For the eels among us

One of my friends is discovering talents as an eel - someone who gets into ropes for the challenge of working back out again. He's a top, as a general rule, but a curious top. He's also all kinds of double-jointed, which makes for interesting (if dangerous-looking) play.

I get a kick out of watching him in ropes. It's not quite my thing - it's fascinating, but the psychology of it never quite makes sense to me. For most of the folks I tie, the ropes and the submission go together, at least a bit. For myself, I tend not to submit in ropes these days (and more's the pity . . . ), but I do have that part of my brain that adores the rope aesthetically as well as the other "track" in which I'm learning ties by being tied. In both scenarios, getting out of the ropes is usually the disappointing part. None of which helps make sense of the eel phenomenon.

So as I've got this on the brain, this lovely article from Graydancer on Ropes and Submission couldn't have come at a better time.

But not only was there never a time when I felt like submitting, but there was never really even a time when I felt vulnerable. I’m a big fan of leg sweeps and kicks and knees and head butts; I also, from lots of dance experience, am comfortable on the floor, or using other’s bodies as bases, and so there was never a moment when I felt that frisson of "what are they going to do to me?" And it makes me wonder more at that little psychological switch that seems to be in some of us, and not in others; the difference between surrendering and constantly evaluating the options to figure out what you can do next.

Hmm. I think that makes sense. And, as a contrasting backdrop, I think it helps me better understand what I'm looking for as a rope top. Which is probably the subject of another entry . . .