Takate kote

What is takate kote?

Takate kote (Japanese 高手小手, English box tie) is the shibari tie that fixes the forearms up and diagonally behind the back, usually with wraps above and below the chest around it. The four characters mean “high hand, small hand” and describe the position of the arms, not the wraps around the torso. It is the tie the weight runs through in suspensions.

Where the name comes from

From ordinary Japanese, not from the scene. The JMdict dictionary lists 高手小手 as a yojijukugo, a fixed four-character word, with the full meaning “bound hands and arms.” So it is not a piece of jargon someone coined for rope, but an existing Japanese word for someone bound at the hands and arms.

What the word does not say is where those arms are. The encyclopedia on Japanese bondage gives the full name as 後ろ高手小手縛り, ushiro takate kote shibari, and names a variant in front of the body as well: 前方高手縛り, zenpou takate shibari. So it is that separate 後ろ, ushiro, “behind,” that puts the arms on the back. In the West the prefix fell away and it became “TK.”

Why this tie is so common

Because almost everything that happens afterward hangs off it. A chest harness, a leg drawn up, a line to the ceiling. It all begins at these wraps, and that is also why it is the tie most written about in course material and on forums.

The downside is in the same sentence. Khodulev and colleagues note in Cureus that about 6.3 centimeters of the radial nerve lies unprotected against the back of the humerus, centered around the attachment of the deltoid. Exactly the height where the wraps of a takate kote land. That is why this tie comes up so often in the literature: not because it is tied wrong, but because it lies where the nerve has no bone between itself and the rope.

Where this fits on this site

This tie is the first thing I put on when rope is involved, and usually the only one. What happens with rope during a BDSM date, and what we settle about it beforehand, is on that page.

Sources

• 高手小手 (takatekote). JMdict, the Japanese-English dictionary project of the Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group, consulted via Jisho. Provides the reading takatekote as one word, the classification as a yojijukugo (fixed four-character word), and the full meaning “bound hands and arms.” The entry carries no marking as a common word.
• Acute Radial Compressive Neuropathy: The Most Common Injury Induced by Japanese Rope Bondage. Vasily Khodulev, Artsiom Klimko, Nataliya Charnenka, Marina Zharko & Hanna Khoduleva, Cureus 15(5), e39588, 2023 (PMID 37384078). From this paper only the anatomical fact is taken here that the four neighboring pages leave aside: that about 6.3 centimeters of the radial nerve is in direct contact with the back of the humerus, centered around the distal part of the deltoid tuberosity.
• Japanese bondage. Wikipedia. From the list of kinbaku patterns it provides the full Japanese name 後ろ高手小手縛り ushiro takate kote shibari and the counterpart in front of the body 前方高手縛り zenpou takate shibari. Written by volunteers; used here only for the Japanese names.

Related terms

Takate kote is the best-known tie within shibari, the page where the whole tradition lives.

• Gote shibari. The same thing under the other Japanese word, with the difference between the two names explained.
• TK. The abbreviation this tie is announced by in workshop descriptions and rope groups.
• Suspension. Where this tie takes the body weight, and what that does to the duration.
• Chest bondage. The wraps above and below the chest that come with it in practice.
• Double column tie. The stand-alone base tie around two limbs, and the handwork you learn first for this.
• Friction. Why those wraps stay put without a knot in them.