Sam Jay & Zero-Gi – Announcing presenters
Sam Jay (he/him) and Zero-Gi (she/her) are best known for bringing rope bondage to great heights, from skyscrapers to high fashion. They have made a splash through their iconic NYC Street Shibari project and without-a-net high-altitude urbex suspensions, giving them a unique perspective on suspension safety and dynamic risk management. Across New York and worldwide, they are also known for bringing jaw-dropping stunts, rip-roaring energy, feats of endurance, and breakneck speed to the stage, everywhere from Torture Garden and Dances of Vice fetish balls to Burning Man, underground raves, art festivals, intimate salons, destination resorts, off-Broadway shows, and television. They’ve been teaching and performing together internationally since 2020, but the dirty secret is that it’s really all about the hot ties at home with an audience of one.
Before joining forces in 2018, Sam Jay picked up strong fundamentals from 2011 to 2017 in the Osada-ryu-based Melbourne Rope Dojo, where he was one of the first five students. In 2017, he decided to tie partners rather than to tie styles, and that has made all the difference. Zero-Gi caught the rope bug in 2017, and while she owes a great deal to rich education in a diversity of tying styles from tops, bottoms, switches, and self-suspenders worldwide, she has always rooted her core practice in dedicated solo study, challenging assumptions, interrogating standard forms, and eventually developing and crash testing new ties on her own body first. Together, Sam Jay and Zero-Gi have continually pushed the envelope on a global stage, from single toe suspensions and death-defying heights to popular new ties, techniques, signature transition sequences, inclusive adaptations, and dogma-ditching expansion of the standard rope repertoire.
Find out more at their Instagram @samjay_nyc_ and @zero_gi_nyc.
Workshops
The Thighbinder
(Workshop level: L3)
Zero-Gi and Sam Jay teach their signature single-point suspendable Thighbinders, a popular tie they developed to be more supportive than thigh cuffs, but also to be more versatile and dynamic than futomomos or gunslinger harnesses. These ties are particularly appealing for those with sensitive shins and/or nervy hips, as they can replace futomomo or gunslinger-style leg ties in nearly every application. When properly constructed, and dependent on the model, these can be fully suspendable as single points. This class is excellent for both partnered and solo rope enthusiasts with ample suspension experience, or intermediate folks building their toolkit of suspendable harnesses on the ground. Safety, risks, and best applications will be covered along with evolutions and variations.
Bring your suspension kit and equipment if you’re experienced flyers, or just a couple of ropes if you’re keeping it earth-bound. People being suspended should not wear slippery leggings, and those with ample sensitive leg hair may want to wear shorts or pants that cover most of their thighs.
Requirements: Be able to confidently and competently suspend solo or partnered from single point inversions (if suspending).
Getting The Drop On – Flips, Rolls, Saltos & Dives
(Workshop level: L3)
Whether we’re tying for an audience of hundreds or just one, there are plenty of reasons we gravitate toward dynamic transition sequences. While we live for the thrill, we have also taken great pains to make sure we live to tie again another day, and we love sharing our secret sauce. In this crash course, learn about the rigging, body mechanics and aerial kinesiology of our approach to dives, flips, rolls, and more, with discussion and demos for multiple categories of drops. Then, we will put these concepts to the test as we guide you through our favorite aerial barrel roll drop from face up to gyaku ebi. It’s an embarrassment of intel and a barrel of fun whether or not you take the tumble yourself (prereqs apply to fly).
Bring your standard suspension kit and choice of ring, rigging plate, and/or carabiners if you and your tying partner meet our flight checklist and want to try the drop for yourselves.
Requirements: Participation in our drop practical is for tying partners who already have solid education and experience with standard suspension transitions, but participation is not required to observe.
Neo-Agura Studies – Modular, Shinless & Beyond
(Workshop level: L1-3)
What is your all-purpose agura pattern doing for you? We have put standard cross-legged ties under thorough cross-examination, interrogated the myth of the one-size-fits-all agura, and broken these forms down to their most basic functional elements. Explore how these building blocks come together and apart on the ground or in the air for a truly custom-tailored approach to tying en tailleur. Play to your creative goals, curiosities, interests, strengths, adaptive needs, and improvisatory styles with your partner or tying solo. Vital information will be provided throughout on many structural essentials, tradeoffs, risk profiles, modularity, and load points/angles for each variation shown, but guided lab time will allow you to share about specific needs or risks that are specific to you or your tying partner.
Requirements: All participants must all have a basic working knowledge of rope bondage risks and safety, and experience with essential building blocks like non-collapsing single column ties, frictions, lockoffs, and accurate tension & placement. Suspending participants should not be attempting their first or even their third agura-loading suspension.
AppeTIEzers – Our Favorite Scene-Starters and Warm-Up Ties
(Workshop level: L1-3)
Whether you’re sharing your first or thousandth tie together, these rope exercises are some of our most valuable tools for flirting with rope, calibrating to your partner, checking in, and finding your play headspace. We will practice mapping intent to interaction through each exercise using process-focused concepts including variations in pacing, distance, quality of touch, and body/rope handling. Some of these appeTIEzers are based on classics that have become favorites, and others we have developed through our years tying and co-tying together. Techniques draw from Japanese martial arts including aikido and hojojutsu, as well as our interpretations of other partnered movement practices.
