Last weekend, tucked away behind Bethnal Green station, Garry Vanderhorne’s Resistance Gallery played host to the first Japanese Bondage Festival. The four day event was a celebration of the traditional Japanese art of “the beauty of tight bondage”, Kinbaku.

Kinbaku developed from Hojōjutsu, the martial art of restraint, which was essentially early Japanese lawmen’s handcuffs. They would tie or wrap their subject depending on the gravity of the charges against them. If the charges against you were yet to be proven you were spared complete bondage, being merely wrapped in rope. Guilty as charged and it was knots to you. To be bound was a dishonour worse than death. In the early twentieth century Ito Seiu began to investigate the kinky potential of the practice and Kinbaku was born.

Don’t Panic caught up with Kinbaku master, Nawashi Murakawa to find out more.

Hi there Murakawa, what is your background in the art?

I’ve been doing this 18 years now. I’m the grandee, the old one.

I lived with a Japanese girl... a long time ago. It just changed my life, my way of thinking. It wasn’t through her that I discovered any of this but something changed in me. Through this woman I learnt about the Japanese way of life.

I started going to Torture Garden 18 years ago, very early days. It helped give me a sense of direction. You need to find your path. But then I sort of settled into a simple Japanesy sort of lifestyle. I live a very simple life. I don’t drive. I’m not materialistic. I’m not religious, but I am spiritual. Japan for me is a sort of spiritual home.

Where do you think this fits in with spirituality?

It’s a part of the shame culture. The Japanese come from a very ordered society. Like termites. In Tokyo, there are 40 million people. People live in small spaces - privacy is hard to find. So they have learnt to live together in a very organised way. Shame culture is a control mechanism and this is a part of it. It’s linked to martial arts as well. Even komodo is bondage. It’s a thing that runs through their society.

Control?

It’s about nature controlled. Like a Japanese garden, it isn’t natural. It’s exquisitely beautiful, clipped, contorted and trained. It’s nothing like an English garden. They love nature but their idea of nature is a very stylized version. It’s all linked to bondage. It’s a mindset.