Wellness and exorcism. An attempt to answer the question of what makes a session valuable
Always a balancing act: the thing with sitting circles in workshop settings. It's unbearably pedagogical when everyone in turn has to lay an egg and say something (footnote: and, interestingly enough, surprisingly often gives information about their own tiredness or alertness). On the other hand, it is also so wonderfully democratic when everyone is given space to speak and be heard, without shyness or overconfidence deciding who speaks. And then there is the admittedly always powerful circle symbolism, which in séances even makes tables move as if by magic... And similar to these spiritualist circles, most of the potential in workshop discussion circles also seems to be conjured up by asking precise questions.
During our last bondage massage workshop in Karlsruhe a few weeks ago, such a question arose out of necessity - and was incredibly exciting for me. The ghosts conjured up in the discussion continue to haunt me, to say the least.
Brief background: The course asks how the mindful and artful use of ropes can enrich massage rituals and offers a repertoire of techniques, tips, inspiration and suggestions for creating refined and sensual interactions and sessions. The workshop lasted three days, the second and third evenings were concluded with one and a half hour sessions in which the participants could try out what they had learned and brought with them in free play with a receiving person. The appeal and challenge of these scenes lies in their impromptu invention. In contrast to the guided exercises, here you are no longer taken by the hand, but instead engage with the spontaneous, unpredictable here and now, with yourself and the other person. You may go in with certain ideas and plans, but you have to let yourself be drawn into the involuntary impulses of improvising together. Then magic can happen - or you can get lost. What to hold on to then? The schematic practices, patterns and instructions? Do you simply put in as many sensations as possible so that the person receiving them doesn't get bored - or so that you can conceal your own insecurity? Fall back on the tried and tested? Especially when you are interacting with someone you have known for a long time, there are behavioral routines that provide security. But what is a session about? Why are we actually doing this? At the end of the day, it's not just about getting the 90 minutes over with - the main thing, so to speak, is to be accident-free and full of highlights. And somehow you also do it to experience more or something different at the end than you would otherwise enjoy Netflix & Chill fumbling.
So on the third day, after a little warm-up exercise, we started the day with this very question: What makes a good session for you as the receiving person? What is important to you? What do you look for when you want (or even book) a session? With the input that followed, the scenarios of the return rounds became much more rounded and substantial.
In addition to emphasizing honesty (what you really want and don't want with this unique person in this unique moment), agreeing on codes for breaking off and changing the scene and trusting that the other person will clearly let you know when something is no longer right, I found it particularly inspiring to point out that sessions are not about wellness. Comfortable relaxation can be one aspect. However, the curious and courageous exploration of your own limits or the confrontation with what is currently on the agenda, what you want to try out or what you need an outlet for, invites you to realize that you don't always have to feel classically happy during the session. Because, to put it bluntly, you want to learn something existential about being human. For example, moments of shame (which usually only have negative connotations in everyday functioning) can present themselves as processes in which an individual in a state of nakedness and surrender confronts themselves in intimate self-knowledge, thus becoming a stranger to themselves and yet regaining themselves on a deeper level. When sessions induce ecstatic states, this intoxication produces certain forms of clairvoyance that offer the subject access to areas that are otherwise closed - and the hospitably welcomed, emerging emotions (such as shame or anger, for which there are otherwise hardly adequate places to act out without getting oneself into trouble) can be an access to these areas. This is not always easy and risk-free, but it can be enriching and, above all, exceptionally pleasurable.
The reflections shared in response to the initial question also made it clear that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Yes, it feels nice to have the back of my knee stroked, my tense shoulder kneaded and a rope wrapped around my wrist. But that's not what it's like to be stroked a little here and then tied up a little there. The terms "composition" and "dramaturgy" came up - so it's about structured processes. In a way, we tell a story during a session that has a beginning and an end and an arc of suspense in between. How one event leads to the next is not arbitrary, but pursues a certain meaning - even if this can run below the rationale and in non-linear, labyrinthine spheres.
Writing training courses teach how tension curves can be developed as red threads and brackets that hold the story together in order to maintain the reader's attention, expectation and interest over several pages. Like a fire that is slowly stoked, the drama is slowly increased and efforts are made to maintain the unpredictability of the further course of events, which in retrospect remains plausible and logical. Suspense is created through a sensitivity for delaying solutions, the incorporation of surprises that arise from the narrative's own logic - in other words, they are not just thrown in arbitrarily. This kind of storytellingcan be wonderfully transferred to a bodywork session. However, to ensure that the fine line between 'non-arbitrary' and yet 'unintentional' is maintained, so that something is not stubbornly and purposefully imposed on the receiving person that has nothing to do with them and their needs, a necessary keyword is 'presence', which most participants wanted from others for their sessions. In any case, as the person receiving, I can tell whether I'm just being slapped on the butt, not because it's a result of the situation, but because the other person thinks it has something to do with kinkiness or he/she just wants to fulfill a certain image instead of staying with us.
Presence makes me feel that someone is with me and is really interested in me, in my desire, wants to tease something out, is explorative and investigative. When it was my turn to talk about what makes a successful session for me, I came up with the somewhat drastic term exorcism, which may not be as promisingly charged for everyone as it is for me, but does justice to certain aspects that I know from great sessions: a ritual impact that leads me into a state of heightened touchability, with the aim of (archaeologically?) that lies dormant inside me and perhaps doesn't dare (or isn't allowed) to come out in everyday life. That the person giving must also dare to do something. That I can also be frightened by what is inside me, or at least be surprised by it, or simply shamelessly enjoy what powers are in my body. Something invisible wants to be made visible. Wants to show itself. And the session holds a safe space in which I can do this and be accompanied. Where it is not too much, does not have to be comforted away, exploited or therapeutically interpreted or healed away.
Being seen and realizing that the other person is simply enjoying seeing and recognizing this otherwise hidden part of me in a completely non-judgmental and benevolent way (even if it tweaks!) also makes the situation simply awesome. Because it creates radical closeness and intimacy. And because it creates infinite spirals of resonance: it makes me horny that you find it horny to see me; my increased horniness triggered by this makes you hornier in turn, which in turn triggers something in me, which in turn triggers something intense in you,...
However, this only seems possible if, in the course of the session, you stick to one thing that proves to be the key to interesting reactions and further in-depth explorations - which in turn speaks in favour of not being obsessively attached to your own plan and ideas that are still striving for realization. 'A lot' is not always 'more' and there is nothing to be gained by shooting all your powder (although deliberate overkill would be worth a try). Even if there are hanging points and you just wanted to show off your new suspension skills, you're probably just distracting yourself from something exciting that was about to unfold in the floorwork when you touched the leg constricted in the Futomomo. So why not linger there a little longer? Instead of then applying all kinds of restraints, perhaps more and more virtuoso results could be achieved by simply wrapping another layer of rope around this already tied leg. And another, and another...
This brought us to the next factor for a stimulating session that should not be underestimated: duration. You can only get to the really juicy moments and states of flow if you take your time and let time work for you. This is perhaps comparable to a planned sequence in a movie, which consists of a single, long shot and in which a special viewing experience only occurs in this duration: the image gains volume, so to speak, the recipient can immerse themselves in the image and in their own perceptual experience, because it is no longer a question of following the narration and combining who the murderer is now... In sessions, as the person giving, I experience these moments when, after a while, like an onion, a few layers of civilization are gradually removed until I suddenly see a highly sensitive and receptive 'core' somewhere in the expression of my counterpart (although this is not meant in such an essentializing way, because the 'core' refers more to an openness), in which there is a great deal of what always has to do with mortality and nativeness and which I can only describe very clumsily. To be able to look at such a vulnerable and yet strong expression is comparable to a feeling that once moved my mind during a trip to Israel after a long hike through the Negev desert, when I suddenly arrived at a large crater and then, overwhelmed, humbled and reverent, with a feeling of slight, pleasurable shivers or 'delightful horrors' , simply looked into the crater and had to endure the fact that this crater was now there, in all its unusable and mind-bending presence.
Interacting with a person during a session adds a sense of stark responsibility and highly sensitive intimacy that is fed by the trust that all parties must have brought to the situation once it has come to the point where such a moment of the sublime arises.
Since sitting circle sharing, I approach sessions differently. Because everything becomes more condensed when I remind myself that, in addition to the pure joy of creativity and inventiveness that sessions require and their moments of fun with alternative forms of communication, it is above all the discrete insights and sublime spaces of wonder that are the decisive attraction of playing with others in the first place. Above all, however, the practices learned in the workshops are not an end in themselves or a means of self-optimization, but a means of gaining knowledge and encountering the other in an emphatic sense.
