to someone and more like something you're doing together.
If you've done Fundamentals and you've been told you should try it out; this is why.
