In order to keep your ropes from tangling when you store them or when you wash them, it's important to coil them correctly.
The following method will keep your ropes from tangling while also allowing you to have your rope ready for use in seconds.
1. You will begin by folding the rope in half and grabbing both ends of the rope with your non-dominant hand.
2. You will then loop the rope around your elbow, grabbing each loop with your non-dominant hand until you have a little over a foot left of rope.
3. You will release the coil and use the remaining rope to wrap it around the coils. If your remaining rope is going in a downwards direction, you will begin looping it in an upwards direction. Else, if your rope is going in an upwards direction, you will begin looping it in a downwards direction.
You can see in the picture above that my rope is going in a downwards direction, which means I will begin looping it in an upwards direction.
4. Continue wrapping the rope around the coils until you have about 5 inches left.
You will pass the rope through the coils.
5. Using your thumb and forefinger, you will go through the loop, and pull the coils through the loop.
Make sure that it fits nice and snug.
6. To unwrap the ropes simply release the coils from the loop.
You will see that you are already grabbing the middle of the rope and are ready to begin tying.
You can watch this tutorial as a video lesson in our Free Shibari 101 course.