renaissance poisson

I have comments on the D/s stuff, and possibly on other BDSM aspects too, but I think I should collect my thoughts first.

However, I will say a thing about pain. I used to be a really good athlete, and I still like to, say, go on hard bike rides. I learned to think of pain as one of several ways my body communicates with me; to me, pain does not always mean "danger - back off!".

When I ride hard and hit a hill, the muscles in my legs will react to the strain. If I then accelerate, the reaction is pain. But this good pain - it's not pain caused by things breaking. It's a reaction to the body being asked to perform at the limit of what it can do - and to keep doing it. It's a pain I can face and then "go through", and that's a remarkable feeling. There's this saying in sports that the biggest win is when you win against yourself, and that's that to me.

It's not the same as "runners high", I think. The experience of the pain is much more direct. It's not the endophins - it's more that this kind of pain make me aware of my body like nothing else, make me present in the here and now and experience my body at work, my body performing like a fantastic machine, real close up. It creates a physical awareness that's amazing to me. And it's an awareness that will last for a good while after; I guess it puts me in a frame of mind where I'm out of my head in into my body, if that makes sense.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Maybe more when I'm more coherent.