SMIRC 2023 PRESENTERS
Miss Acacia @ Alyssa (zzafalyssa)
Middletown, Connecticut, USA
Miss Acacia has been actively pursuing the intricacies and beauty of rope as an art form and science since 2014. With an appreciation for the beauty of symmetry and the details of ties, her path to rope suspension was a natural progression. She believes in focusing on the fundamentals in order to understand not just the “how,” but the “why” behind the structure of each tie. Her foundational perspective is that rope should not be about memorization of a preexisting tie, but about knowing why it's a stable tie, what makes it safer, and why people use it in certain circumstances. She is known for her functional, yet intricate, pretty rope and her ability to build harnesses and experiences for the specific bottom she is tying.
Currently, Miss Acacia focuses on tying different bodies because she is most interested in how to tie people, not rope. She approaches each new tie with expertise from years of tying a multitude of others as well as her own experiences with self-suspension. As an avid learner, she is always open to brainstorming with fellow rope enthusiasts and truly enjoys the challenge of creating ties and experiences to fit the needs and desires of her bottoms and their shared intention.
She challenges herself by working on personal projects, finding harnesses and suspension sequences for people who struggle with disabilities, both physical and mental, and working with people who are new to suspension or have had difficult experiences with suspension in the past. Miss Acacia prides herself on providing safer opportunities for bottoms to experience rope suspension.
Alyssa (zzafalyssa) has been in the rope scene since 2021, participating in local events at Upline Studio in Connecticut. She entered the scene after admiring rope suspension from afar for many years. She has developed skills and passion as a rope bottom with particular interest in chest-heavy suspension and hashira.
Alyssa began teaching with Miss Acacia in 2022 including classes as Upline Studio and Ropecraft Chicago. When not being strung up in rope, Alyssa can be found drinking coffee, doing puzzles, and napping with her cat.
SabreHyde
Traverse City, MI, USA
SabreHyde (she/her) is a rope switch and teacher-organizer from Traverse City, Michigan, who enjoys travelling, metal concerts, and costuming. In January 2017, Sabre co-founded the TC Rope Jam (currently on hiatus) to bring rope education and practice to the nascent rope community in Northern Lower Michigan.
You can find her enthusiastically attending events across Michigan and in Chicago. She believes rope should be accessible to anyone with a passion for it, and strives to have and teach a variety of options for different genders, physical limitations, body sizes and shapes, and goals.
A lifelong learner, she invites you to provide candid feedback on or ask questions about any class, tie, or technique you see her use.
ropeosaur
Sterling, Virginia, USA
(She/They/He) A genderfluid rigger whose dynamic style keeps Bottoms on their toes.
Their current passions are trans inclusivity, gas masks, and exploring intentional power exchange. Ropeosaur values developing long-standing relationships with their play partners, and he deeply enjoys finding the things that make his partners cringe…and using them intentionally to create elements of fear and suffering. Ropeosaur is passionate about teaching concepts and practices, especially with mixed-kinks, rather than patterns and hard rules, particularly with rope. Taking advantage of their ADHD, Ropeosaur brings creativity to their scenes, utilizing their chaotic energy to bring imagination, passion, and playful sadism to any space they share. Outside of kink, Ropeosaur is a full-time healthcare professional with a Master’s degree and is a Plant Daddy to his garden. Ropeosaur also hosts a monthly, private, Queer Rope Jam with the Cyrenaics, where they are fostering the growth of the future of W.T.F. (Women/Trans/Femme) rope Tops in their local community. Ropeosaur hopes to inspire others to explore and embrace Topping, regardless of size or gender expression.
Instagram: @Ropeosaur_public
Fetlife: @Ropeosaur
JD-66
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
JD-66 started tying in 2008 and was an experienced rigger when OsakaDan brought Kazami to Toronto in 2013. Feeling an affinity for Kazami’s style, JD dedicated himself to deepening his knowledge of this style and was appointed Deshi to Kazami in 2017 and Shihan or Master Instructor/head of Kazami style Shibari in 2018 with responsibility for building the school throughout North America.
With a playful and semi sadistic style of rope, he loves playing with balance and unbalance in rope, reading his partner and taking them to places they didn't expect. He owns and runs The Toronto Kinbaku Salon which will be celebrating its sixth anniversary in Oct 2019. The Salon as it’s commonly referred to is a structured rope school teaching the Kazami style with classes running 4 days per week.
While dedicated to the Kazami Style, JD has background in other styles and is able to meld various approaches to help people with developing and adding to their repertoires and creating their own individual style.
IPCookieMonster
Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
IPCookieMonster (fet)/slutphd (Instagram) is an ardent rope switch with many years as a rope bottoming educator and many passionate months as a rope top. She hates tying herself up but is using it to stay sane during this pandemic and hopes that she can pass along a few words of advice.
Knottily_Dressed
Detroit, MI, USA
knottily_dressed is a transfemme sub and service Top who’s been in the lifestyle for 11 years. They identify as non-binary and use they/them pronouns. Rope has been their first love since first attending a GRUE (Graydancer’s Ropetastic Unconference Extravaganza) in Ann Arbor in 2012. Jumping in with both feet, they were hung upside down by @PreciousKarida. After a couple of rope scenes they were hooked.
They attend rope conventions and MI Ropes classes when time allows. Since 2017, they’ve attended Ropecraft and gotten to learn from many excellent riggers. They presented on rope in the After Dark track at Penguicon, a local, open-source convention. And, being a plus-size person themselves, they are passionate rope can be for everyone, including self-suspension. ‘I’ve been told I’m too big for rope’ should be something no one has to hear.
Having had an excellent introduction into the lifestyle, they enjoy paying it forward to other new folks. Most of the time, when not in a dynamic with someone, they like to call themselves a rope pervangelist and purveyor of practical predicaments ---a plethora of pretty, perhaps pain producing, poses. They’re looking forwarding to presenting at SMIRC this year. You can generally find them at Oblige, being tied or tying someone.
Enlightenup-69 & Attnwhor-69
SMIRC Co-Founders
Enlightenup-69 and Attnwhor-69 are the organizers of MI ropes as well as SMIRC, the Summer Michigan Rope Conference. They have been sharing their passion and rope adventure as kink educators since 2013.
As rope students they are best described as rope anarchists who prefer to break rope down to its fundamentals and then build back up into the different passions from patterns such as gote' to predicaments to how to incorporate rope into sex and bedroom bondage.
They have also presented on other topics including polyamory on behalf of the Michigan Board of Education and BDSM education alongside the Center for Relationship and Sexual Health.
In addition to presenting on rope attnwhor-69 is also a licensed massage therapist and teaches on the healing power of touch and both the therapeutic and kinky uses of cupping.
