Body Language for Impact Play

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1. octaviablack says

   February 16, 2013 at 12:13 pm

   GREAT information presented in a fun way. Thanks, Stefanos and Shay!

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2. zadi thomas says

   June 9, 2013 at 2:45 pm

   One of the many many things I love so much about this video (you guys rock) is that it does such a gorgeous job of seamlessly blending vocal check-ins, physical contact, and reading body language cues, a skill-combo. which make for better impact play and are transferable to countless other types of play. Bringing as many modes of communication to the table as possible: always a good thing, and great for keeping similar types of play, revisited on different days, fresh/alive/engaged.

   Some bottoms/subs will find it works best for them to hand all/the majority of the control of the physical and emotional spaces they’ll be taken into and out of over to their top/dom, either all the time or some of the time. For me, that depends on the day. Being bipolar, transparency and specificity about what emotional regulation means/looks like for me, as part of the negotiation process, might be a little more involved/take longer than for players who aren’t bipolar. (Further to this topic, really digging Murphy Blue’s insights and description of integrating psychological mapping into negotiation in his “Many Moods of Bondage” series.)

   Part of both the beauty and challenge of each person having their own idiosyncratic body/mind wiring is that they’ll inevitably process stimulus (sensory, psychological, emotional, intellectual) uniquely. For me, there tends to be a layered cycle that goes on when absorbing any given stimulus which looks roughly like this:

   1) stimulus
   2) physiological response (neurochemical/physiological: muscle/nerve/heart rate/temperature changes)
   3) #2 registers in facial expressions & body language; depending on the extremity of the change in temperature, that might or might not register superficially (sweat, shivering)
   4) if, in the negotiation ahead of time, I’ve articulated a desire/need to track and communicate where I’m at emotionally throughout the session that day, negotiating exactly how I’ll be tagging/expressing emotions is important, so my partner and I are on the same page, and my partner can make the most informed decisions about whether to counterbalance a given emotion or go with it. If going deeper into any physical/psychological space we’ve negotiated as fair game starts not to feel safe, the safeword’s always there to fall back on. It can prob’ly never be overstated that every bipolar person’s different, but for me, it’s critical to let partners know, from day 1, that certain seemingly positive emotions, taken to an extreme, can lead to just as unsafe a zone as negative ones. Because I’m naturally more prone to the hypomanic/manic end of the spectrum as opposed to the depressive end, if I’m in an overly excited space, bringing me back down to a more neutral one’s nearly always preferable.
   5) making any adjustments—as per that day’s negotiation—to counteract physical/emotional responses I’ve specified as falling in danger zones, so that my partner’s best able to safely control me, and I’m free to let go of more control, knowing I’ve done my part to keep them updated.

   Some basic emotions, potential physical indicators, and some quick and easy ways to counter them (goes without saying that all of the below’s purely my personal quirky-as-hell take on this topic, like all such intensely subjective stuff, to be taken with a grain of salt; everyone’ll find their own creative formulas for what works/doesn’t work for them):

   Love (which, BTW, you guys do a killer job of expressing: always a joy to observe that special kind of electricity between partners):
   Indications: relaxed musculature, ease of motion, confident body language (chest wide, chin up, back straight), eye contact, smiling
   Generally, for me, love’s not gonna be a problem zone, so it doesn’t need a counter.
   Joy:
   Indications: bounciness, bright/excited facial expressions, laughter
   Counters: if I’m excited to the point of reading as hyper, not such a great thing. If that’s the case, since my energy’s prob’ly moving in an upward direction, just 30 seconds of stepping on the front of my toes/putting a hand firmly on my sacrum (fingers down and pressing the heel of the hand in and down) can help shift it to moving in the opposite direction to ground me.
   Anger:
   Indications: muscular rigidity, tight, defensive face, especially a tight mouth, clamped teeth/frown/evil grin, tense/clenched hands
   Counters: a hand wrapped around my chin & mouth with thumb pressed firmly into one side of my jaw, third finger pressed firmly into the other, keeping the other fingers raised, then giving me the command to “relax,” pausing a second or two, and following it with the command to “breathe.”
   Sadness:
   Indications: low energy, glazed eyes, sunken chest, dropped chin, difficulty breathing deeply/swallowing, moving more slowly than usual, being quieter/less responsive than usual
   Umbrella counter: a playful/not serious approach for the whole session, regardless of the specific types of play on the menu (the same exact words can almost always be delivered in a more joking, teasing tone, without losing any of their authority. E.g. the command “now suck my dick,” delivered with a relaxed smile isn’t gonna get me to my knees any slower). More localized counter: a hand closed over my entire mouth with very minimal gaps at the chin and below the nose (initially that’ll prob’ly mean communicating verbally/with hand signals while adjusting the degree of tightness until it feels right), and being given the command to inhale and exhale through my mouth (for me, the right degree of tightness will mean my partner should feel my cheeks puffing out against their hand on the exhales, and the center of the palm of their hand being suctioned on the inhale). Three inhales, three exhales should be do the job. Another localized counter: a firm grip under each breast, pushing into my ribcage and lifting up with a considerable amount of force, and being commanded to breathe and relax my shoulders (again, three full breathes should do it).
   Fear:
   Indications: temperature extremes (sweating/coldness), jumpiness, shaking, eyes darting, fast, shallow breaths, muscular tension, getting frozen in a position instead of transitioning smoothly from one to another
   Counters: one firm palm on my lower abdomen, one on the back of my neck, and being given the commands “chin up” and “breathe” (breathe is like the all-purpose magic word; it pretty much works for everything)
   Shame:
   Indications:
   Nervousness, lack of eye contact, chin down, sunken chest, raised, hunched shoulder (I call them turtle shoulders, since it feels like you’re trying to make your shoulders and back into a shell and make your neck and head disappear under it)
   Counters: standing behind me, with the heel of each hand on either side of my chest, pressing outward and giving me the command to “breathe.” Massaging my traps and giving me the command to “release your shoulders.”

   Another way, aside from reading body language/facial expressions, to communicate where I’m at without vocalizing it (if I feel like I’m entering the “yellow-to-orange” zone emotionally, but not physically, before getting to safeword-necessitating red): using standard American sign language, going over the signs for whichever core emotions I might need to communicate in the negotiation, and if my partner green-lights using them, awesome (but just because they green light them on a certain day doesn’t mean I should assume that’ll be the case another time). One of the benefits of sign language being so physical is that it requires that I stay more checked-in to my body instead of retreating into my head.

   ASL Pro demos of signs for the above emotions:
   Love: http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/aslpro.cgi
   Joy: http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/aslpro.cgi
   Anger: http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/aslpro.cgi
   Sadness: http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/aslpro.cgi
   Fear: http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/aslpro.cgi
   Shame: http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/aslpro.cgi
   6) Back to 1 (to restate the obvious, most of the above tends to naturally overlap/bleed together. It’s just easier to describe sequentially).

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