Noah
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Joined: 7/5/2005
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Smythe
... can a new member of CollarMe with only 3 posts under Her belt, start a new topic?
Alot of people award bonus points for keeping your posts below the belt, I think, but you did mention something psychological here.
As for the complaint above that no one "talks about mental training as a tangible thing," well given the meaning of the word tangible, isn't that just ruled out by definition? But if you'll allow a strongly metaphorical sense of the word tangible then it is not at all difficult to talk about mental training this way. Your librarian can point you to any number of books on the subject.
The word "training" differs from the word "teaching" in that it emphasizes that the intended result is not just increased knowledge but refinement or change in behavior.
To be taught *to do* something is to be trained. I'm only recounting the standard usages of the words. I'm sure that if you check several dictionaries including one or two good ones, this is the impression you will come away with. If you want to use the word in a more restricted way (DOGS AND HOOPS) that's fine, but you should know that across our culture when people use the words teach or train this is the distinction that is being expressed. This is not a matter of my opinion, by the way, but the result of careful and extensive research by lexicographers as to how literate people, on average, actually use the words.
I wonder why some people think training has only to do with dogs and seals? Well, Navy SEALS get a lot of training, and a lot of it is mental, because a lot of our behaviors are mental behaviors. AMong many other things they are trained to swim good and sneak around quietly and follow orders in a certain sort of way but they are also trained to a particular sort of toughness which is altogether mental, aside from the toughening their bodies undergo (also a matter of training.) Just as mental toughness can be developed through training, so can compliance (see: order-following) and other "stuff" commonly welcomed by dominants in the mind and heart of a submissive.
Now if all you're into is sensation play, well physical training is gonna occur whether you want it too or not but maybe mental training needn't enter the picture. That's fine. But for some of us this is so much more than physical sensation.
As someone pointed out recently in another thread, inhibitions live in our heads. They are mental things. Has your dominant intentionally and carefully and systematically helped you past some inhibition? It seems reasonable and not at all insulting to say that you benefitted from his training, though you can surely use different words if you feel inhibitted about that one.
Limits aren't the same as inhibitions but they are mental items too, no? Has your dominant carefully and intentionally and systematically brought you past some of your previous limits? Why shouldn't we call this training? I'm comfortable with it.
I find that most people I get close too are much less clear than they think they are about certain kinds of self-awareness, for instance accurately and incisively noting distinctions between their own knowledge, opinions, and prejudices. The case is similar with distinctions between notions and feelings, and between physical and emotional feelings. Ask any literate person to define the differences and she can do so, of course. But ask her questions about either her physical, mental or emotional state at a given moment and her responses are likely to bleed across the distinctions. I'm not even saying that she is mixed up about which is which. It may just be weak habits of introspection and self-reporting. These habits can be refined--through training.
... and I tend to deal with extremely bright and quite well educated people; it isn't a matter of being dull in case that's what you're imagining.
A mechanic can look under your hood and tell the framis from the johnson rod where someone else just see a mess of mechanical stuff and wires. He can often spot a failed or marginal framis at a glance, whereas you or I probably can't. Getting better and better at recognizing fine distinctions in your internal state can have all sorts of benefits across your life. It can make you a better mechanic of your own psychological machine. It also--in my experience and in my opinion--makes you a more interesting object to tweak. Accordingly I see training along these lines as a win for both sides, or rather for top as well as for bottom.
Consider sub-drop (or top-drop.) The first time a sub experiences it she might read into it all sorts of things that aren't there. In fact she might think these illusory things (read: imminent relationship problems) right into existence if she isn't taught the difference between a typical sub-drop vs. a bout of clinical depression vs. actually finding yourself in a moment where everything has quite genuinely gone from sublime to shitty. So there is teaching of a non-training variety involved, but the experience is so visceral for some people that many benefit from training in addition to teaching in this matter. No hoops, no jumping. But yes, behaviorally oriented training using quite specific techniques.
I used to think that the "come-on-command" stories were on a par with the poodle in the microwave stories, until I brought a submissive to that point. I won't take all the credit and I'm not suggesting that I could do it for just anyone--nor of course will I do it on command--but she and I are both prety sure she wouldn't have gotten there without the "orgasm enhancement" training that was going on. This isn't all mental training by any means. It can involve dietary changes (don't take my word for this you can get lots of data via Google; eat less soy, for starters) and certain physical exercises as well as mental training. But let's face it: if someone is coming on command without physical intervention she was either born with a rare gift or mentally trained to a fare-thee-well.
So yeah, there is such a thing as mental training. In fact there is also such a thing as emotional training, quite distinct from mental training. Effective abusers do a lot of it, probably for the most part on an ad hoc basis, often not realizing what mechanisms they are using and just how it is that their results are being achieved. They're just doing what comes naturally to their fucked-up selves. Some of us believe that this Dark Side force can be used for good--or anyway for our amusement--in ways that we and our partners sort of agree on.
So thanks for asking. In fact I'l bet you are already doing some worthwhile mental training on an ad hoc basis yourself.
Regarding that: just as it helps a submissive--or anyone--to learn to tune in more finely to her internal states I believe a dominant can benefit by making his or her employment of these techniques and dynamics quite explicit to himself or herself. In some cases he may want to make them explicit to his partner too. In other cases he may decide to hone and use them under the radar, so to speak, but hopefully still within the scope of a consent offered rather broadly.
Someone who claims there is no such thing as mental training is just betraying a lack of knowledge and/or experience. Now there is no shame in being unaware of something. It's the shooting your mouth off about it that is such bad form.
There are people (who never went to the moon themselves) who will tell you that the Apollo missions didn't either. Actually some of their websites are kind of fun as object lessons in abysmal critical thinking. Rest assured, though, that The Mental Training Planet is not made of green cheese, Smythe.
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