Sorry I'm not posting much. School and life have been rather busy lately.
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One of my defensive martial arts teachers is more aggressive with me than the other teachers. He’ll push me and tell me I can do better and won’t accept the timidity I sometimes have when I don’t know what I’m doing.
And he doesn’t mind if I get hurt a bit. If my finger was in the way when he was using a practice weapon, he’ll hit my finger and then I’ll learn to move my finger faster next time. And he’ll throw me fairly hard when demonstrating some of the defensive moves. One time, he pinned me with his knee on my back and surprised me by twisting my wrist under me so it hurt. I really liked that. And once, after he threw me, I was lying on my back getting my bearings and catching my breath, and he just told me to get up because I was smiling which meant I was fine (or, you know, for other reasons). But he was amused with the situation, too. I think we both enjoy the dynamic that’s created when we work together.
When he was teaching me how to hit, he showed me a few ways to do it. One of them was using the hand as a sort of whip and making the impact with the fingertips. When he showed me that one, he actually hit me. And it stung and was awesome and I spaced out a bit. And then I tried to focus because he’s my favorite teacher and I wanted to please him and do what he was asking. But it took a minute to get focused after that.
A lot of times, our punches get weak because we know they won’t connect with the person before a defensive move happens. Our teacher doesn’t like when we do that, though; he wants us to actually give a good attack. So sometimes when he’s supposed to defend against us, he won’t do the move until we’ve actually punched him once.
It generally takes me a few tries to hit him because I’m so used to giving bad punches. But something about his attitude and how he’ll push my hand away when I do it wrong stirs up competitiveness in me, and once that is stirred, I am going to hit him as hard as I can. And I’m going to pull my hand back as fast as I can so the force can double. And my intent is to cause as much pain as I can because I’m allowed to and because I feel competitive and because I just want to. My focus narrows to a point.
I think he finds it amusing when I do that. He finds it funny that sweet little Sonja can be aggressive. Sometimes, he’ll jokingly warn the other students he pairs me with.
Anyways, this class has been an interesting place to explore power dynamics. Sometimes I get the chance to be aggressive, and I really like that. And other times, when I’ve been thinking about submitting a lot, I just relax into the feeling of someone taking control of my body and putting me into a pin. And I’ll wait to tap the mat until the pin hurts me as much as I want it to. It’s a nice outlet to have for the time being.
Showing posts with label submission. Show all posts
Showing posts with label submission. Show all posts
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Sunday, April 7, 2013
NeedleTolerance++; // !!!
I was diagnosed with needlephobia as a kid. It might have had something to do with when the lab technicians Velcro-ed my arms and legs down for a blood draw when I was three. I remember screaming a lot. And I remember the feeling of helplessness.
Throughout childhood, I had to get at least one shot and one blood draw per year and the occasional IV. I would start getting scared at least a week before I knew one of those was going to happen.
A needle counselor had given me a backpack of special toys that I only got to play with leading up to and during a needle procedure. I think those might have made it worse. Playing with those let me know that it was time to be scared.
I tried using a numbing cream for a while, but that contributed to the anticipation as well. Eventually I stopped using it.
During the procedures, I would cry and scream and hide my arms. My mom would have to hold me in place. Once, I realized that the corner of the room provided the least access to my arms, so I ran over there and crouched down and held my arms back as far into the corner as I could push them. One time, when I was maybe 12, I screamed so loudly the nurse had to cover her ears. I was proud of myself then, although the terror was still the more prevalent emotion; I had managed to delay the event that I usually had no control over, so my strategy had effectively achieved the goal. I never got out of eventually being poked, though.
As a teenager, the crying and screaming was replaced by crying and hyperventilating and shaking. I handled it a bit better, but it was still an ordeal of building up the courage to sit still and let the nurse do the procedure. It helped when my mom wasn’t there; when she was there, I illogically felt embarrassed to act differently than I did as a kid; I never wanted her to see when things about me changed.
As an adult, I’ve learned to handle shots. I still get fairly anxious when it’s about to happen, but it helps if the nurse talks me through it and I don’t look.
Blood draws are still pretty hard, though. Even more than the pain of it (which isn’t good pain – no masochism there), I hate the idea that there is a piece of metal inside my arm that is NOT SUPPOSED to be there. After blood draws, the nurses always congratulate me for handling it better than most patients by holding so still. Yeah! Because I’m terrified that if I move, that needle is going to stab OTHER things inside my arm!
Since I started exploring BDSM, I’ve been curious about whether I could change my perspective on needle procedures. Maybe I could talk myself into thinking of it as practicing submission through fear. And maybe I could look at the pain and fear objectively; maybe I could explore them in the same way I’ve explored other types of pain recently. I haven’t had needed any shots or blood draws lately, though.
However, as I was going through some boxes, I found my old blood sugar testing kit. My doctor wanted me to test my blood sugar for a few weeks when I was a teenager. My mom told me I had to do it, so I sat on the couch for maybe half an hour crying and trying to push the darn button that would make the little needle shoot out and prick my finger. Eventually, I accidentally did it. Maybe because I was trembling enough to trigger the button. My blood sugar level was totally normal, which I made sure my mom knew. I didn’t do any more blood sugar testing after that. The ordeal was too much.
But when I found the kit, I thought I might like to try it again. So I could prove to myself I could do it now. And to study the pain I’d been so scared of.
As I set up the needle device and washed my finger, it didn’t seem like too big a deal. I would just put it up to my finger and push the button. But I couldn’t do it. I would put it on my finger, then think about what I was doing, and I couldn’t convince myself to do it. I would imagine what it would feel like and would be horrified that I was about to put metal inside me and make myself bleed.
I kept trying for 15 minutes or so. I tried to tell myself to do it on “three,” but I would say “one” and lose courage. I washed a part on my arm to see if I could try it there, but I couldn’t do it there either.
I took it off my arm and pushed the button in the air a few times. I couldn’t even see the needle come out. It seemed like a little less of a big deal then.
Sometime after that, I put it on my arm and pushed. I can’t remember pushing the button or what I was thinking before I did it. I think that was the key to it: I wasn’t thinking about it. But afterward, I was surprised that I hadn’t even felt anything. I tried it on my finger and didn’t feel anything either. After that, it was much easier to push the button.
The device has a range of seven depth settings. I’d started on the shallowest one, but turned it up to 2 and tried again. I think it finally drew blood on my arm at level 3. By 4, it made my finger hurt, but not my arm. I went up to 7 on my arm before it hurt a bit. It was so empowering to keep pushing the button and watching the blood and to not feel fear. Between my fingers and my arm, I probably did it about fifteen times.
The needle pricks hardly hurt at all. I had remembered that it didn’t hurt when I was a teenager, but that hadn’t made my fear less now. I think I’m more scared of the idea of needles than I am of any sort of pain.
I was surprised at the amount of fear I had when I actually tried to use the needle. That fear doesn’t leave much room for imagining submission situations.
I don’t know if being able to poke my fingers and arms like this will help me handle other needle procedures; the other needles hurt more and go deeper and have more pre-poke rituals designed to increase anticipation and fear (or to increase sterility, but it depends on your point of view).
But I’m pretty excited that I was able to overcome a needle situation from my past; it caused so much fear then, but tonight I was able to do it several times until the fear was completely gone. It makes me feel powerful within myself. In my triumph, I can shout, “Ha! Take THAT needlephobia!”
Throughout childhood, I had to get at least one shot and one blood draw per year and the occasional IV. I would start getting scared at least a week before I knew one of those was going to happen.
A needle counselor had given me a backpack of special toys that I only got to play with leading up to and during a needle procedure. I think those might have made it worse. Playing with those let me know that it was time to be scared.
I tried using a numbing cream for a while, but that contributed to the anticipation as well. Eventually I stopped using it.
During the procedures, I would cry and scream and hide my arms. My mom would have to hold me in place. Once, I realized that the corner of the room provided the least access to my arms, so I ran over there and crouched down and held my arms back as far into the corner as I could push them. One time, when I was maybe 12, I screamed so loudly the nurse had to cover her ears. I was proud of myself then, although the terror was still the more prevalent emotion; I had managed to delay the event that I usually had no control over, so my strategy had effectively achieved the goal. I never got out of eventually being poked, though.
As a teenager, the crying and screaming was replaced by crying and hyperventilating and shaking. I handled it a bit better, but it was still an ordeal of building up the courage to sit still and let the nurse do the procedure. It helped when my mom wasn’t there; when she was there, I illogically felt embarrassed to act differently than I did as a kid; I never wanted her to see when things about me changed.
As an adult, I’ve learned to handle shots. I still get fairly anxious when it’s about to happen, but it helps if the nurse talks me through it and I don’t look.
Blood draws are still pretty hard, though. Even more than the pain of it (which isn’t good pain – no masochism there), I hate the idea that there is a piece of metal inside my arm that is NOT SUPPOSED to be there. After blood draws, the nurses always congratulate me for handling it better than most patients by holding so still. Yeah! Because I’m terrified that if I move, that needle is going to stab OTHER things inside my arm!
Since I started exploring BDSM, I’ve been curious about whether I could change my perspective on needle procedures. Maybe I could talk myself into thinking of it as practicing submission through fear. And maybe I could look at the pain and fear objectively; maybe I could explore them in the same way I’ve explored other types of pain recently. I haven’t had needed any shots or blood draws lately, though.
However, as I was going through some boxes, I found my old blood sugar testing kit. My doctor wanted me to test my blood sugar for a few weeks when I was a teenager. My mom told me I had to do it, so I sat on the couch for maybe half an hour crying and trying to push the darn button that would make the little needle shoot out and prick my finger. Eventually, I accidentally did it. Maybe because I was trembling enough to trigger the button. My blood sugar level was totally normal, which I made sure my mom knew. I didn’t do any more blood sugar testing after that. The ordeal was too much.
But when I found the kit, I thought I might like to try it again. So I could prove to myself I could do it now. And to study the pain I’d been so scared of.
As I set up the needle device and washed my finger, it didn’t seem like too big a deal. I would just put it up to my finger and push the button. But I couldn’t do it. I would put it on my finger, then think about what I was doing, and I couldn’t convince myself to do it. I would imagine what it would feel like and would be horrified that I was about to put metal inside me and make myself bleed.
I kept trying for 15 minutes or so. I tried to tell myself to do it on “three,” but I would say “one” and lose courage. I washed a part on my arm to see if I could try it there, but I couldn’t do it there either.
I took it off my arm and pushed the button in the air a few times. I couldn’t even see the needle come out. It seemed like a little less of a big deal then.
 |
| Blood drops not proportional to fear experienced to get them. |
The device has a range of seven depth settings. I’d started on the shallowest one, but turned it up to 2 and tried again. I think it finally drew blood on my arm at level 3. By 4, it made my finger hurt, but not my arm. I went up to 7 on my arm before it hurt a bit. It was so empowering to keep pushing the button and watching the blood and to not feel fear. Between my fingers and my arm, I probably did it about fifteen times.
The needle pricks hardly hurt at all. I had remembered that it didn’t hurt when I was a teenager, but that hadn’t made my fear less now. I think I’m more scared of the idea of needles than I am of any sort of pain.
I was surprised at the amount of fear I had when I actually tried to use the needle. That fear doesn’t leave much room for imagining submission situations.
I don’t know if being able to poke my fingers and arms like this will help me handle other needle procedures; the other needles hurt more and go deeper and have more pre-poke rituals designed to increase anticipation and fear (or to increase sterility, but it depends on your point of view).
But I’m pretty excited that I was able to overcome a needle situation from my past; it caused so much fear then, but tonight I was able to do it several times until the fear was completely gone. It makes me feel powerful within myself. In my triumph, I can shout, “Ha! Take THAT needlephobia!”
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
First Impact Play
I tried some bondage and a suspension, but there’s just not much to those for me without a power dynamic involved; the fact that I wanted to be tied, and knowing that I could ask to be untied at any point, defeats the purpose. With a Dom, I think it could be fun, though.
The person at the impact station had me hold on to this frame thing. Then he showed me some implement and I’d say okay or something and then he’d use it a bit. We tried out a lot of the things he had.
I’ve tended to like stingy feelings more than thuddy feelings, but I was really curious to see what thuddy pain felt like. When he used thuddy things, they would maybe give me a jolt forward, but it took quite a while before they hurt. I think I was okay with that pain when it came. I really don’t remember what it felt like. But I like the idea of it more now, so I guess I liked it.
I can’t really recall a point when I really enjoyed the impact play, though. It kind of went from where it didn’t hurt to me being analytically interested in the feelings to trying to cope with pain that had gotten to the point of unpleasantness.
I was okay with it being unpleasant; I’d wanted to see what it would be like when it got to that point. I can’t remember a lot of it. But I remember him slapping my back some where it was already sore, and I didn’t like the sting; it was getting harder to deal with. And toward the end, he wrapped this rubber thing around me and snapped it on my back three times. That sort of thing would have been exciting and thrilling earlier. But at that point, all I did was focus on trying to breathe out when it hit so I could cope with it better. No thrill, just survival instincts.
Overall, the experience wasn’t very satisfying. I’m glad that I have a bit more idea of what things feel like. But the pain wasn’t satisfying without a complementary mindset.
I went into this with an analytical mindset. What would these things feel like? What would the experience be like? Just gathering data. I also wanted to maintain my dignity. I didn’t want to respond to the experience in ways that showed weakness. I wanted to be tough and be able to take it. And I had this survival mindset (that I also get into in emergency situations): I get totally calm and analytical so I can figure out the best course of action to survive.
No submission. No trust. Just relying on myself.
I think that in a scene with someone I knew, I would want to focus on deliberately letting go of the pride I hold onto and allowing myself to vocalize my reactions; I’d want to allow myself to be weak. And I would want to trust them and not just rely on my survival instincts. I would want to relax into the experience given to me and not try to analyze and manage it myself so much.
It makes sense that those aspects weren’t there; I didn’t even know the person running the station. It took me several days to figure out what mindsets I had been in and why I hadn’t really enjoyed it, though.
I was surprised that there was so much I couldn’t remember. I didn’t feel like I was in an altered mindset at the time. I checked myself a couple times and concluded that I still felt normal. But it was a whole lot of new things all at once, so regardless of my mindset, it makes sense that I wouldn’t remember everything.
At one point during the play, the guy said that this wasn’t really a tasting anymore. So I’m not sure how to classify my experience. I wonder how close it was in intensity to a scene (which I’m sure have all different intensities anyways). I wouldn’t know. I’m curious to know how it compared to a scene, though, so I could better know what a scene might be like.
 |
| A few hours afterward. |
Unfortunately, the marks on my arms from the play party are still quite visible. I’m a bit tired of wearing a jacket around my house all the time.
I’m glad that I did the impact play. I’m glad to have an experience to compare things against. And I’m glad to have some idea of what it’s like at the point where the pain stops being pleasant. I’m curious about exploring that more sometime. Preferably when submission in a relationship is involved.
And I’m glad I finally saw the CSPC so I know what people are talking about. It’s much smaller and cozier than I’d expected. The outside, though, looks pretty sketchy. I walked past the doors with “Library” and “Annex” on them and had the distinct feeling that I was in a game of Clue, and if I went through the library door I’d get decked with a candlestick or something.
I hope this post wasn’t too scattered. It’s been hard to get one coherent line of thought on all this.
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