Monday, October 27, 2014

Weekend Wrap-up

So ... as you probably noticed from the last couple of short posts, it was a busy weekend for me and sleepingirl.  Now, I have time for a more relaxed description of what went down.

Our first official stop was at a college in Amherst, MA.  (I'd love to plug them, but the contract they had me sign actually forbids me doing so without written permission, which I neglected to get.  There are several colleges in Amherst.)  We were invited by a student group that promotes education and healthy discussion of sexuality, kink, and related issues.

We found the venue without too much confusion and met our hosts, then proceeded to set up the space.  Our plan was to do a three-part program.  First, I would do Erotic Hypnosis 101 for the whole group.  Then we would divide the group into tops and bottoms and have sleepingirl take the bottoms to another room for a talk on negotiation (from the bottom side), safety, and being a better hypno-bottom while I worked with the hypnotists on negotiation from the top, safety and ethics, and tips and tricks for developing your hypnotic style and presence.  Then we would rejoin the groups for some mentored practice time.

Things didn't quite work out that way.  The space really only had one room of usable size, so we hastily planned out how to manage that.  Then the turnout was a lot less than we were expecting because of a schedule conflict (Parents' Weekend), so it turned into a much smaller group than planned.  That actually helped, because it made it very easy to tailor our presentations closely to the interests of that group.  For example, most of the group were switches, so we abandoned the split-up-into-two idea and simply took turns discussing aspects from both sides of the watch.  The group was curious and full of great questions so we did a lot of demonstration and Q&A, and because they were much younger than the usual EEHU audience they didn't have a lot of first-hand experience, so we spent more time on basic techniques like different types of inductions.  In the end, while we didn't do a lot of what we originally planned, we did give them what they needed and everyone left happy.  I'm looking forward to returning in the spring.

The next event on our schedule was at The Society in Hartford CT.  The Society is the venue for NEEHU, of course, so I'm very familiar with the space.  The staff were wonderfully welcoming and a lot of good friends were there -- DaSade, sleepingirl and cckitten, AmHypnotic and MentalConfetti, LeeAllure, CalamityBrain, Decordazon, MrDream and ZanyM, Setsudo, and more.  The Master Charles room filled up with people, most of whom I did not know.  That meant I would be introducing new people to the erotic hypnosis community, which is always exciting.

The topic for the night was Subtle Suggestion:  Combining NLP and Hypnosis.  It's one that I've done a couple of times now but is still very much a work in progress.  For the Society, I expanded the NLP material and did some simple exercises with the group before moving into the integration with hypnosis.  The crowd was great; they participated, they played, they were lively and interested, and we had a great time.  An exhausted sleepingirl was kind enough to be one of my demo bottoms (she knows how much I love playing with her mind), and I was fortunate to meet Mistress Rheea and do some demonstrations with her as well.

As it happens, one of the people who came to that class was Enlightenment14 (FetLife name).  We talked before and after class, and he arranged for me to do a guest spot on Valley Free Radio (WXOJ, 103.3FM) the very next morning.  I called in and talked to Rick Haggerty for about 30 minutes about erotic hypnosis, the community, and of course Mind Play.  We didn't actually get to the NLP aspects, but from what I've heard so far the community who heard the broadcast was pleased.

If you didn't hear it, you can download or stream the audio of that show from their archive site.  My spot is during the second hour, from 9:15 to 9:45 (which would be 1:15-1:45 of the recording).

It was a great weekend.  Sleepingirl is a rock star for all the right reasons -- she is frank, very sharp, supremely talented, and really understands the nuances of being kinky, bottoming, and teaching.  I loved co-presenting with her, and I hope we can do it more often.


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