Padriag
Posts: 2633
Joined: 3/30/2005
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quote:
ORIGINAL: bound4more
I hear about Dominant or Master skills. What are these? I'm not referring to how well one uses a flogger, but what are the skills you have learned/developed that arouse and inspire submission or surrender?
There is surprisingly little discussion or published regarding your question. Below is a brief outline of some areas I would advise a dominant to work on. I've separated them into three groups, personal skills, interpersonal skills and knowledge bases.
Personal skills - these are skills of self development and self management. I list them first because in my opinion this should be the first area a dominant focuses on.
- Self discipline - if you can't make yourself do what is necessary, especially when you don't really want to, then you are going to fail. This is true whether its pushing yourself to develop and grow in new ways, making tough decisions, or letting go when you'd really rather not. Developing self discipline means making a habit of pushing yourself, taking control of your behavior, and managing yourself better.
- Self confidence - necessary both to being able to extend yourself in new directions, but also in attracting submissives. Without exception, every submissive I have ever known has listed confidence as an attractive quality in a dominant. Developing confidence requires challenging yourself, the more you engage in activities outside your comfort zone, the more confident you will be come. This happens more quickly with successes, but even failing can still boost confidence simply by learning that failure isn't the end of the world. One of the most common barriers to confident behavior is the fear of rejection or of being seen as foolish, learning to overcome that alone can boost confidence a great deal.
- Self awareness - learn to be aware of yourself, in totality. By that I mean, learn to honestly see yourself as you are, every aspect of yourself. Learn to accept your weaknesses and flaws along with your strengths and treat them both the same. Use the knowledge to better direct your own self improvement and growth. I find that keeping a journal can be helpful in this area, read back over your entries periodically... you'll be surprised at the objectivity if affords you about yourself.
- Identity - simply put, who are you? Who do you wish to be? You cannot effectively become who you wish to be if you don't clearly know who and what that is. Beyond that you will also find having a consistent identity important to attracting submissives. This is true because of a rule of human interactions, when we are deciding whether to trust someone, we watch to see if who they present themselves to be matches their actions, their circumstance, etc. This is called congruence testing, the more consistent your identity is with your behavior and circumstance, the more trustworthy you appear to be to others. The best way to achieve this is by actually being who you claim to be, and that means you have to work towards being who you want to be... actually becoming that identiy you wish to create.
Interpersonal skills - these skills focus on your ability to relate to others, how well you master these skills directly influences how successful you will be in your relationships with others... and there for how well you can influence others.
- Observation - just as self awareness is an important personal skill, observation... the awareness of others, is the cornerstone of interpersonal skills. Every other skill I'm about to list among interpersonal skills is best built on a foundation of good observation skills. Learn to observe others and discern as much about them as you are able. Start with the obvious, watch what people do and say, watch whether that correlates or not (do your own congruence testing). Learn to observe body language and emotional states. In other words learn to "read" people. You may find any of several books on body language helpful. Make this a habit, practice it consciously every day... if you go out to eat, make mental notes about the people around you.
- Communication - communication is two fold. The first half is listening... learn to hear what someone is telling you. Observation helps with this because we say quite a lot through non-verbal ques. Learn to hear not just what someone says, but what they don't say. Again, practice this daily to build your skill. When speaking, practice saying what you mean clearly. Pay attention to not just what you say, but how you say it. You'll find that everything from modulating your voice to control the pitch and volume, to your body language while you speak, to the pace at which you speak can have as much impact as the words you choose. Again, there are books on developing effective communication skills, pick at least one and put it to use.
- Leadership - this is a catchall skill group for a subset of skills that all ultimately deal with inspiring and motivating others. You can be dominant, you can be self disciplined, you can have the desire to impose your will... but if you don't know how to effectively influence and motivate others, you aren't going to get very far. Learning to inspire a submissive to want to serve you, to actively desire it, is an art unto itself. Those who master it get what they want, how they want, when they want... in addtion to a big silly smile; while those who fail to do so spend a lot of time frustrated and often resort to trying to force service and may well end up charged with some form of domestic violence.
- Methodology - Having the skills to do something is made more effective by having a plan for how to put those skills to use. This is where methodology comes in to play. There are many ways of approaching a D/s or M/s relationship, and many dominants employ a variety of methods to achieve their goals. Having put some thought beforehand into what your own methodology will be, what your goals are, how you plan to achieve those goals, etc. can help things run more smoothly. Think of it as being similar to building a house. First there's the architect who designs the house, what kind of house will it be, what special features will it include, etc. Giving some thought to the kind of relationship you want and specific details that are important to you will help you set up your long term goals. After that you become the contractor who must put it all together and turn those plans into a reality.
Knowledge bases - This last group aren't skills so much as areas of knowledge which can be useful to develop.
- Behavioral Psychology - this is one I'm a big fan of because it deal directly with modifying and shaping behavior. That in turn has obvious applications in training a submissive's behavior according to the desires of the dominant. It can also be useful in dealing with problem behaviors, and even useful to the dominant in correcting their own bad habits.
- Fetish Play - this covers the whole gamut of fetishes and forms of play that are often a part of this lifestyle. Its useful to have a working knowledge of forms of bondage, rope work, spanking, flogging, etc. There are numerous ways to expand your knowledge, from seminars and demonstrations, to self teaching methods that can be found in books and online. Start with the basics and work your way out from there.
- Relationship Dynamics - understanding various concepts about relationships, how they work, what helps and what hurts relationships is useful to any dominant seeking long term relationships. Lifestyle relationships, whether D/s or M/s or any other variety, are still relationships and face many of the same issues as "vanillas", so a working knowledge of how to deal with obstacles and problems commonly faced in relationships will always be useful.
Consider the above a brief introduction to "how to be a better dominant". Its far from exhaustive or complete, for that I'd have to write a book and I do see anyone lining up to pay me a rather large fee to do so. However, what I've presented could be consider good starting points. What anyone makes of those building blocks is up to them.
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Padriag
A stern discipline pervades all nature, which is a little cruel so that it may be very kind - Edmund Spencer
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RE: Dominant/Master skills - 
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Les (Purveyor of Fine, Handcrafted Kink)
RE: Dominant/Master skills - 
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