Rope Bottoming for suspensions

This article is part of a series of advice for rope bottoms, written by Mya and Fox. We’ve been doing rope intensively for 10 years. Mya has bottomed with a wide variety of rope tops, and Fox has worked as a top with many rope bottoms.

For many people who start bottoming in rope, suspension has a strange mythic glow around it.

It’s easy to understand why. Suspensions can look breathtaking. They can create dramatic shapes, strong sensations, and the feeling of doing something almost impossible from the outside. For some bottoms, flying in rope becomes one of the great joys of their rope life.

But suspension is not the “real one true rope” that everyone must eventually graduate into.

It is more intense, more demanding on the body, more painful for many people, and more likely to cause injury than most floor rope. It asks more of the rigger, more of the equipment, more of the space, and absolutely more of the bottom’s communication and self-awareness.

Some bottoms try suspension a few times and decide it is not for them. Some never want to try it at all. That’s completely valid. You can have a rich, beautiful, connective, playful, erotic, artistic rope life without ever leaving the floor.

Suspension is an option, not an obligation.

Why suspension can feel so compelling

Suspension changes the whole experience of rope. When the floor disappears, gravity becomes part of the scene in a much more obvious way. Your weight is no longer quietly handled by the ground. It is carried by rope, harnesses, uplines, your own body positioning, and the competence of the person tying you.

It tends to draw a lot of attention at parties, and to be used by tops as a flashy way to demonstrate their skills. The vast majority of Shibari performances center on suspensions. This has contributed to this misconception in rope communities that suspension is a logical and inevitable thing to progress towards for both tops and bottoms.

Before trying it, you may imagine it as pleasantly and gracefully floating on a cloud.

You might find that it’s a bit harsher than that when faced with reality.

Don’t rush toward it

One of the most useful things a newer bottom can do is build experience before full suspension.

Floor rope teaches you what rope pressure feels like, how your body reacts to compression, how you communicate when uncomfortable, and whether you tend to go spacey, quiet, eager to please, or stubbornly silent.

Partial suspension is another important step. Having some of your weight held by rope is different from lying on the floor with rope on you. It gives you a chance to learn what loaded rope feels like without committing your whole body to the air.

That gradual progression matters because suspension can make everything happen faster. A pressure point that is only mildly annoying on the floor may become urgent when loaded. A tie that felt exciting in theory may become overwhelming when your feet leave the ground.

Readiness is not just bravery

Wanting suspension badly does not automatically mean you are ready for it.

Readiness includes body awareness. Can you usually tell when a sensation is just intense versus when something feels wrong? Can you connect with your body and confidently tell how it’s doing in the moment? Can you judge whether the rope needs to move, loosen, come off, or simply be monitored?

Readiness includes communication. Can you speak up before the situation becomes desperate? If rope makes you nonverbal, have you negotiated another system? Can you safeword or otherwise stop a scene even when you are deep in rope space?

Readiness includes risk awareness. Do you understand that suspension increases the seriousness of falling risks, nerve injury risks, breathing issues? Do you know that injuries can happen even when people are careful?

Start simple

Your first suspensions don’t need to be dramatic. In fact, it’s probably better if they aren’t.

A good first suspension is often simple, low, well-supported, easy to reverse, and short in duration. The goal is not to create the most spectacular photo of your life. The goal is to learn what it feels like when your body is fully carried by rope.

Being two inches off the ground gives you much of the physical and psychological information of being suspended five feet above it – you’re receiving the same amount of weight on the ropes at any altitude. It doesn’t need to be high to “count.” If something slips or fails, the difference between falling a few centimeters and falling from height is very practical.

Support matters too. For early suspensions, many bottoms do better with major weight-bearing areas involved: chest harness, hip harness, thigh support, or other broad structures that distribute load across several of the more robust areas of the body. A single ankle or dramatic minimal tie may be possible, but “possible” is not the same thing as a sensible starting point.

Ask practical questions

Suspension places serious demands on the person tying. They need to understand how the body will move when loaded, how the center of gravity will shift, how the tie may change once your full weight is in it, and what to do if the suspension system jams.

They also need an emergency plan.

Can they get you out of full suspension quickly? That doesn’t mean cutting every rope (cutting is rarely a good way down from suspensions). Often the immediate goal is simply to get your full body weight no longer hanging from the lines: lowering a leg, sliding a stool underneath, asking for a helper to step in and support you, or changing a full suspension back into a partial.

Cutting tools - despite their narrower range of applicability - should be present, be accessible, and be familiar. “Somewhere in the bag” is not an emergency plan. Neither is owning safety shears that nobody has ever practiced using.

As a bottom, it is reasonable to ask: how will we come down if something goes wrong? Where are the shears? What kind of hardpoint are we using? How experienced are you with this tie? What will you need from me?

Suspension is not only about rope skill. It’s also about the physical environment.

The rope itself needs to be appropriate for suspension. Old, damaged, unsuitable, too-thin, or stretchy rope can create additional risk. The hardpoint also matters enormously. Do not treat a random ceiling hook as trustworthy because it looks sturdy. Suspension points need to be installed, rated, or assessed by someone who genuinely understands load and structure. You may want to develop enough knowledge to assess a hardpoint yourself before you agree to hang from it, or to rely on the opinion of someone you truly trust quite far. And no, it’s not automatically safe if the rigger lifts themselves up and hangs from it for a few seconds.

The area around you matters too. A suspended body can swing. If there is a pole, table edge, wall, tree, candle, light stand, speaker, ant nest, or pile of rope nearby, your body may find it (and yes, this weirdly specific list IS a result of our experience). Clear the space. Manage trip hazards. Think about where your head could go if you rotate unexpectedly.

Bottoming in suspension is active

Suspension bottoming often asks for more participation than people expect.

You may need to shift your weight, press into a rope, soften one part of the body while engaging another, point a foot, rotate a hip, breathe through pain, or communicate tiny but important changes. You may learn that moving three centimeters changes everything.

The more experience you gain, the more you may learn which kinds of pain you can ride, which sensations need adjustment, which positions suit your body, and which are simply not worth it for you. That knowledge becomes part of your bottoming skill set.

Suspension does not require you to become a professional athlete. But your body state matters.

Eat enough that you are not shaky, but probably not so much that inversions or waist pressure become miserable. Hydrate, especially in hot climates or venues with poor airflow. Use the bathroom before you go up. Once you are in suspension, coming down will not be instant, and needing to pee the entire time is not a spiritual experience most people need.

Warm up in a way that fits the scene. If a position will ask a lot of your shoulders, hips, back, or legs, don’t treat those body parts as an afterthought. If you have a cranky shoulder, an old knee injury, asthma, dizziness, circulation issues, or anything else relevant, say so before the rope begins.

Suspension will not politely avoid the parts of your body you forgot to mention.

Speak before it becomes urgent

If you wait until you cannot bear it anymore, you still have to bear the time it takes to come down. That may be a minute. It may be several. It may feel much longer if your body is already screaming.

So give information while there is still room to use it: “I can stay here, but not long.” “My right foot is going numb.” “This feels like circulation issues, not nerve impingement.” “This is getting too intense emotionally.” “I need to come down in the next two minutes.”

It can also be too much, too painful, too scary, too risky, too logistically complicated, or simply not appealing. You are allowed to decide that floor rope is where your joy lives. You are allowed to love partials and skip full suspensions. You are allowed to try suspension once and never again. You are allowed to want it badly and still take your time.

If you do choose to suspend, do it deliberately. Build experience. Choose partners carefully. Ask practical questions. Start simple. Stay close to the ground at first. Speak early. Come down when you need to. Take care of your body afterwards.

Rope suspension is not the final exam of bottoming. It is one possible form of rope: intense, beautiful, risky, demanding, and for some people, utterly worth it.

Approach it with curiosity, caution, and self-respect. Then, if flying turns out to be part of your rope life, let it be because you chose it with your whole informed self - not because anyone told you that a rope bottom has to leave the ground to be real.

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