OttersSwim -> The Japanese Tea Ceremony (3/25/2009 7:22:43 AM)
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My Lady and I had the privilege of attending the Cherry Blossom Festival at our local BDSM club, The Enclave, this past weekend. The weekend was really wonderful and was hosted by WiCK'D, and the guests were Midori and Madame Butterfly. If you are not familiar with them, Miss Midori is a nationally know rope artist and sex educator, and Madame Butterfly makes the most wonderful hand spun silk and bamboo Shibari ropes...and she knows and teaches the traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony with a BDSM twist. [;)] I and several other students were lucky to be able to spend five hours with Madame Butterfly learning the basics of the tea ceremony on Saturday and it was really quite fun! It is a wonderfully intricate ceremony and people study it for years and years. I am a total sucker for ritual and ceremony. In five hours though, I was able to learn enough to be able to conduct a reasonably accurate short version for my Lady and her friends. I am very excited about it! It seems a perfect fit with submission. The really fun part of it is that the ceremony is typically conducted by people wearing kimonos. When you move in a kimono, you move differently - your steps are shorter, you have large sleeves, etc. We did not have kimonos, but Madame Butterfly did a wonderful shibari leg harness on each of the students that made you mimic the movements of actually wearing a kimono. So a traditional ceremony with a BDSM twist. Kneeling on a hard surface with restrictive ropes around your legs...YUM! We got to do a demo that evening on the main stage and I got to be the host and put in practice what I had learned that day. Much fun! I have spent the last several days putting my notes into a detailed outline of the ceremony, and have commissioned a potter friend to make us several of the components - tea bowl, cold water pot, waste water pot. The other implements are had quite reasonably on ebay. There are books that describe and teach the ceremony as well, and there are sites on the internet that give a reasonably accurate portrayal, plus youtube vids and other resources. One of the best out there is wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_tea_ceremony. and http://www.japanesegardening.org/reference/chaji.html If you want to just see the ceremony done hollywood-style, there is a scene from one of the Karate Kid movies where his love interest conducts a ceremony for him. Quite beautiful I thought - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzeGcl3BNJ4 I hope to use the ceremony as a way for my Lady and I to interact in ritual with new and established friends in the lifestyle. My Lady's playspace has enough room where we can do the whole thing! I am all about this right now, so if anyone wants to discuss, or share experiences or information, I would love to have you share! [:)]
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