Playful Semisuspensions

… you have solid rope fundamentals and want to explore the space between floor and suspension.

… you’re drawn to movement, balance, and dynamic play rather than fixed patterns.

… you want to understand how small changes in tension, timing, and direction transform a tie.

… you’d rather adapt and combine tools to create your own interactions than follow choreography.

… you enjoy challenge and play while keeping your partner at the center of the experience.

This workshop is accessible to different experience levels, but you’re expected to have solid rope fundamentals: single-column ties, double-column ties, frictions, counter-tension, and kannuki.

If you attended the Saturday workshop (Easy Ties on the Floor), you’re welcome to continue into Sunday. The two days build on each other naturally.

Semisuspensions offer a huge playground between floor work and suspension, allowing us to use tension, gravity, movement, and changing body positions while maintaining a strong connection with our partner.

In this workshop, we’ll explore a series of floor-based exercises incorporating uplines and partial suspension. Rather than focusing on complex patterns or technically demanding sequences, we’ll use relatively simple structures to discover different ways of playing with our partner’s body, balance, movement, and possibilities.

We will explore how small changes in tension, positioning, direction, and timing can completely transform a tie and the experience it creates. We will also work with elements of body handling and body manipulation, offering additional tools for creating fluid, dynamic, and playful interactions between the floor and the ropes.

Throughout the workshop, we’ll pay particular attention to our fundamentals and how we approach semisuspensions: rope handling, line management, body mechanics, positioning, communication, and awareness of our partner. The aim is not simply to execute the exercises, but to understand how these tools can be adapted and combined to create our own interactions.

Participants will be encouraged to experiment, play, and respond to their partner rather than following predetermined choreography.
The goal is to discover how simple semisuspensions can open up a wide range of possibilities for movement, connection, challenge, and play while keeping the interaction with our partner at the center of the experience.

11.50 am: arrival and open doors

12-6pm:  workshop including breaks

Exact break times will be set on the day and depend on the group.

Barcelona-based Vik (Victor) and Gala are the founders of Shizen Studio, where rope becomes a practice of trust, awareness, and careful attention to another person. Their work in Japanese rope bondage moves between the meditative and the dynamic, always grounded in the connection between the two people sharing the rope.

We, the Refugium founders, met them through a performance in Switzerland that left a lasting impression, and after taking a private course with them, we knew we wanted to bring their approach to our community.

On this second day, they turn to semisuspensions — where technique and know-how matter more, and where their emphasis on fundamentals, body mechanics, and partner awareness really comes into its own. It’s the more advanced of the two days, and it reflects the depth of experience Vik & Gala bring to their teaching.

• Early Bird (until 30 September): 160 € per pair
  Regular (from 1 October): 175 € per pair

On Saturday, Vik and Gala will show Easy Ties on the Floor for Play and Sex.

If you want to attend both days, you can buy a combi ticket:

• Early Bird Combo (both days): 280 € per pair
• Regular Combo (both days): 300 € per pair

Prices are per pair, including one active Rigger and one Bunny.
Minimum 6 pairs for the workshop to take place. Deadline is November 9th.

Secure your spot now and write us an email to info@refugium-aschaffenburg.de.

See here for details about payment and registration.

• a set of 8 ropes incl. scissors
• comfortable clothes

• Workshop language is English with no translation provided
• Registration is per practice pair, with one actively tying person and one being tied
• The location is not barrier-free.

Saturday evening performance
Vik & Gala might round off Saturday with a live rope performance (around 45 minutes) at the Refugium. It’s still a tentative idea. We’ll go ahead if enough people want to see it. If a live performance by the two of them sounds like something you’d enjoy, mention it when you sign up so we can gauge interest.