Glossary
Single column tie
The first tie everyone learns, and the only one where the misunderstanding is already in the name.
What is a single column tie?
Single column tie (Dutch: enkele kolomboei) is a rope tie around one column. A column is anything treated as one thing: a wrist, an ankle, an upper leg, a beam, or two wrists against each other with no rope between them. The tie has to stay put without pulling tighter. That last part is the whole task.
| In Dutch | enkele kolomboei |
| What “single” counts | the number of columns, not the number of limbs |
| Difference from the double column tie | there a cinch runs between two columns |
| Hard requirement | the loop must not travel with the load |
| Where it sits | in almost every tie: the gote shibari is, at its core, one too |
What a column exactly is
Not one arm. That is the misunderstanding in the name, and it is stubborn enough that a Western rope glossary opens its entry with it: do not let the name mislead you, because a single column tie can perfectly well go around wrists, ankles, or thighs at once. The skill is that you treat them as one column instead of separating them.
Why it must never cinch down
Because a loop that travels with the tension is not a tie but a noose. Sailors have known the difference for centuries. The bowline makes a loop that keeps its size under load; with exactly the same knot you also build a running bowline, a sliding loop that gets tighter the harder you pull. One strand laid differently, and the difference is that between a tie and a garrote.
The bare bowline, by the way, is not a good wrist tie, and that is instructive. The same encyclopedia names its weak spots: it works itself loose the moment it is not under tension, it shifts under sideways pull, and the loop can capsize. An arm in a rope scene does exactly that. Tension, no tension, sideways. That is why rope work turns on friction and wraps, and not on one clever knot.
How tight is too tight
Much sooner than it feels. Yueming Gao and colleagues lay out the measured thresholds in Neural Regeneration Research: at 20 to 30 mmHg the blood flow in the veins of a nerve is already disturbed, at 40 to 50 mmHg the flow through the arterioles and capillaries within the nerve stops, and at 60 to 80 mmHg the nerve’s blood supply falls away entirely.
Twenty mmHg is less than the pressure you pump a blood-pressure cuff to. You notice something like that not from a scream but from a tingle, and that tingle is the end of the tie and not a detail for later. That same source shows why haste helps: after a pressure that held for 75 minutes, the blood still flowed more slowly than normal once it was released.
Where this fits on this site
One tie around your wrists is enough for most women to notice what rope does to you, and it does not have to go further than that. How I build up such an evening and what we agree beforehand is on the page about the BDSM date.
Sources
- Changes in nerve microcirculation following peripheral nerve compression. Yueming Gao, Changshui Weng & Xinglin Wang, Neural Regeneration Research 8(11), 1041–1047, 2013 (PMID 25206398, open access via Europe PMC, full text read). Review article on ten years of research into the blood supply of compressed nerves. Provides the threshold values from Rydevik and colleagues. 20 to 30 mmHg affects the blood flow in the venules, 40 to 50 mmHg prevents the flow through arterioles and capillaries within the nerve bundle, 60 to 80 mmHg blocks the nerve’s blood supply entirely, and Matsumoto’s measurement that the blood supply decreases at 47.2 ± 3.7 mmHg, stops entirely at 118.6 ± 5.9 mmHg, and that the flow rate after 75 minutes of pressure was still slower than normal even after release.
- Bowline. Wikipedia. Provides the bowline as a fixed loop that keeps its size, the running bowline as a variant that makes a noose and gets tighter as the tension on the standing part increases, and the list of the bare bowline’s weak spots: working loose the moment it is not under load or under changing load, shifting under sideways pull, and the capsizing of the loop part.
Related terms
- Double column tie. The same tie with a cross turn between, and why that stops it from twisting.
- Cinch. Exactly that cross turn, and what it does to the tension.
- Bight. The loop you start with, and why you work from the middle of the rope.
- Friction. Why rope work manages without real knots.
- Gote shibari. The tie that, according to the encyclopedia, is itself a single column tie of the upper body.
- Wrist cuffs. The same function in leather or metal, with different risks.
- Shibari. The tradition this tie is the first building block of.
- Rope bottom. The side that feels the tingle, and what is asked of that side.
Frequently asked questions
What people still ask about the single column tie.
What is a single column tie?
A single column tie is a rope tie around one column: a wrist, an ankle, an upper leg, or an anchor point. The word “single” counts columns, not limbs, so two wrists against each other with no rope between them also form one column together. The tie has to stay put without pulling tighter under load.
Why must a single column tie not cinch down?
Because a loop that travels with the tension is not a tie but a noose. It also takes little pressure: in Gao and colleagues’ review in Neural Regeneration Research the blood flow in a nerve is already disturbed at 20 to 30 mmHg, and falls away entirely at 60 to 80 mmHg. So a tingle means: rope off, not later.
Who can you turn to with questions about the single column tie?
Learn more
Still have questions about the single column tie?
I'm Victor. One tie around your wrists is often already enough to notice what rope does to your head, and you do not need any skill for it. Want to know what such a first time looks like? Send me a message. No obligation, I'll message you back whenever suits you.