Black Belts, White Belts, Hard Limits, Soft Limits…

There seems to be some deliberation on the virtue of training an Experienced submissive versus a Complete Newbie submissive. In my opinion there is virtue in both scenarios and in this lesson I explain why.

Following the main lesson, I have posted an excerpt from my book, “Igniting The Fire: The Art of Romantic Submission,” regarding a topic that I consider to be CRITICAL to the enjoyment of BDSM by both the Dominant and the Submissive, namely Knowing Your Limits. This crucial topic, which is NEVER to be underestimated in its importance if you wish to explore blissfully within the BDSM Universe, is about Knowing Yourself, knowing the difference between a Hard Limit and a Soft Limit, and knowing how to identify all of these within yourself as you begin your BDSM and D/s adventures.

If you wish to explore far more deeply into understanding the Key Concept of Limits in Far Greater Detail then we invite you to come check out The Crow Academy’s book Igniting The Fire: The Art of Romantic Submission available on Amazon.

Enjoy.

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White Belts and Black Belts

Training a slave is very much like being a Martial Arts Instructor (another actual profession in my resume’). You see students of all levels – some white belts just starting off new, some black belts either by way of natural ability or by way of extensive training….

I often get asked if I am truly fine with the training of a complete newbie, and honestly the answer is Yes, its Perfectly Fine to be a Newbie. Just like a white belt, the new submissive is such a clean slate, such a fresh start… it is absolutely invigorating to teach someone so fresh! A seasoned sub can also be a great joy – the Master knows that the sub knows herself has explored submission before, and the submissive is certain that it is her identity. This can make deeper training much more profound.

It is also the case however, that an “experienced” sub may also come laden with bad habits if their previous training was either less than appropriate or simply from a school with conflicting beliefs to my own. Example: a slave’s posture is critical in my style, and as such the head is held high even if the eyes are looking down with perfect etiquette. Other schools might teach a slave to bow her head constantly, a practice which personally makes me crazy when I receive an “experienced” submissive who has been trained this way. Thus do some experienced submissives come with the added task of UN-learning previous training from their former Dom/s.

When the complete newbie comes to me however, it is a chance to Explore a Vast New World Together. Each time the new submissive learns something about herself and her eyes grow wide with wonder or bliss at the experience, I Get To Be There and watch her experience that amazement, that wonder! It’s truly awesome to behold, every time. To see the new submissive learning things about herself and her own body, to realize whole new levels of pleasure and awareness…..seeing this, being the cause of this, can truly be like food to my own soul.

The experienced slave will also find they learn a great many new things when they begin to train under my hand, and there too do I get to see that sense of wonder. I suppose the difference is that with the experienced slave it is more of a mature sense of wonder, like a well nurtured orchid finally blossoming, like icing on the cake. With the new submissive it is more a matter of nurturing the seed into a healthy sprout and then upwards into a beautiful sunflower. It’s the difference between the joy and the magic of seeing the first healthy sprout burst through the soil (the newbie), versus nurturing the slow, exquisite blossoming of another kind of flower, previously planted and carefully watched (the experienced).

Both scenarios are quite wonderful. Both bring me massive fulfillment, and needless to say the newbie submissive who finds herself in submission may eventually become that experienced, rare orchid. To meet an experienced submissive who truly knows her own slave-heart is genuinely magnificent. At the same time, that freshness, that chance that a new submissive might find something powerfully magical and deliciously deep through her submission while I am there to guide it and be the one who opens that door for the most beautiful of souls, that equally brightens my day.

Experienced or Completely New, both speak to me like a Muse, filling me with inspiration and the desire to create and guide to the very best of my ability.

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Identifying Your HARD LIMITS and your SOFT LIMITS

Do you know your Hard Limits? Do you know your Soft Limits? A BDSM interaction can literally FLY or FALL based on this one, simple puzzle piece being in place. I have seen the most well-meaning couples overlook this area with disastrous results, and I have seen absolute newbies fly ecstatically with each other because they took the time to address these concepts well before they started to play. I cannot recommend enough that Each And Every Single Person in the Global BDSM / Domination and Submission / Fetish Scene should KNOW your own Hard and Soft Limits.

So the question comes up then: How Can We Know Our Limits, especially if we are a newbie? Read on and find out what to look for, what to address, and what to weigh out…

(*The paragraphs below are a partial excerpt from my The Crow Academy’s book, “IGNITING THE FIRE: The Art of Romantic Submission,” from the section on Slave Contracts and How To Negotiate A Contract. The book goes into FAR Greater Detail on this and hundreds of other topics critical to the Mutual Fulfillment of Dominant and Submissive, of Master and slave. I am posting this excerpt here because I feel this topic is Extremely Important to grasp – Enjoy*)

HARD LIMITS:
A HARD Limit is a limit that is inflexible and won’t change. Sure perhaps some unforeseen circumstance might sway that one day, but odds are against it. So how do you truly KNOW your own Hard Limits? A Hard Limit is a boundary you are aware of when you are in a state of ABSOLUTE CALM. You CANNOT properly identify a Hard Limit if you are excited, sad, joyous, angry, passionate, yearning, etc, as the perception of what the Limit is will be biased by the emotion and therefore could sway easily in the opposite direction when the opposite emotion is experienced. Therefore, if you really want to know your Hard Limits, examine them next time you are in a state of Complete Peace and Calm. A Hard Limit can ONLY be known from this state of simple, day-to-day simplicity. It is a state that is untouched by fear, angst, irritation, anger, joy, bliss, ecstasy or any other emotion that is even one step away from being completely centered. Your Hard Limits will feel very Matter-Of-Fact. Only when you are in such a state of absolute calm can you FEEL how straight-forward and easy it is to know your own Hard Limits. They come forth with this purely Matter-Of-Fact quality, as easy as asking someone for a glass of water.

The slave’s Hard Limits will usually involve more specific kinds of activity or play. For example a slave who knows she has a phobia might have a Hard Limit in regards to experiences which could elicit the phobic reaction. A claustrophobic slave might be fine with simple blindfolds and gags, but she may have a Hard Limit about full hoods or being enclosed in whole-body plastic-wrap bondage. What makes this a Hard Limit is that she calmly knows that such an experience would take her to a very uncomfortable place, possibly from her own past experience. True, one day she may get past the phobia, but it can still be a Hard Limit – meaning absolutely not – in the present.

The Master’s Hard Limits are usually a bit more broadly phrased along the lines of “the slave will relinquish the following areas of control to me….” This more or less delineates what The Master absolutely requires to feel that He can perform His finest Art with the slave. The Master’s Hard Limits might equally pertain to behaviors that the slave is not permitted, most often because they go against certain Protocols.

(*NOTE: I deal extensively with the Limits of the Dominant / Master in another lesson here in two parts, starting with the first lesson on the subject: The Hard Limits Of The Dominant – Part 1. The Dominant MUST identify their own Limits – a fact that should never be overlooked. I have seen perfectly healthy D/s Couples stumble again and again because, while they took the time to clearly identify the Submissive’s Limits, they never really took the time to identify the Dominant’s Limits. EVERY DOMINANT HAS LIMITS, and the linked lesson will help guide new Dominants in understanding their own Limits when even just a few moments are taken for proper self-examination.*)

Both The Master and the slave might also have simple, straight-forward, “itemized” Hard Limits, such as “no golden showers,” which would plainly and simply indicate that they are just not interested in that kind of play. Since a Master and slave who are about to embark into a Slave Contract have usually been together for at least a short while, odds are they already know what the other person is “In To.” As such, the exact details of the kinds of play that are mutual Hard Limits which are already known might be left unwritten in the Contract. For example, if both have known from quite early on that neither is into golden showers, then by the time of the Contract one could easily see it becoming a de facto (given and understood) piece of knowledge and thus there is often no need to state this in the Contract. Various other de facto elements are also often left out of a Slave Contract unless one person feels an exceptionally strong need to have it in the Contract. Conversely, sometimes a de facto element might simply word nicely so as to add to the poetic quality of the Contract. The latter is more often the case of The Master’s Hard Limits, which are often stated in the Contract as the poetic “Rules” the slave will abide by even though she may already be quite happily living up to a variety of these Rules even before the Contract.

SOFT LIMITS:
A SOFT or Flexible Limit is a boundary that one is open to having pushed or changed under the right circumstances. It usually describes something that perhaps currently makes the slave a little frightened or nervous, yet at the same time it equally intrigues her and draws her forward ever so slightly. A Soft Limit means that perhaps at some point in the future, in a moment of Trust, the slave thinks she would be willing and even like to explore into that area. This Soft Limit, though the slave does not want to try it in the present, has a Flexible and therefore “Soft” quality to the boundary, and the slave’s curiosity is a door which may open in the future when the time is right, usually when a degree of Trust has been built.

An example of a Soft Limit could be Canes. A slave who has never experienced pleasure from being Sensually Caned might only think of canes as too intense for her based on her past threshold-pushing experiences of the cane with previous amateur Doms. Yet at the same time, she may have seen other submissives at various BDSM parties absolutely smiling blissfully from being Sensuously Caned. She might feel that she is not yet ready to try the cane right away, but when The Master assures her that His style of caning is like the styles used on the smiling women at the club, the slave might allow this Soft Limit to be tested when the time is right. As such, she is communicating that one day she would like to try a Sensual Caning from The Master when she feels ready.

A Soft Limit is all about an accumulated building of trust in relation to the topic of the Soft Limit. To declare something a Soft Limit is to say, “not right now, but one day I think I might lie to try it” after trust has been built.