Jim:
For me, the quintessential shibari tie is the shinju. The word "shinju" has something to do with "pearls" -- which in this case refer to the breasts. The shinju tie is a simple chest harness that consists of four turns of rope running above the breasts, four turns running beneath them and then a double length coming over one shoulder from behind, looping around the bottom band and passing back up over the other shoulder. Google turned up pretty decent a tutorial here: http://www.nawashibari.com/techniques/index02.html

It's a great intro because it doesn't really restrain the victim much at all. It just binds her upper arms against her torso. If you just pull the horizontal turns of rope a little snug, it doesn't need to compress the ribcage but it can still serve as a constant reminder that the person is bound.

It's also a great foundation for anchoring the wrists with a box tie, which that tutorial goes on to show. That's one of the least challenging wrist ties there is. The loops around the wrists aren't actually meant to compress the wrists together. They just serve to anchor the wrists at or near the back of the harness so the arms can't be straightened out. Since the upper arms are already bound to her torso, she shouldn't be able to remove her wrists, even if the loops are left loose.

Add a crotchrope and you have a very beginner-level introduction to shibari that incorporates all of the classic elements.

IDCrewDawg:
If you start with the shinju chest harness, it makes a great foundation for further binding of the breasts. It really helps keep the ropes symmetrical even though the human body generally isn't. If you repeat that move that comes over the shoulder and binds the two bands of the shinju together between the breasts, but do it 2x on the outside of each breast, you can a breast-vise effect on the breasts. If you want to run further loops around a breast, you can really compress the breast without the loop trying to roll off the tip just by slipping the rope beneath the bands of the harness, so it will hold the additional loops against the ribs.



Note that it's going to take A LOT more rope than you would probably think. It's been a long time since I prepped my ropes, but I think that a simple shinju will take somewhere around 40' of rope, since you'll want to fold the full length in half so that every loop you make actually consists of 2 thicknesses of rope, laying side-by-side.

Doubling the length of rope over on itself is really key. The resulting loop (called a lark's head) is the starting point for most ties because you can run the rope around the ankles, for example, and then reave the ends of the rope through that lark's head, giving you a sort of slipknot around the ankles to start from. The double runs also help distribute pressure more evenly, preventing painful pinching and unintentional bloodflow constriction. Plus, I find it more aesthetically pleasing.

Note that it will also probably take longer than you'd think. My ex-girlfriend used to complain that it was boring for her. She didn't really appreciate the zen aspect of the whole thing, so at first it was pretty challenging to find ways to hold her interest without prematurely dropping a loop and letting the whole tie go to hell. Subs seem to take a great deal of enjoyment from that.

It's definitely an act of submission for the victim, because it's not the kind of rope bondage where you can pin down a struggling submissive and have her trussed up with a few quick turns of the rope. If she's not in a submissive mood, then you're better off just wrestling her down and going with a quick hogtie until you can convince her to be a little more cooperative.