Groundwork

What is groundwork?

Groundwork is the collective name for every rope tie laid without a suspension point, with the tied person sitting, kneeling or lying down. The rope holds the shape while the floor, a bed or a chair carries the weight. It is where people learn to tie, and where by far the most rope play also stays. Groundwork is also known as floorwork.

Why groundwork is the learning ladder

Because every skill that matters in rope can be practiced on the ground, and a mistake there is not a fall. Tension first: how much pull a wrap needs to stay put without biting into the skin. Then placement, then pulling free under load. Looking good comes last.

How riggers actually learn this is written up in no study. It is a habit of the scene: peer rope, rope jams and workshops, where someone shows you and another corrects you before you try it at home. On the ground an evening like that can fall apart without any consequences.

That groundwork also stays the ordinary level can be measured. Rehor put 126 acts to 1,580 women from the kink community. Light restraint, the kind you can still get out of, came up for 82.5 percent and moderate restraint for 82.9 percent; being fully immobilized for 55.0 percent. Suspension was not on that list, so the study says nothing about it. What it does show: ordinary rope work is modest rope work.

Why many riggers deliberately stay on the ground

Because on the ground a whole class of things that can go wrong simply does not exist.

Where rope work has gone wrong in the past, the same three things kept coming together: a hanging structure, rope that ended up on the neck, and nothing within reach to cut with. That is no reason to avoid rope, but it is the reason suspension asks for experience and a professional approach.

The first two of those three simply do not exist in groundwork. You are not hanging, so there is nothing that can come to hang, and rope should stay off the neck anyway.

What you get in return is time. I am Victor, twenty-five years into BDSM, and with me rope usually gets no further than sitting or lying down. On the ground there is simply room to stay in one shape for half an hour.

Groundwork is not safe by default. Nerves do not notice whether you are hanging, and that story is told on floorwork.

What to watch for

Lay out shears or a safety knife before the first rope goes on, not once something is already tied. Keep rope off the neck. Do not walk away, not even for a moment.

Where this fits on this site

Want to try rope without having to be able to do anything yourself? That belongs with a BDSM date. That page sets out what we agree beforehand and where an evening like that usually ends up.

Sources

• Sensual, Erotic, and Sexual Behaviors of Women from the “Kink” Community. Jennifer Eve Rehor, Archives of Sexual Behavior 44(4), 825–836, 2015. Questionnaire study of 1,580 women from the kink community across 126 acts. It provides the percentages for light restraint (82.53 percent), moderate restraint (82.91 percent) and full immobilization (55.00 percent) in the “doing to and/or done to you” column, and the finding that participants had on average done 57.72 of the 126 acts.

Related terms

• Floorwork. The same rope work under the other name, with the risk difference between ground and suspension included.
• Bondage. The wider concept that groundwork is the most common form of.
• Asanawa. The hemp rope this work is usually done with.
• Bight. The loop nearly every tie on the ground begins with.
• Friction. The lock learned on the ground that comes back everywhere after.
• Gote shibari. The tie most groundwork arrives at.
• Futomomo. The leg tie that fixes the posture on the ground.
• Shibari. The Japanese rope tradition in which groundwork is the usual working form.
• Suspension. The counterpart, where the rope does carry all the weight.
• Rigger. The one who lays it, whether on the ground or in the air.