Ep143: Rope Bottoming Education - What is it, and what could it be? An interview with fuoco (part 1)

fuoco began her rope journey as a bottom in Phoenix ten years ago and shortly thereafter moved to London, where much of her early rope learning happened. Upon moving back to the US, she began presenting at cons and intensives around the country sharing her love of rope. As an educator, she's decidedly non-dogmatic in her approach to teaching. Her classes aim to help bottoms to better understand their bodies in movement, and to offer riggers the knowledge to adapt their tying to the unique needs of their partners. When she’s not doing rope, fuoco is a professional acrobat. Her dedicated study of the mechanics of the body make her especially interested in developing more comprehensive education for bottoms informed by these practices. She's also a leftist who believes that kink is inherently political. She strives to bring her politics, her values, and an accountability for those values into her teaching spaces. Listen to this engaging discussion to hear about: • How she discovered rope bondage • Her early experiences in London and Berlin • Her contributions to the growth of bottoming education • How her circus arts do - and don’t - influence her rope • How the understanding of what a ‘valuable’ bottoming educator is has changed • The changes that have occurred for her in the kind of rope she enjoys • Active bottoming and how some of the ideas don’t really speak to the lived experience of most bottoms - and why • Challenges she personally has faced as part of the rope scene • The journey of being an unpartnered rope bottoming educator • What possible futures of rope bottoming could look like • How bottoming and rigging education classes might work together more harmoniously • And much more