Suzanne SxySadist’s Personal Blog

It’s that time of year again. Registration for Shibaricon 2010 is well underway and many are already registered for this can’t-miss event. Will you be among them? Register soon to guarantee your place!

Shibaricon is the premier annual pansexual educational conference for lovers of rope bondage, by lovers of rope bondage. The focus of the event is education, with over 95 classes being offered this year we will have our most packed schedule ever. There will be something for everyone, top, bottom, switch, newly curious or seasoned rigger, Shibaricon will offer something for you. Here’s what you can expect:

4 days filled with over 95 classes by over 50 of the best rope educators around including Midori, Zamil, Lochai, Claire Adams,Damon Pierce, Mark & Lani DV8 House, Lee Harrington, Two Knotty Boys, Dr-Phil (http://www.bondage-addiction.net), and many more! Please check http://www.shibaricon.com for updated presenter & schedule information in coming weeks.

Office Hours are back! Stop by the practice room for independent study or some extra tutoring.

Vendor Mall where you can buy rope, toys, corsets, shoes and equipment.

3 nights of play in our fully equipped spaces, including equipment by Bonds of Steel.

Special events including a meet & greet Thursday night where you can meet presenters & get to know your fellow attendees, Opening & Closing Ceremonies hosted by Psychokitty, a special Saturday night performance by Zamil http://www.kinbaku-art.com/.

Human feline friends, you won’t want to miss Psychokitty’s Kitty Play Party, back by popular demand!

Our home is a beautiful hotel near O’Hare airport with great amenities, a friendly service oriented staff, free airport shuttle and much more. For those of you looking forward to taking a few hours to shop at IML, our hotel is located walking distance from the train to downtown Chicago. Rooms are booking fast, get yours soon!

Please join us for a fantastic weekend filled with education, fun and friendship. Come find out why Shibaricon has become the must-attend event for so many rope lovers from all over the world. We hope to see you there!

Thanks,
Diana & The Shibaricon Team

SHIBARICON
May 28-31, 2010
Chicago, IL USA
http://www.shibaricon.com

Permission to repost.

So several folks have asked me to post about my Shibaricon adventures and to be honest I wasn’t sure I was ready to process a particular part of it just yet.. but here goes. First a little background.

When Nelson and I parted more than 4 years ago there was a period of it that we were still in touch and working on evolving our relationship back into a friendship. It wasn’t always easy, we had a lot of history in the way and I had quite a lot of broken trust and anger about it but I never stopped loving him and part of me never accepted that we were done.  Hell there is probably a part of me that still hasn’t accepted it fully.

Anyway, I had loaned him somethings like over a $1000 worth of massage DVDs & videos that he wanted to copy and said he would return. I sent him my custom made pair of 3 foot signal whips that he was going to help me break in (he was truly amazing at Florentine work). I also sent him my first batch of “real” rope that I ever bought because he had told me he wanted to borrow it to do a photo shoot. At the time that he told me that he had been out of photography for a few years and I was delighted to hear he was going back to it.. he was so talented and had such a great eye and it made me sad to think he had given it up. Well, I boxed it all up and sent it off to him and he naturally promised to return it as soon as he was through. He was always good at promising things, just not great at keeping them.

That is going to sound especially like sour grapes considering he got sick or made me aware that he was sick not too long after that. He never smoked cigarettes or did any kind of drugs in his life and he turned up with a cancerous mass in his neck. I only know bits and pieces of the story from there. Partially because he was not very forthcoming with info, (he never was any good at delivering bad news) and honestly because there was a part of me that couldn’t deal with it after losing my mom to cancer so I didn’t press for a lot of details. He decided to do an all natural healing approach. Healthy juice regimes and positive energy work and he seemed to be doing better for awhile. Then he had good weeks and bad weeks and promised several times that the “box was in the mail” but I felt really bad harassing him about my “stuff” when he had so much else going on.

But still, I missed him and wanted to see him. We planned for me to visit him in Asheville again but the plans fell through.  I got the impression he really wasn’t up for the visit so I begged out and said we would wait until he was feeling better.  That day never came.  He passed on last summer. His most recent partner Denise was the one that wrote to let me know. We talked one night shortly after for over an hour and we laughed and cried and shared our experiences of Nelson and at some point in the conversation she promised to send me my things as well as some of his ashes.  I was stunned that she would be so generous.  Then life got in the way for quite awhile and we lost touch.  Two other friends of mine, Honey & Stan, that I know from Shibaricon live in the same area as Denise and offered to play liaison in getting those things back to me. I was delighted to get an email from Honey saying she had the videos and my rope and the whips (which had actually not turned up when last I spoke to Denise so that was a sweet surprise).

Thursday night during the meet & greet and Shibaricon Brett and I were busily greeting a lot of my fellow rope loving friends when Honey & Stan arrived and invited us up to their room.  They let me open the suitcase on the floor and it was filled with treasures! All of my natural and red colored jute from “Japan Rope” was there.  That is the rope that made me truly fall in love with bondage. I love the smell and the feel and the soft sheen of it and I am so happy to have it back. And my whips!  Still as stiff as a board but I am thrilled to hold them again! There was also all of the videos I loaned to Nelson including a very expensive set of deep tissue massage DVDs as well as a huge pile of BDSM porn videos that belonged to Nelson.  A Lot of heavy whipping and smoking fetish vids.  I sat on the floor for what seemed like a long time, letting memories flood back as I picked up and smelled my rope, let the whips slide through my hands, poked the the case full of videos looking at all the titles. A lot of memories and associated feelings: gratitude, joy, guilt, grief, sadness, and more. I started to pull myself together so I could let them get back to enjoying their evening and they asked me to sit down for one more surprise.

Honey handed me a beautiful butterfly carved puzzle box that was wrapped in a mini karada and told me that it contained some of Nelson’s ashes. I burst into tears and hugged them both and Brett. They also gave me another beautiful box that contained the ashes of someone whose name they could not remember but that had been a very special teacher to Nelson.  I completely understand this gesture because I have had people that have been as instrumental in my life as well but wish I had been more a part of his life during the time that he knew this person so that I had a better idea what his or her impact had been on him.

Anyway, I did not really feel that I was going to be able to process the feelings that having a piece of Nelson in my hands again was bringing up until after I got home from the event so I placed him in the dresser drawer and went on with the weekend. I may have thought I wasn’t allowing myself to be affected but I definitely was on some level.   I realized how much I missed the level of play and connection that he and I shared and it definitely affected my attitude which led to a fight between me & Brett Friday night and then Sat I got pissy with a DM for stopping a scene I was in for simply leaning against the wall (Note to self: I have to follow the event & hotel rules whether I like them or not not matter how frigging annoying they are! Grr!)

The bottom line is, I was hurting on a core level and not expressing it properly so it was leaking out all over the place and manifesting in really unpleasant ways. Luckily I don’t think I managed to burn any bridges and I came home and gave myself a couple of days to decompress. Today, for the first time, I untied the box and opened it very carefully.  I ran my fingers through his ashes and cried for awhile while sitting in the spot where he last stood in my home and said goodbye to him again. Probably not for the last time.  Some people will never ever leave you completely.  They are too much a part of your life to ever be forgotten. Nelson is one of those people for me and now there is a part of him sitting on my altar.  

I want to express my heartfelt thanks again to Denise, Honey & Stan for that and the other gifts.  To Brett for his love, patience and understanding and to Shibaricon for being a safe space & container to hold everything that came up for me last weekend. I am still  trying to decide if I want to keep those ashes in the box, or release them somewhere or keep some and release the rest or what. Way too much feeling there still … time will tell and in the meantime.. I am going to go work out for a bit.

Shibaricon VI was amazing and as someone who has attended every year since its inception I can honestly say that this event gets better every year!

This was the largest gathering yet with over 600 attendees and 40 instructors teaching more than 90 classes over 4 days. There were all sorts of special events throughout the weekend and of course 3 great nights of dungeon play.

Did we have fun? Hell yeah! I will stop back soon with some more details .. I am still catching up on my sleep and mail and unpacking etc.

I have been taking a 6 month sabbatical from teaching to rest and catch my breath after the last couple of years of insanity on “the circuit”. Travel is simply not as much fun as it used to be and it can get pretty crazy packing, traveling, teaching, playing, travelling, unpacking, and starting all over again several weekends a month so I guess I got a bit burned out from it all, so I decided to just take a nice long rest.

But spring is in the air (even if that air is pretty cold & wet today) and I have several classes and event upcoming in the next 2 months that warrant a mention.  First up, next weekend I will be in New Hampshire teaching two private edge play classes for my friend Dez and the awesome folks of “Darkstone”. I will be doing my “Breath and Blood Flow Play” class and “Needle Play: Basics and Beyond”, then staying over for a private play party and coming back home Easter Sunday.

Next week, I am once again doing a “hands-on, clothes-on bondage class” for the bright young students of Vassar college sponsored by CHOICE. Their mission statement is as follows:  

CHOICE :  (Campus Health Organization for Information, Contraception and Education) 

“Our mission is to educate the campus about sexual health issues by distributing information about pregnancy, STIs, and contraception and to help to promote safer sex by providing free condoms, latex gloves, dental dams, and lubricant. We are a confidential and non-judgmental organization.  We believe that safer sex and sexual health education are integral to creating a sexually healthy and informed student body at Vassar.”

I love that Vassar is so progressive and allows the students to have such a fabulous and helpful organization! They also have a campus porn magazine called “Squirm” and it is really well done!

Anyway, I have quite a few birthdays to contend with in early to mid May and then my sweetheart and I will be heading off to Chicago for the better part of a week to attend my absolute favorite event of the year!

I know I have mentioned Shibaricon here before but if you like rope bondage and haven’t been to this amazing event you need to stop what you are doing right now and click this link to visit their site.  Shibaricon (Go on. I’ll wait) Time is running out to register so get moving! More info follows: 

Shibaricon
May 22-25,2009
Chicago, IL USA

Have you registered yet? Time is running out!

You’ve seen the announcements… you know the drill… here’s the recap…

4 days filled with over 85 classes by some of the best rope educators around including Lee Harrington, Claire Adams, Lochai, Sir C, Mike West, M. Yu, Taipan, Mark DV8 House, Jay Wiseman, Dov, Tatu, Scott Smith, Graydancer and many more! Please check shibaricon.com for details and schedule updates.

Vendor Mall where you can buy rope, toys, corsets, shoes and equipment.

3 nights of play in our fully equipped space, including equipment by Bonds of Steel.

Special events including a meet & greet Thursday night where you can meet presenters & get to know your fellow attendees, Opening & Closing Ceremonies hosted by Psychokitty, a performance by Mike West and Graydancer’s Cabaret.

Our home is a beautiful hotel near O’Hare airport with great amenities, a friendly service oriented staff, free airport shuttle and much more. For those of you looking forward to taking a few hours to shop at IML, our hotel is located walking distance from the train to downtown Chicago.

Day Passes are available but they must be purchased before registration closes. The hotel is filling up and registration closes soon. Don’t be left out! Please go to shibaricon.com and click the registration and venue links for details.

Join us for a fantastic weekend filled with education, fun and friendship. Come find out why Shibaricon has become the can’t-miss event for so many rope lovers from all over the world. Check shibaricon.com for details and updates. We hope to see you there!

Thanks,
Diana & The Shibaricon Team

The Shibaricon website was newly updated today to include the current Instructor Roster! I am delighted to see so many of the presenters and fellow rope artists that I already know and adore listed and I scurried over to start making a list of the classes I want to attend when I am not busy teaching three of my own. Speaking of which this year I am teaching: Ecstatic Breath Workshop, Swiss Seat Suspension, and The Joys of Flying Low.  More info can be found on these classes on my presenter page.

One of a Kind Event -

I am very much looking forward to this event as always.. but this year especially.  The last couple of years I have attended and presented at a LOT of events including: Dark Odyssey Winter Fire & Summer Camp, Leather Retreat, Thunder in the Mountains, South East Leather Fest, Kinky Kollege, Sinsations in Leather, Folsom Fringe, Floating World, and Black Rose as well as numerous smaller local events. (Yeah I definitely get around).  Well, through it all I can honestly say that my absolute favorite event has always been and is still Shibaricon! 

Why you ask? It’s simple… I LOVE rope and I ADORE rope people!! Rope people are a different breed of kinkster and while they are as diverse as any group I have ever encountered I have often found common threads that attract me to them.  Rope lovers tend to be artists at heart which often draws them to this amazing art form.  I also find that rope lovers tend to “get it” when it comes to things like sharing erotic energy, and spiritual connection. 

Rope Community - I feel a sense of community among rope people that I don’t feel nearly as strongly anywhere else and I can truthfully say that I have met and grown to love many of my favorite scene people at Shibaricon.  Lee (formerly Bridget) Harrington connected and played at the first SC and I still vividly remember how hot and sexy that scene was for me. I also met my dear friends Lochai  and his adorable wife Janice at the first SC as well as Jimmi Tatu, Shevah, David and Chelah who I was thrilled to do my chandelier suspension with! She looked so lovely and I got many wonderful compliments on the work. :) 

I also have gotten to know Mark Yu who I love to bottom to because he is such a creative, and wicked but uniquely knowledgeable sadist. Oh and his partner Jeana is a doll baby! Oh My God so many others!  Dov   my birthday brother, (we share the same birthday and year, cool huh?), GrayDancer (author and infamous “Ropecast”er), Leon & Cherry, Mick & Dee Luvbight,( Taipan, Lady Gold, beautiful Punzel, David Lawrence (who has another book coming out soon that I can’t wait to order) and slave judy, Mark, Lani and Aleni of DV8 House, (love them all)!

Register Today! -

With the economy being as slow as it is these days money has gotten tight all over.  I have decided to cut way down on what events I will attend in 09 at least, in fact as of right now… Shibaricon is the only event I have comited to present at.  I have joked in the past that it is like the annual pilgrimage to Mecca for rope lovers but honestly for me it is more like the family reunion that I wouldn’t want to miss and look forward to year after year.  If you are considering attending Shibaricon and need someone to tell you it is worth it.. then consider this a rave endorsement and send in your registration.  I love meeting new family and I will see you there!!   

Shibaricon!

If you think you might be going .. this is the time to do it:  

REGISTER BEFORE 12/31/08 TO GET THE CURRENT EARLY REGISTRATION RATE OF $155.00!

Many from AZ, CA, FL, GA, IA, IL, IN, KY, MA, MD, MN, MO, NC, NJ, NV, NY, OH, OR, UT, VA, WA, WI and Canada have already taken advantage of our early registration discounts.  Registration will be limited.  Don’t miss out!

4 DAYS OF CLASSES, 3 NIGHTS OF PLAY, SHOPPING, FUN, EDUCATION & FRIENDSHIP!

Shibaricon is the world’s premier annual exhibition and conference that focuses on education and information exchange among lovers of rope bondage. Shibaricon has become a treasured retreat where rope lovers from all over the world come together as a supportive community, learn new skills, and experience the joy of using those new skills to enhance relationships, both new and old.

This year’s instructor lineup will include:

Lee Harrington, Jimi Tatu, M. Yu, Mike West, Lochai. Jay Wiseman, Tony Buff, DogTrainer1974, Mark DV8 House, Mick & Dee Luvbight, Graydancer, Dov, Sir C, Punzel, Morpheous, BossBondage, LadyGold, Suzanne SxySadist, and many, many more!  Check http://www.shibaricon.com for more details on the presenter lineup and class schedule in the next couple of months.  Shibaricon will offer over 85 classes in 7 concurrent sessions over 4 days.  Whether you are a rope bondage beginner or a seasoned rigger Shibaricon will have something for you!

Shibaricon is produced by lovers of rope, for lovers of rope. We welcome you to join us to experience the magic created when so many rope lovers come together. Please join us in 2009 and make the 6th Annual Shibaricon the best yet!

LEARN     EXPERIENCE     SHARE

http://www.shibaricon.com

SHIBARICON

MAY 22-25, 2009

CHICAGO, IL  USA

I got the following email from Diana that the website is up and they have already started advance registration for my personal favorite event of the year: Shibaricon!  I only plan to present at a handful of events in 2009 and Shibaricon is one of them!  Check out her email for more info:

Hello Rope Lovers,

Please check out our recently updated site http://www.shibaricon.com

Shibaricon 2009
May 22-25, 2009
Chicago, IL USA

Register before 12/31/08 to take advantage of the early registration
rate of $155.00!

4 DAYS OF CLASSES
Whether you are a novice or advanced rigger Shibaricon has something
for you! Over 4 days, attendees will have access to more than 80
classes taught best instructors around including Mark Yu, Mike West,
Jimi Tatu, Lee Harrington, DogTrainer1974 of www.meninrope.com,
Lochai, Mark of DV8 House, Sir C, Dov, Suzanne SxySadist, LadyGold,
Tony Buff and too many more to list. Check out
http://www.shibaricon.com for detailed presenter information in the
coming months.

3 EVENINGS OF PLAY
Practice your newly learned rope skills in our fully-equipped play
space until 3:00am for 3 consecutive nights!

VENDOR MALL
Shibaricon will have a great selection of vendors selling all sorts
of kinky goodies including rope, toys, corsets, shoes and much, much more!

Please join us for what will be a wonderful weekend of education, fun
& friendship.

Thanks,
Diana

Heard during opening ceremonies at Shibaricon as told by Graydancer (as best as I can recall anyway):

Question: How many riggers does it take to do a rope suspension?

Answer: 100 - one to do the tie  and ninety nine to say, “I can do that, but it isn’t shibari”

(Sadly there is a bit of truth to this joke as my next post shall soon reveal. In the meantime.. have a fabulous weekend all!)

My live in slave / roommate needed a bit of discipline today and I, having come fresh from Shibaricon, felt duly inspired to weave something aesthetically pleasing for myself.  So I rigged him into a pretty little chest tie, pulled him initially into a partial suspension and then shoved a big thick bamboo rod under his arms and then hoisted him up onto tip toe as I caned him!

Mmm, that was an absolutely delicious little snack for my sadistic demon and “slave t” has dutifully promised that the issue for which the discipline was necessary will not be an issue again.  Pretty, fun AND functional!! What could be better than that??!!

For this tie, I decided to christen two thirty foot lengths of flax that I bought from Madame Butterfly.  I had never worked with flax before and quite enjoyed it because it has a delightful blend of form and functional qualities that appeal to my own feminine and masculine tendencies.  I love when I do not have to sacrifice beautiful aesthetics and sensual indulgence for good old fashioned “get ‘er done” strength, durability and simplicity.

I found the flax to have a delicious blend of some of the things I love most about silk as well as the stuff I crave about hemp & jute, while being “good to go” right off the vending table! 

Perhaps I shall elaborate more on the aesthetics behind rope selection sometime soon as I think it would prove to be an interesting exploration for me on a few levels, but for the moment suffice it to say, that I was quite impressed yet again by Madame Butterfly’s wonderful rope.

Yes, it costs a bit more, but so do many of the best things in life, and while there may not be a lot of areas that I regularly indulge , develop or exercise a taste for “finer things,” I have learned to appreciate the difference that rope selection can make to a scene, even if I consciously appreciate those differences more so than the bottom.  I think there are times that those nuances are lost on a submissive who has no point of reference for comparison or one that tends to space out the moment the rope touches their flesh.  I may be doing a few of them a diservice by spoiling them with Madame’s silk, bamboo & flax but that is a risk I am more than happy to take. 

Speaking of Madame Butterfly, I had been an avid fan of her rope for quite sometime, I actually got to meet for the first time at SC08 and found her to be quite lovely and charming indeed! In fact, I quite enjoyed the sparkle in her eyes and have to admit I am curious about what it would be like to bottom in rope to her, but sadly the opportunity to express that to her did not arise at Shibaricon. (Ok the truth is maybe I was a bit chicken to ask her.)

Perhaps I shall have to make a point of dropping not too subtle hints to her the next time our paths cross and see if she has a mutual interest.  I may even point her to this blog entry the next time I call to get my next rope fix from her.  I can feel a bamboo  rope craving coming on. More soon!

So I spent a rainy morning lazing in bed, feeling grateful for a day off to totally relax but missing my sweetheart a bit.  I guess it is a good sign that I still miss him after spending seven days & nights together.  I think the saddest moment of the week for me was watching him crawl into a cab to head to his airport while I sat waiting for a shuttle bus to take me to mine.

Yeah I know I will see him again next weekend so it isn’t the end of the world, but it is hard sometimes to go from having him so close for so many days and then nothing.  I have grown very accustomed to being with him and I miss him when he goes home.  I love falling asleep in his arms and then waking up to find him pattering quietly about already placing a perfect cup of Earl Grey tea beside me.  It isn’t that he is a doting subbie boy that I love, in fact I don’t see him that way at all, but I do love the way he shows how much he cares for me in so many sweet little ways. 

More on that another day… for now .. let’s get back to “rope space” because I am also missing the camaraderie of my “rope clan”.  Shibaricon is without a doubt my favorite event of the year and there are many folks like Mark, & Lani (pictured below) and my friend Aleni of DV8 House Australia) that I only get to see  at this event. 

There were a ton of fabulous shots taken at the event by photographer David Lawrence and his lovely assistant and slave Judy.    He released a few photos to me including this one of me and my sweetheart taken early in the weekend.

As for making connections, this year I was especially glad to make the acquaintance of the Two Knotty Boys who made it to Shibaricon for the first time! If you have been into bondage for more than a week and have ever searched for bondage vids on Youtube you know who Dan & JD are! I was thrilled to have Dan stop by my Low Flying Suspension Class and tell me how much he enjoyed it and then later on at a presenter meeting I made a point of thanking them for their videos because I do truly admire and appreciate the effort that they put into them.  I also respect the fact they they are providing quality bondage material to 1000s of people that would not otherwise have access to it.  Check out some of their awesome videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/2KnottyBoys

I am also really glad that I got to spend more time with Leon & his lovely assistant Cherry.  I have seen them in the halls and in passing almost every one of my seven trips to Chicago and never really had the opportunity to visit and get to know them but this time we finally  an opportunity to head out of the hotel and grab a bite together. 

I also got to sit down and chat to Max of BondageLessons.com  over a strawberry daiquiri at the end of the event and found him to be a very charming man as well. He extended an invitation to Seattle that I am going to work on taking him up on hopefully in the next year or so.  I have heard fabulous things about his classes and as much as I know about bondage I never tire of watching another artist at work and I simply love picking up tips and tricks from fellow rope enthusiasts.  

Which is exactly why I love Shibaricon so much!  Rope lovers from all over the world come to Chicago to share their passion and their expertise with each other!  But don’t take my word for it .. check out what some of my fellow presenters and rope loving Mistress’ had to say: 

GrayDancer - http://www.graydancer.com/2008/05/28/the-most-important-thing-at-shibaricon/

Mark Yu - http://jadegate.blogspot.com/ (several posts from May 21 - on)

Troy Orleans - http://troyorleans.blogspot.com/2008/05/shibaricon-afterglow.html

Mistress Yin - http://mistressyin.livejournal.com/47977.html

And David’s Banner: