Oy, this is getting, long, eh?
The first part of this series is Here
The first part of this series is Here
The second part of this series is Here
I suggest you read them both first...
The Relationship of Presenters – Attendees
In my opinion and experience, the relationship between presenters and attendees is two two-fold. The first fold is that of teacher - student, the second-fold is similar to actor – fan.
Please note that, as a person who has a long history with pedagogical techniques, I may refer to some here, but the point of this post isn’t to actually give the how-to-s of pedagogy. That, my friends, would require a series of workshops.
Presenter as Teacher, Attendee as Student
This is, perhaps, the most critical consideration as a presenter, because if there aren’t butts in your seats, you may not be invited to do a lot of presenting. I know there are myriad ways that people can teach effectively and also myriad ways that people learn. I’m going to keep it to four styles of teaching: Performance/Demo, Philosophy, How To, Dialogue
Presenter as Performer/Demo – Attendee
Classes wherein you and the people you are working with are performing techniques and where there isn’t a significant amount of discussion of those techniques fall into the ‘performer/demo’ category
· When you give the producers your write-up, be sure to include that it’s a demo
· Students who think they are getting a how-to and who, instead, get a demo, are likely to feel like they’ve been miss-sold the class
· You are there to entertain
· Keep in mind the size of the room
· Be aware of the site lines of the space you are in
o While you may not be able to ensure that EVERYONE sees everything, you can change your angles so that everyone sees something
· Make it BIG
· Make it appropriate for the space
· Check in with your audience regularly
· Yes, for a demo – you have an audience – not a bunch of students
· Be Interesting – not Interested (more on that in a bit)
· Subjects that work well as demos, in my opinion
o Predicament Bondage
o Suspension
o Needle Play (with enough room)
o Wax Play (with enough room)
o Whips
o Caning
o Bondage
o In other words, any SM technique
· Subjects that might not work as well as demos, in my opinion
o Theory
o Consent vs Abuse
o Anything having to do with identity
o D/s and M/s subjects
o Psychology of…
o Philosophy of…
Presenter as Philosopher – Attendee as Student
These are the classes that focus on the abstract – such as identity, power and authority exchange, History can be a part of this.. The Philosophy part comes in such that the classes are editorial – they are a way to do something – not the only way.
· Be Interested – not Interesting
· Assume there will be at least one person in your room who knows more about your subject than you
o Assume that person is going to speak up
o It’s OK for you not to know as much as someone else
o Treat that person respectfully
· Assume there will be at least one person in your room who will ask questions just to test you
o Handle them compassionately and respectfully
o If you don’t know how to do that yet, consider not being a philosopher-presenter
· Assume that you will not cover all of the material you might have
· In fact, have more to hand, so you can tailor the content to the room
· Strongly consider qualifying your entire class as ‘this is my opinion. I speak from my own experience. Your mileage may vary’
· Have a plan
· Be prepared to deviate from the plan
· Philosophizing without including the people in your room may make you look like a pompous ass in their eyes
· There are many ways to include the people in your room when you are being a philosopher
o Have the class call out examples of something
o Ask the class for questions – an answer them
o Ask the class to share personal experiences
o Allow for different opinions
§ This makes the people in your room feel included
§ This also makes you look like you are secure
· Consider having a hand out of terms if there are vocabulary words involved
· It’s OK to work from notes
· Really, it is
· Since most classes are 90 minutes long, understand that you may not hit more than 3 or 4 main points
· That’s OK
· There’s always Part 2
· Subjects that may work well as philosopher - student contexts include (but are not limited to)
o ‘What does it mean to…’ classes – be leather, be submissive, be a leader
o Anything having to do with identity
o Anything having to do with politics
o Soft Skills, such as chivalry, communication, negotiation, etc
o Philosophy of the…
§ Dungeon
§ Archetypes of D/s
§ Etc.
· Subjects that may not work well as philosopher-student contexts include (but are not limited to)
o Hot button subjects that elicit very strong opinions
o Anything you know but couldn’t manage ‘the difficult attendee’ while teaching in this way
o SM Techniques
Presenter as How-To Person – Attendee as Student
Classes that teach a person how to get from A – Z while doing the steps in between fall into this category
· If you are going to be teaching someone how to do something, you best know how to do it yourself
· Have a plan
· Know the steps
· Be able to do the steps in any number of sequences
· Know that there are going to be people who do something different
· Standing at the front of the room, with your demo bottom, and expecting everyone else there to learn from you to ‘get it’ will work for a percentage of people, but not for all
o Visual learners need to see – depending on the site lines, this may or may not be the case
o Auditory learners need to hear – a written document will help these people. Yes, my friends – reading is an auditory function
o Kinesthetic learners will need to do
· Not only do people have different learning styles, but they comprehend things differently
o Some people will need to talk it through a few times
o Some people will be humming as they go
o Some folks will make it into a dance
o Some folks will ask a lot of questions
· Stylistic differences in learning and comprehension can show up anywhere, but they are highly likely to manifest in How-To classes
· Are you ready for it?
· A side note – remember in the first post when I wrote about Top-Tier presenters? One of the hallmarks of being the best of the best is skillfulness in teaching to multiple learning styles and comprehensions
· Have a hand-out if you can
· Make it so people can practice more than once
· Consider having TAs or encouraging peer-to-peer learning
o This will make your job easier if you have a big room
o This will also make the other experts in the room be of use
o This is good for everyone
o Trust me
· Classes that work well as How-To include, but are not limited to:
o Bondage
o Any kind of impact
o Whips
o Suspension (with the right set-up)
o Toy Care
o Bootblacking
o Communication (yes, it’s true)
o First Aid
o Needles
o Fire Play
o Wax
o Etc.
The Final Presenter-Student Relationship is that which manifests in Dialogue, wherein the relationship is Peer-Peer with the Presenter acting as Facilitator
· You best know how to facilitate if you are going to have this kind of class
· At the beginning of the conversation, ask people what they want to see covered – they will feel immediately included and it builds buy-in
· Be aware of cross-talk
· Be aware of ‘my way is better than your way’
· Be aware that not everyone who comes to a dialogue wants to speak
· Have some talking points easy to hand to ensure things move smoothly
· Be ready for the one person who bogarts the conversation with some big personal brouhaha
· It’s OK for someone to bogart the conversation
· If the people involved consent
· The way to find out is ask
o You can also look at nonverbal cues
· Be prepared for the Devil’s Advocate to speak up
· Be prepared for The One True Way-er to speak up
· Be prepared for nobody to speak up…..
· Subjects that work well in Dialogue
o Identity
o Politics
o Theory
o Philosophy
o Interpersonal Communication
o How To – if you have a room full of experts who can speak to specifics and the like
· Subjects that don’t work well in Dialogue
o Highly polarizing subjects may be better suited to panel discussions (which will be covered in a different post)
o How To – if you don’t have a room of experts
Finally, Presenters – think of these kinds of mindsets as things you can mix and match into your classes, based on the subject, the setting, and the people who show up. It keeps it interesting for everyone.
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