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Most people think getting better at BDSM just means learning more techniques, more toys, more skills, more knowledge. And that's part of it, but it's actually the smallest part. The people who get really good at this lifestyle, they do eight specific things differently. And today I'm walking you through all of them. Welcome to the Dom Subliving Podcast. Hey, I'm your host Alessandra. And if you're new here, this is the podcast for people who are serious about their DS dynamics and the kink lifestyle. Not just curious, not just experimenting, like serious. We talk about real stuff here. And in this episode, we are talking about eight ways to actually get better at BDSM. And I want to ask you something right at the top. What does it even mean to be good at BDSM? Like, is it about the techniques, the toys, the titles you hold, Dom, sub, switch? Is it about how long you've been in the lifestyle? Well, personally, I don't think it's any of those things, or at least not primarily. I think getting better at BDSM is about intention. It's about showing up for your practice, the way you'd show up for anything you actually care about. You show up with study, with consistency, with community and self-awareness. So today I'm giving you eight actual real life specific ways to do that. So let's get into it. Way number one, make BDSM your identity. Now, before you roll your eyes, hear me out. Because I'm not saying tattoo it on your forehead. I'm not saying you have to post about it on your main vanilla Instagram account. I'm saying stop treating this like it's a hobby you do sometimes and start treating it like a core part of who you are. Because think about this a runner doesn't just run on race day. They think about running, they talk about running, they watch YouTube videos about running at 11 o'clock at night. They plan their weekends around their long run. Running is a part of their identity. And that means it's always on their mind. It always gets attention and they're always getting better. They eat, sleep, and breathe running. And people who practice BDSM who get really good at this lifestyle, they do the same thing. They don't save it for special occasions. They are in it, even on the days when nothing kinky is actually happening. And for me, the moment this shifted, like the moment BDSM stopped being a thing I do and started being a part of who I am, then everything changed. My mindset changed. The way I carried myself changed, the way I think about my relationship changed. Even on completely vanilla-looking Tuesdays when we're just eating dinner and watching TV, there's still a DS current running underneath it. It's a dynamic, it's an awareness of who we are to each other. And one of the simplest, most powerful ways to maintain that awareness is to wear something on your body that reminds you of your role. So for submissives, that might be a collar. I have a day collar, but it can be even a really subtle one, something that looks like a regular necklace, you know, to everyone in the outside world, but it means everything to you. And for dominance, it might be a bracelet, a ring, a specific watch you wear, just something tactile, something that when you touch it or you, you know, look at it, you remember this is who I am. This is what I've chosen. And then beyond that, consume BDSM content intentionally. So listen to podcasts like the one you're listening to right now, but also read BDSM books and online articles. We have a ton of articles. If you go to domsubliving.com/slash blog, online communities and forums, watch movies. My personal favorite for BDSM movies is Secretary. But the point is, the more BDSM lives in your mind and your daily awareness, the more it grows. You cannot get better at something you only think about once a month. Okay, that was way number one, make BDSM your identity. Way number two is learn both the physical and the psychological aspects of BDSM. And I mean both. So equally, because here's what I see happen all the time. People go deep on one side or the other. Like they're super into the technical. So the gear, the techniques, the safety protocols, they're learning all the not charts, or they're all in on the psychological side. So the power exchange, the mindset, the emotional dynamics, the way it feels. And both of those things are great. But if you only have one of them, you have half of a practice. Let's use wax play as an example because I think it shows this really clearly. So on the physical side, you need to know like what types of wax are safe for skin. So paraffin, soy, beeswax. You have to know what's the difference and why does it matter. You need to know from what height to pour. You need to know which areas of the body to avoid. And there are lots of them. You need to know how different skin types react to heat. You need to know what first aid looks like if something goes wrong. That's all physical knowledge. And it's not something optional. You can't skip that and call yourself prepared. But then there's the psychological side. What is the submissive getting from the experience of being covered in hot wax? What does the vulnerability of that feel like? You know, the lying still, trusting completely while someone pours something hot onto your body. And then on the flip side, what does the dominant feel when they're holding the candle and being responsible for something as primal as fire on another person's skin? What does that power feel like? And how does it connect to everything else in the dynamic? Those are completely different conversations, and you need to have both of them. So, some practical things you can do, get certified in CPR and First Aid. I know that sounds like a very unsexy thing to say on a BDSM podcast, but do it anyways. Know anatomy, especially for any activity that involves impact or restraint. Know what your triggers are, know what subdrop feels like and how to manage that. And if you're a dominant, know what dom drop looks like too, because it is real and it's not really talked about. The more you understand what BDSM is doing to you and your partner, like both physically and mentally, the more sustainable and the more intense your practice becomes. So ask yourself, if something went wrong in your next scene, whether it be physically or emotionally, do you actually know what to do? Like, not in theory, but when your hands are shaking in that moment, do you know what to do? That's the standard to hold yourself to. So that was way number two to learn both the physical and the psychological aspects of BDSM. Now, way number three is be consistent. And I mean actually do BDSM regularly, not just when conditions are perfect, not just when you have a whole evening blocked out and the house is clean and you're both in the right headspace, like regularly, because just like a writer writes and a runner runs a BDSM or BDSMs. Okay, moving on. But I want to be really clear about what I mean by consistency, because I think people here do it regularly and they picture elaborate scenes every week and immediately they feel exhausted. That is not what I'm saying. I'm saying do something BDSM related at least weekly, and that can be something very small. Like learn a new rope tie, not even use it, just learn it. Practice a submissive position, even alone in your bedroom. Send your partner a DS-related text during the day, read a chapter of a BDSM book together before bed, watch a how-to video, have a conversation about a fantasy. Small things count. Consistency is about keeping the container alive, not having to fill it to the brim every single week. And I want to share something personal here. There was a time in our relationship, um, I think a lot of couples hit this, where life just got completely overwhelming. So we had a lot of work stress, some family stuff going on, just the general chaos of being adults. And we let weeks go by without anything. And then weeks became a couple months, and I noticed some things. So the dynamic started to feel distant. It wasn't that it was like broken, it was just dimmed, if that makes sense. And getting back to it wasn't hard, but it required effort in a way we hadn't done before. We had let the fire go out, so to speak. And relighting a fire from cold is a lot harder than just keeping it going. And that's what inconsistency does. It doesn't kill your dynamic overnight, it fades it slowly. And you don't always notice until you're already standing in a completely vanilla relationship, wondering what happened. So are you practicing BDSM or are you waiting for the perfect moment to practice BDSM? Because I'll tell you right now, that moment does not show up on its own. You have to create it. So that was way number three, be consistent. And way number four is watch others. Here is something I have learned from years in this lifestyle. Some skills literally cannot be learned from a description, like rope is the most obvious example. You can read about a chest harness for hours. You can study diagrams and read step-by-step instructions, and you will still not fully understand like the tension and the feel and the movement until you watch a real person's hands working through it in real time. The same is true for flogging, for scene pacing, for the way a skilled dominant reads a submissive's body language, because there's not obvious signs, there's subtle ones like the shift in breathing, the way someone's muscles soften or tighten. Those are all micro expressions. And that is knowledge you absorb by watching, not by reading. I remember my Dom went to his first BDSM dungeon event in the beginning of our dynamic. And he went there as an observer. He wasn't there to play, he was there to just watch and learn. And he came home like different. And what got him wasn't the technique, it was everything around the technique. Like the way this person paced the energy, how they built it slowly and deliberately, the way they checked in with their submissive without breaking the flow, the way the submissive's whole body transformed or over the course of the scene, how they relaxed into it and trusted the Dom completely. He told me afterward, like, I could not have learned that from anything I've read. I had to see it. So if you haven't been to a dungeon or a kink event, go. You don't have to play, just observe. Go to dungeons that let people just watch, attend demos and kink conferences and events where people who are experienced players can demonstrate rope and impact play and sensation play. These are invaluable. And if that feels like too big of a step right now, start with instructional video content. And if you're an all XSPAS member, we have hands-on how-to videos for rope, wax play, flogging, submissive positions, and a lot of other things. So consume content where you can actually watch technique, not just read about it. Because is there a skill in your practice that you have only ever read about? What do you think would change if you actually watch someone who had truly mastered it, if they did it live in front of you? So that was way number four, watch others. Way number five is be part of the community. And I mean this sincerely, but BDSM practiced in total isolation is harder. It's not impossible, but it's harder. It's harder to stay motivated when you're just in your own head and in your own bubble. It's harder to grow when you have no one to grow with. And it's a lot harder to process the rough patches that are bound to come up when you're doing all of this alone. So, like the scenes that go sideways, the dynamics that shift and change, the difficult conversations. You need friends to share those things with. Community is a structural support for your practice. It's not a nice to have. For me and my DOM, we go to monthly in-person munches. So a munch, if you're new to that term, it's just basically a casual meetup. It's usually at a restaurant or a bar. And it's just for people in the kink community to get together. So there's no play, there's no dungeon clothes. It's just kinky people having normal conversations in a vanilla setting. And honestly, it's one of the most valuable things we do for our dynamic. Not because anything dramatic happens there, but because we're normalizing the effect of being around people who just get it. I also want to share something that one of my All Access Past members said at our recent online summit. Her name is Angela, but I just want to share it because it really stuck with me. She said that it was so important to have a group where you can share your wins. Because most of us can't share our wins with vanilla people. And it's nice to be around people who just get it. I mean, think about that. If you learned a new rope tie this week, or you went to your first dungeon, or you finally had a breakthrough conversation with your partner about what you actually want in your dynamic, you cannot call your vanilla sibling and tell them that. They might love you, but they're probably going to wince a little bit. They're not going to get it in the way it deserves to be got. But your kink community will cheer you on. Your kink friends will celebrate with you. And that is huge. It improves your motivation. It improves your sense of belonging and helps you continue to grow in this lifestyle. So find a local munch if you can. Join an online community. You can join ours for free at domsubliving.com/slash community. Go to events, attend our next online summit or boot camp, and make actual kinky friends. Not just people you follow on Instagram, not just people with usernames like Daddy69 on Discord, but people who know you, who know your dynamic and will show up for you. So do you have one person right now, like just one person that you can message after a great scene and have them actually understand why that mattered? If the answer is no, that is the gap. And genuine community fills that gap. So that was way number five, be part of the community. Way number six is debrief your scenes. And I know what you're thinking. Of course, debrief when things go wrong. So do an after action review, talk about what happened. Like, yeah, obviously, we know all that. But that is not what I mean here, or at least that's only half of what I mean. Because here is the thing almost nobody does. Debrief when things go right. We are very good in this community at processing the bad scenes. We talk about what went wrong, we figure out why it went sideways, we put protocols in place to prevent it happening next time. That is important and we should keep doing that. But think about your last amazing scene, like the one where everything clicked, where the energy was electric and you both came out of it glowing. What did you do after that? If you're like most people, like you probably basked in that afterglow for a while, which is, you know, obviously the right thing to do, but then you moved on. You probably assumed you knew why it was great and you just thought you could do it again. But do you actually know why it was great? Well, here's what I've learned. A lot of times, the reason a scene was incredible has nothing to do with the implement you used or the position you were in. It's a lot more nuanced than that. Maybe it was the time of day, it was the mood you both walked into the scene with, it was something specific that was said during the scene, or it was the fact that you both had a really connected week leading up to it, or that you had that difficult conversation two days before and finally cleared the air. You don't know unless you ask. Like unless you sit down even for five minutes during your aftercare and just say, What worked tonight? What would you want again? What, if anything, fell off? This can be a short conversation, it can be a journaling prompt you both do separately and then share together. It can be a voice memo, even that you each record on the drive home. The format doesn't really matter. What matters is the habit of doing it and doing it for the great scenes, not just the hard ones. Because the debrief is how you turn a lucky great scene into a repeatable great scene. So that was way number six, debrief your scenes. And way number seven is have a mentor. Now, I want to make a distinction here that I think is really important because a lot of times people will ask me, what's the difference between a coach and a mentor? And I do use those two words kind of interchangeably sometimes, um, but they're not quite the same exact thing. So a coach teaches you universal principles, like here's how flogging works, here's the anatomy you need to know, here's a framework for negotiating a scene. That knowledge applies across the board. It's it's the same for everyone. A mentor does something different though. So a mentor helps you take those universal principles and apply them to your specific situation and your specific dynamic and your personality, your history, your communication style, your desires, and your challenges. Because here's the thing BDSM is deeply personal. What works beautifully for one person can be completely wrong for another. And generic advice from something you read on Reddit only gets you so far. There have been times in my own practice where I learned something, understood it conceptually, even agreed with it in theory, and then I couldn't figure out how to make it fit for us. So CNC is a great example of this. Um, consensual nonconsent is about wanting to do things you don't want to do, or if you're the DOM, wanting to force them to do things they don't necessarily like. That is just a very tiny way to explain it. But knowing what CNC is and how to do it doesn't Help me to figure out how to navigate things about my own traumas in life, my own triggers, and not just mine, but my Dom's as well. So that's where a mentor comes in, someone who knows you, who knows your dynamic and can say, like, given everything you've told me and about where you are right now, here's what I'd try. And honestly, sometimes it's less about getting advice and more about just having someone you can be fully honest with. Like, not the version of your dynamic you'd share in a public forum, but the real thing, the messy, complicated, difficult real thing. Someone who gets the lifestyle and gets you. This is actually one of the reasons we built one-to-one monthly mentoring into our All Access Pass because I kept seeing people who had all the knowledge, like who had taken every single one of our courses and they still felt stuck. And it wasn't because they didn't know enough, but it was because they didn't have anyone helping them apply what they knew to their actual life. So, who in your life can you be that honest with about your dynamic, not just with your wins, but the real stuff? If you don't have someone like that yet, that's the next thing to find. So that was way number seven. Have a mentor. Now, before we get to number eight, I want to share my free resource library with you. You can access it for free at domsubliving.comslash free. There's worksheets, templates, videos, checklists, everything you need to start applying all of these different ways to get better at BDSM right now. Go get it. It's free. That's dumbsubliving.comslash free. The link is in the description too. Okay, way number eight, our last way to get better at BDSM, and it is to know your why. And I know, I know, I am a broken record with this one. If you listen to this podcast regularly, you have heard me say this before. I keep saying it because I keep watching people lose their way without it. So I'm going to keep saying it. Why do you do EDSM? Why do you want to be a dominant? Why do you want to be a submissive? Why do you want to be a part of this community? And I want to challenge you, make it bigger than just, I want to have kinky sex. That's a fine answer too. No shame in that. But it's not going to sustain you through the hard seasons. And there will be hard seasons. You will have fights with your partner that bleed into your dynamic. You will do a scene and it will be awkward and weird and maybe even bad. And you'll get embarrassed and frustrated or just feel disconnected. You will have a period of weeks where life is overwhelming and you can't make time for it, and the dynamic just starts to drop off. You'll be nervous going to your first BDSM event. You will feel unsure of yourself and exposed. And sometimes all of this is just too complicated. It's too overwhelming. Your why is what carries you through all of that. It's the reason you keep showing up when showing up feels hard. So let me tell you my why, because I think it helps to hear an actual example. So I am a submissive because I want to be the best version of myself. Like, period. Submission for me is not about giving up power. It's about channeling it in a direction that makes me grow. It makes me more intentional, more present, and more honest with myself and with my partner. And beyond that, I know it makes my Dom happy. Being in this dynamic and showing up fully in my role and in scenes, it's one of the most meaningful ways I know how to love him. It's a form of service. It deepens our relationship in ways I could not create in any other way. And then outside of the two of us, the reason I do this publicly, the reason I make this podcast and run this community, it's because the more I develop as a submissive, the more I have to give back. The better I get at this, the better I am at teaching it and mentoring people and creating the resources I wish I had when I was starting out. That is my why. And it's bigger than any single scene and any single bad week or any moment of doubt or difficulty that comes up. So what is your why? If you don't have the answer right now, that is totally okay. But I want you to sit with that question, write it down, talk about it with your partner, because having your why at the center of your practice is what turns BDSM from a thing you do into a life you build. Because if someone took away every toy, every dungeon, every technique you had, and all you had left was just your DS dynamic or just your role as a DOM or sub, would your why still be enough to keep you here? I hope the answer is yes. I hope this episode helps you make it a yes. But that was the eight ways. So let's run through them quickly. So one, make BDSM your identity, wear it, consume it, live it, even on the quiet vanilla days. Two, learn both the physical and psychological aspects. You need both. Not just the techniques, not just the feelings, you need both. And then three, be consistent. Do something BDSM related every week, even if it's something small. And then four, watch others. So go to events, watch live demos, learn from people who are doing it in front of you, even if it's on a screen. And then five, be part of the community. Find your people, the ones who will cheer your wins because they actually get it. And six, debrief your scenes, especially the good ones. Figure out what made them great so you can do it again. And seven, find a mentor, someone who can help you apply all of this universal knowledge to your specific dynamic. And eight, know your why. Make it bigger than kinky sex. Make it something that will hold you on the hard days. So now you have eight ways to not just do BDSM, but to actually get better at it. Go do the work. But before I let you go, a couple things. So first, I have that free resource library at domsubliving.comslash free. It has worksheets, templates, videos, checklists. It has everything you need to start applying these eight different ways right now. So go get it. It's free. That's domsubliving.comslash free. The link is in the description too. And if you want to go deeper, like if you want to access the hands-on how-to videos, the monthly one-to-one mentoring I talked about, all of the vault of different resources, that's what the All Access Pass is for. And you can find that at domsubliving.comslash all access. Come join us. Come share your wins. Find your accountability partner. Find your kinky friends. The door is open. Thank you so much for being here. If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone in the lifestyle who needs to hear it. Leave a review if you're feeling generous. It genuinely helps the show reach more people. And until next time, keep embracing your power and pleasure through Dom Some Living.