July 1st, we lost an very important member of the world of kinbaku in Japan. Saikatsu san was a very kind and soft-spoken man, known for a number of things, including teaching rope at Black Heart in Ginza, publishing a series of how-to articles in the magazine SM Mania Club, and, perhaps, most famously, as a close confidant and assistant to Akechi Denki.
He was also a fixture at many kinbaku events and particularly active at Bakuyu Kai in Sagamo, a rope space started by Akechi Denki and then passed on to Miura Takumi after Akechi sensei passed away in 2005.
When I joined Bakuyu Kai, I was fortunate to have Saikasu sensei instruct me and help me learn the basic ties of the Bakuyu Kai system. He was always kind, friendly, and most of all patient with me. I was lucky to have gotten to know him and spend time with him.
Apart from his teaching and tying, Saikatsu san was a wealth of historical knowledge, most of it gained from his decades of being the world of rope and working closely with many of the top artists and performers over the last five decades. Fortunately, we were able to get him to sit down and talk about his life and experiences from his early days of reading SM magazines to his experience assisting Akechi sensei to his own experiences of teaching rope.
You can read the full interview here: Interview: Saikatsu
Photo credit: Sin, taken at Ubu, 2019.
