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The good news is that there are very few knots that you really need for bondage with natural fibre rope, and they’re all easy to tie.

The Japanese shibari experts hardly use any knots at all - they rely on wrapping tight coils and trapping the ends of their ropes between other strands.

Of course some people like knots and enjoy knowing more of them than necessary. But knowing a knot isn’t everything, you also have to know how, when, and where to use it...

You may be into decorative bondage with lots of very intricate knotwork. Well, it takes all sorts! We recommend The Two Knotty Boys for this, by the way. They have two books out, and their videos are all available for free download on Convolvulus_FREE.

Here’s a list of Knots You Should Know. Photos will follow eventually...

HALF HITCH - it isn’t really a knot by itself, it’s more of a knot-element that appears in other knots and all over the place.

TWO HALF-HITCHES - there are two ways to do this, and one of them is better than the other...

SQUARE KNOT / REEF KNOT - well known, widely used, and basically a very bad knot for finishing off a tie. Most people don’t know that one of its good points for its proper sailing purpose is the ease with which it can be untied! Despite that, it has its uses in rope bondage but generally it shouldn’t be used as a finishing knot.

SURGEON’S KNOT (BONDAGE VERSION) - this is exactly like the reef knot, except that it has one extra turn in the second part. It needs careful drawing up to get it to fall into the right shape, but when you get it right it’s much much better that the basic reef knot for finishing off a tie.

GRANNY KNOT - a malformed reef knot with one useful property - the ends of the ropes emerge from the knot at 90 degrees to the original direction, so if you want to lock your ropes off AND get a right-angle turn, the granny is just the thing.

LARK’S HEAD - again, more of a method than a knot in itself, the Lark’s Head is the basic way of attaching a doubled rope to something. It’s fundamental to shibari, and important in everything else. It’s also the simplest way of attaching a new length of doubled rope to the end of an old one, if not the neatest.

OVERHAND KNOT (THUMB KNOT) - the simplest knot of all. Form a loop, push the end through the hole, pull it tight. Very useful!

BOOLA-BOOLA - this is one of several “non-tightening cuff” knots - i.e. you tie it around a wrist or ankle and no matter how much pull there is on it, it won’t tighten around the limb. The boola-boola is probably the simplest one to learn and it does the job.