What is a Hobble Belt & how do you use it?

What is a Hobble Belt & how do you use it?

The Hel Milano Hobble Belt may just be the most practical, versatile and useful BDSM accessory you will ever own. A stylish, fashionable Italian Leather belt that can also be used in more than a dozen different ways as a BDSM restraint and impact toy.

You can wear your HEL Milano Hobble anywhere that you would wear a regular belt. I’ve worn mine almost every day for the last few years and I have traveled the world with it. Whether you are attending a BDSM event or out socializing in the vanilla world, your Hobble Belt can always be right there with you, incognito, hiding in plain sight, ready to be transformed into a practical bondage tool at a moment's notice.

A brief and possibly true history of the Hobble Belt

The Hobble Belt is an ingenious Australian invention which has been used for hundreds of years by stockmen and drovers to hobble horses. For anyone who may not be familiar with some of those terms, a stockman is someone who looks after livestock, a drover is an Australian cowboy, hobbling is when you strap together an animals legs to prevent it from straying, and Australia is the small island nation in the southern hemisphere where I’m originally from.

Also known as a Figure Eight Hobble, Western Horse Hobble, or Queensland Utility Strap, the Hobble Belt is a belt made from three leather sections joined together by two metal rings. As well as being used as a regular belt for holding up your pants, a Hobble Belt can be taken off and used to hobble a horse when needed.

The Hobble Belt was invented some time in the early 1800s by one of my distant relatives, an Irish-Australian immigrant by the name of Jack Hel. Jack first thought up the idea for the Hobble Belt as a way of restraining his horse while he was in the pub having his morning beer, but found that whenever he used the belt as a hobble his pants would fall down. It was on one of these occasions drinking at the bar with his pants around his ankles that Jack had his lightbulb moment and raced home to try out his hobble belt on his wife, and the rest as they say is history.

The Hobble Belt is now considered a must-have accessory by many Kink & BDSM aficionados, and is without a doubt one of the most useful and versatile BDSM accessories you will ever own.

How to use your Hel Milano Hobble Belt as a restraint

There are more than a dozen different ways that you can use a Hel Milano Hobble Belt as a BDSM restraint, and even more ways if you have a pair of them to use together. In today's post I’m going to show you a few of the basic ways to use the Hel Milano Hobble Belt.

The Ankle Hobble (Ankle Cuffs)

The original use of the Hobble Belt doesn’t just work on horses, when you find that you need to restrain your partner's ankles you can use your Hobble Belt as a traditional hobble. In this configuration the Hobble Belt restrains the ankles with about 4 inches of space between them. This space between the ankles is very important and serves two purposes. First it prevents the ankle bones of the restrained person from being crushed together, which can be quite painful (and not in a good way). Secondly the space between the ankles helps the restrained person to keep their balance and makes them less likely to fall over if they are standing. As a bonus, the leather strap between the ankles makes a useful handle if you want their feet up in the air for some reason.

  • Place the long section of the belt against one ankle with the metal HEL plate facing outwards
  • Wrap the belt around the ankle and feed it through the first metal ring
  • Feed the belt through the second metal ring
  • Wrap both ends of the belt around the second ankle and close the belt as you normally would

The Wrist Cuffs

One of the most popular uses of the Hobble Belt is as a set of improvised wrist cuffs. This simple, effective wrist restraint is very quick and easy to use.

  • Place the long section of the belt against the top of one wrist with the metal HEL plate facing inwards (against the wrist) and the buckle end of the belt towards the second wrist
  • Wrap the belt around under the wrist and feed it through the first metal ring
  • Wrap the belt around over the second wrist and feed it back through the first metal ring
  • Wrap the ends of the belt around both wrists and close the belt as you normally would

The Wrist Cuffs and Collar

The wrist cuffs and collar restraint is probably the way I find myself most often using the Hobble Belt. With this configuration the Hobble Belt is first used to form a set of wrist cuffs, then finished by creating a collar around the neck.

  • Place the long section of the belt against the bottom of one wrist with the metal HEL plate facing outwards and the buckle end of the belt towards the second wrist
  • Wrap the belt around over the wrist and feed it through the first metal ring
  • Wrap the belt around under the second wrist and feed it back through the first metal ring
  • Wrap the ends of the belt around the neck and close the belt as you normally would

The Wrist Cuffs and Waist Belt

To make the wrist cuffs and waist belt you will need to be restraining someone smaller than yourself (or to use a second Hobble Belt to increase the overall length). This restraint is very similar to the The Wrist Cuffs and Collar restraint but instead of finishing with a collar it is finished by wrapping the ends of the belt around the waist.

  • Place the long section of the belt against the top of one wrist with the metal HEL plate facing outwards and the buckle end of the belt towards the second wrist
  • Wrap the belt around under the wrist and feed it through the first metal ring
  • Wrap the belt around over the second wrist and feed it back through the first metal ring
  • Wrap the ends of the belt around the waist and close the belt as you normally would

The Wrist Cuffs and Thigh Cuff

The wrist cuffs and thigh cuff configuration is basically the same as the wrist cuffs and waist belt but doesn’t require you to be restraining someone smaller than yourself.

  • Place the long section of the belt against the top of one wrist with the metal HEL plate facing outwards and the buckle end of the belt towards the second wrist
  • Wrap the belt around under the wrist and feed it through the first metal ring
  • Wrap the belt around over the second wrist and feed it back through the first metal ring
  • Wrap the ends of the belt around one thigh and close the belt as you normally would

The Wrist and Ankle Cuffs

Our final restraint for today’s lesson is the wrist and ankle cuffs. This is basically a four column restraint that takes care of both wrists and both ankles, leaving your partner open to all sorts of interesting play options.

  • Place the long section of the belt against the top of one wrist with the metal HEL plate facing inwards (against the wrist) and the buckle end of the belt towards the second wrist
  • Wrap the belt around under the wrist and feed it through the first metal ring
  • Wrap the belt around over the second wrist and feed it back through the first metal ring
  • Wrap both ends of the belt around the first ankle and feed the tip of the belt through the second metal ring
  • Wrap both ends of the belt around the second ankle and close the belt as you normally would

 

So, now that you have learnt six different ways to use a HEL Milano Hobble Belt, it’s time to order one for yourself, and your partner.

Oh, and to make sure that your Hobble Belt is a perfect fit, you can read my post about How To Measure Your Belt Length


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