There are many different breath techniques that can bring you to a great variety of ecstatic states. But all you really need to know is this: breathing in and out through your nose is relaxing, particularly when you make the exhale longer than the inhale. Breathing in and out through your mouth is energizing. You can alternate the two to produce states of relaxed, alive awareness. The most important thing to remember is to just keep breathing. If all you do is keep breathing a bit more fully and deeply than you usually do, you’ll be well on your way to a delightfully altered state of consciousness.
Begin by practicing on your own. As you masturbate, breathe in and out through your mouth fully and deeply. Keep your throat and mouth relaxed, and don’t force the exhale. If conscious breathing is new to you, you’ll inevitably find that you go back to holding your breath. Don’t criticize yourself, just bring your attention back to your breath. You’ll probably notice that it takes you a bit longer to orgasm when you’re breathing like this. Imagine your body as 30-gallon container waiting to be filled with erotic energy. When you hold your breath while trying to orgasm, you are only able to generate enough energy to fill up an area around your genitals about the size of a coffee cup. When you breathe fully and consistently for longer, you generate enough energy to fill your entire 30-gallon tank. Now, which container of fuel would you rather have to power your orgasm? Breathe.
Our minds wander. They jump from thought to thought. It’s not a bad thing; it’s just what minds do. If we don’t deliberately keep our attention on the erotic present moment, our minds will dance us right out of the room into some mundane anxiety, or into a fantasy that takes us out of our body and away from what’s actually happening right here, right now.
One of the most effective ways of seducing our minds into becoming our erotic allies is to focus on the creation and movement of erotic energy. This is not as difficult or as boring as it may sound. For example, if you are flogging someone, you might imagine erotic energy pumping up from your genitals into your heart, through your arm, out the tips of your flogger, and into your partner’s heart. When your partner exhales, you can imagine their erotic energy flying out of their heart and coming back to you.
With some practice you will actually be able to see energy running through other people’s bodies and feel it running through yours. For example, if you are the one being flogged, you can imagine your heart being cracked open with each stroke. Or you can imagine the fiery strokes of a cane lighting your own inner fire and burning away limitations.
As with the breathing, practice by yourself first. As you masturbate, imagine breathing the turn-on in your genitals up into your heart, then into the top of your head. Feel it sliding into your arms and hands, legs and feet. You might feel the energy move, or see it, or even hear it. It doesn’t matter which way you imagine it. And feel free to fake it until you feel it. Energy follows thought. When you pretend the energy is in your heart or your hands, chances are you’ll be feeling it there soon after.
In both sex and BDSM we can become overly concerned with technique. We worry that we’re not doing it as well as it should be done, or as well as it could be done, or as well as it was done by our lover’s last partner. If you focus on breath and energy, there will be a lot less room in your mind for this kind of self-criticism. And, if you follow the energy instead of your critical mind, you won’t have to figure out what to do next. You’ll already be doing it.
This is not really a technique. It’s a magical piece of awareness, crystallized and named by my beloved late teaching partner, Chester Mainard. As with most energetic practices, it is very simple but it may take a little practice before it becomes easy, natural, and automatic.
Although the Resilient Edge of Resistance applies to any kind of connection, especially emotional and psychic connections, it is most easily understood when applied to touch. The Resilient Edge of Resistance is a touch that is neither too hard nor too soft. The touch is deep enough that the body pushes back just a little, but gentle enough that the body does not go rigid. When you are touched at your Resilient Edge of Resistance you are lulled into a place of deep comfort and surrender, yet you remain awake and eager for more.
Try it on your arm or leg. First try a touch that’s too gentle and soft. Feel how it’s kind of creepy and annoying? Now try a touch that’s too hard. Feel how the body tries to pull away, or goes rigid to defend itself? Now find the place—it will feel like a kind of holding—where the touch is just right. Begin to massage your arm or your leg. As you continue the massage, notice how your touch changes. As the body relaxes, you can go a little deeper.
The Resilient Edge of Resistance applies to all kinds of touch including the kind of intense sensation that happens in some BDSM play. We all know that we can’t start off using our heaviest toy with our greatest strength without burning out our bottom in two strokes. We start with warm-up strokes, staying at the bottom’s Resilient Edge of Resistance, gradually building up the intensity, until we’re both flying happily on the exquisitely extreme sensation.
Sounds of pleasure can be embarrassing or frightening for some people. Remember the Quiet and Quick Rule? We learn at an early age not to make too much noise while having sex. However, sound moves energy—a lot of energy. Whether you are enjoying a long delicious fuck or a long intense night in the dungeon, you’ll get a lot more turned on and reach higher ecstatic states if you make some noise. In Tantra, the body’s energetic anatomy is made up of chakras—spinning spirals of energy located in approximately the same areas as the glands of the endocrine system—at the perineum, lower belly, solar plexus, heart, throat, forehead (aka third eye), and crown. Each of these seven chakras has a sound associated with it (as well as specific physical and metaphysical qualities, colors, and symbols). The first chakra has the lowest pitch, the highest chakra the highest pitch. You can move energy up and down your body by making sounds of different pitches. You don’t have to know any Sanskrit chants—all you have to do is remember to make sounds
PC squeezes, also known as Kegels, are little squeezes of the pubococcygeus muscle. The PC muscle is the muscle you use to stop the flow of urine. Find your PC muscle now and give it a little squeeze. Your PC muscle is your own personal erotic energy pump. Think of it as a heat pump on the furnace in your erotic basement. Use PC squeezes to help you get turned on, then to move your turn-on up through your body and out into your arms and legs. Without your PC heat pump, sexual energy might eventually get into all the rooms of your house, but with PC squeezes it will get there so much faster and more effectively.