Vik & Gala - I Know How to Tie, Now What?

A rich shibari practice begins with technique, but requires nuance and intention to deepen. Once patterns and structures become familiar, it’s easy to hit a plateau and ask ourselves: Now What?

This workshop is designed for those who already have the foundations and want to move past just executing ties. Together we’ll explore how, beyond technique, we can create our own language for communication, expression, and creativity with ropes. Rather than reproducing what we’ve seen others do, we will work towards discovering our own way of tying, a way that reflects our own perspective, values and story.

Throughout the weekend, we will use improvisation as a practical tool to develop adaptability. Every body, every partner, and every moment presents different possibilities, and we can take them as new opportunities for inspiration. Rather than following predetermined sequences, we will, in different exercises, practice observing, responding, and creating in real time, allowing inspiration to emerge naturally through connection rather than choreography.

Workshop Content

We’ll begin by revisiting the essential structures and principles that allow confident improvisation. When the technical aspects require less conscious attention, we gain the freedom to focus on the experience itself. From there, we will explore the elements that give a session depth and meaning. We will discuss the importance of intention in our practice, the why behind every decision we make with the rope, and how our personal approach shapes every interaction.

In addition, we will discuss our personal approach to aesthetics and composition, and how we tie for our own visual pleasure. Not as rigid rules, but as ways of developing (or just as another glimpse of inspiration) our own individual artistic voice without forgetting the photography part.

Throughout the workshop, there will be a focus on storytelling and how sessions can develop their own narrative. We will investigate how the rhythm, tension and our own mood and experiences influence the session. We’ll examine what it means to create experiences that are true to ourselves and reflect our journey from beginning to end. Time, space, and distance will be used as creative tools. The way we move around our partner, the pauses we take, the physical and emotional distance we create, and the relationship between rigger and bottom all contribute to the atmosphere, mood, and result of the scene.

This workshop is about finding what Gala likes to call: “your own voice”, moving beyond technique to create more meaningful experiences without forgetting the technique that, in the end, is what makes us safe, but without ending up stuck in it.

Vik & Gala

Vik and Gala are a couple from Barcelona. They have done ropes together for more than 4 years. Vik started exploring both roles in ropes before finding his preference for the rigger side, while Gala started bottoming until she discovered her curiosity for tying both others and herself. Both have learned from local and international teachers. For them, rope is a tool to explore, discover and express their feelings and highlight them. They found simplicity and intricacy in a style that enhances the beauty of the body and emotions, simple in appearance but with a great purpose, intention, complexity and intensity. Through their way of tying, they both exemplify a mixture of darkness, strength, delicacy, eroticism, closeness, power and more primal instincts. They have had the opportunity to do performances or, as they prefer to call them, live sessions with an audience, both locally and internationally, as well as professional photo and video shoots. They have also been invited to Milan to participate in the Kinbaku Lab research group and, both as riggers, created the Kinbaku Lab Barcelona along with other riggers and bottoms. For several years now, they have been focused on sharing Kinbaku professionally, both in international workshops and at the studio they are running together, Shizen Studio Barcelona.