Training can be one of the most rewarding parts of a D/s dynamic. It’s a chance to teach your submissive how you want things done and build behaviors that become part of your dynamic. But wanting to train your submissive and actually knowing how to do it are two very different things.
So, you want to train your submissive. Where the hell do you start? Let’s talk about it.
What does training actually mean in a BDSM dynamic?
Training in BDSM is teaching your submissive how you want something done and helping them get to the point where they can do it consistently. That might be learning how you want them to kneel or developing a protocol they can eventually follow without you needing to walk them through it every time.
The important word there is teaching.
Giving your submissive a rule or task isn’t automatically training them. Neither is telling them what you want once and expecting them to get it right from that point forward. Training is everything that happens between introducing an expectation and your submissive actually learning how to meet it consistently.
That takes practice. Sometimes they’ll need you to demonstrate what you want, sometimes they’ll need feedback, and they’re probably going to need the chance to do it more than once. Some things are easy to learn, but others may take a while before they start to feel natural.
Training also doesn’t mean there’s something “wrong” with your submissive that needs to be fixed. You can teach something completely new, refine something they already know, or develop behaviors that become a part of how your dynamic works. And yeah, sometimes you teach something simply because it makes you smile, turns you on, or you find it entertaining. The reason behind it is up to you.
There can be overlap between training and behavior modification, especially when you’re using reinforcement or correction to shape behavior. But training is ultimately about teaching your submissive what you want them to learn and helping them get there.
And that’s where your job as the Dominant comes in. If you’re going to train someone, you can’t just know what you want them to do. You have to be willing to teach them how to get there.
How do I decide what I want to train my submissive to do?
Start with what you actually want to see change, develop, or become part of your dynamic. Clear expectations matter here. “I want them to be more submissive” or “I want them to follow instructions better” might be a goal, but neither tells your submissive what they’re supposed to learn.
Get specific. Maybe you want them to kneel at a particular command, complete a morning ritual without reminders, or learn how you prefer something done. The clearer you are about the end result, the easier it is to figure out how to teach it.
It can also help to ask yourself whether this is something you actually want to train or just something you’d like them to do occasionally. Training takes effort from both of you. Not every preference needs to become a learned behavior, and not everything you enjoy needs its own training process.
You also have to consider the submissive you’re actually training. What you’re asking of them needs to make sense for who they are and the dynamic you’ve built together. What works perfectly for one submissive might be completely impractical for someone else. You’re training the person in front of you, not some imaginary version of what you think a submissive should be.
Before you start, you should be able to answer two things pretty clearly: What am I teaching, and what will it look like when they can do it successfully?
If you don’t know the answer yet, you’re not ready to teach it.
What kinds of things can I train my submissive to do?
Honestly, almost anything that fits within your dynamic can become part of training. It doesn’t have to involve formal protocol or complicated commands either. Something as simple as how your submissive greets you or prepares your coffee can be trained if you want it done a certain way.
You might teach a specific position, how you expect them to thank you after an allowance, or how you want them to respond to a particular command. Training can also involve learning a skill rather than a behavior, especially when there’s something you want your submissive to become better at doing.
You can also train several behaviors together until they become a routine. A bedtime ritual, for example, might eventually include several things your submissive has learned to complete in a particular order. Instead of needing instructions for every step, they learn the routine as a whole and know what’s expected of them.
And that’s really how broad training can be. You aren’t limited to formal protocol or some predetermined list of things submissives are supposed to learn. If there’s something you want your submissive to do, chances are you can find a way to train it.
How do I actually teach my submissive something new?
Start by teaching the behavior itself before you worry about whether your submissive can perform it consistently. Right now, you’re not worried about perfection or how fast it can become a habit. You just want to make sure they understand what you’re teaching and that they are actually able to do it.
Let’s say you want to train your submissive to kneel when you give them a specific hand signal. Before you start throwing the signal at them and expecting a response, teach them the position. Show them where you want their knees, how you want their hands placed, whether you expect their back straight or relaxed, and where you want their gaze. Have them get into position and look at what they’re actually doing rather than assuming your explanation translated perfectly. The more detailed you are, the better results you’ll have.
If something isn’t the way you want it, correct it. You might reposition their hands, demonstrate the position yourself, or tell them what you want adjusted. Then have them stand up and then do it again. Repeat that until they can comfortably get into the position you’re asking for without you walking them through every part of it.
Now introduce the cue.
Show them the hand signal and explain what it means. Give the signal, let them move into position, and give immediate feedback. If they hesitate because they’re trying to remember what comes next, give them a moment. If they forget where their hands go, remind them. If they completely blank on the signal, tell them and try it again.
Then reset.
Give the signal again.
Reset.
Do it again.
This is where repetition matters. You’re giving them the chance to connect the signal with the position until they don’t have to think through every step. And while they’re practicing, pay attention. If they keep getting stuck in the same place, that’s probably something you need to work on rather than just drilling it over and over.
Once they’re getting it consistently during practice, change things slightly. Give the signal when they’re standing somewhere else in the room. Try it after you’ve spent a few minutes talking about something unrelated. Later, use it when they’re not actively thinking about training. You’re gradually moving from “I know we’re practicing this right now” toward “I recognize this cue and know what I’m expected to do.”
The same basic process works for more complicated training too. If there are several parts to what you’re teaching, break them down and teach them one at a time before expecting your submissive to put everything together.
Think of it as: teach it, practice it, correct it, and repeat it.
Your submissive doesn’t need to perform perfectly while you’re still teaching them. Your job at this point is to make sure they understand what you want and have enough practice to actually do it. After that, you can start working on making it stick.
How does training become a habit?
Once your submissive understands what you’ve taught them and can do it correctly during practice, the next step is repetition. Doing something correctly a handful of times doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to become a natural part of how they behave within the dynamic.
This is where you start taking the training out of the practice session and actually using it.
If you’ve taught your submissive how you like a drink prepared and presented, eventually you have to stop treating it like practice. Ask for your drink when you actually want one and give them the chance to use what they’ve learned.
At first, they may still need reminders, and that’s completely normal. They might forget a detail or need you to step in and correct something. As they become more familiar with what you’ve taught, start pulling some of that help away. Give them the chance to remember on their own instead of automatically stepping in with a reminder.
Reinforcement can help make the behavior stick too. When they remember on their own or do something particularly well, acknowledge it. Praise them, reward them, or simply let them see that you’re pleased. Pay attention to what actually motivates your submissive, because reinforcement only works if they care about what you’re offering.
You can also start changing the circumstances. Your submissive might respond perfectly to a command after you’ve been practicing it for ten minutes because they already know what’s coming. It’s different when you give that same command later while their attention is somewhere else. Using what you’ve taught in different situations helps them learn to respond outside of practice too.
It’s important to note that sometimes what you’re training may never become automatic with your submissive. They may still have to stop and think sometimes, and they may still screw it up. The goal isn’t perfection. You just want them to need less help from you as they learn.
Over time, though, many of those little things can become surprisingly natural. Maybe you’ve taught your submissive to wait by the door when you get home. Eventually, they don’t need to consciously remind themselves of the rule. They hear you pull up, and go kneel by the doorway because that’s simply what they’ve learned to do.
That’s the difference between your submissive knowing what you taught them and that training actually becoming part of how they behave within the dynamic.
What should I do when my submissive gets it wrong?
First, figure out why they got it wrong. A submissive who is still learning is very different from one who understands an established expectation and deliberately chooses not to follow it. If you respond to both situations exactly the same way, you’re going to make training much harder than it needs to be.
Maybe they forgot a step, misunderstood what you wanted, or your instructions weren’t as clear as you thought they were. That’s a learning problem. If they know exactly what’s expected and deliberately choose not to do it, that’s something else entirely.
If your submissive is still learning, correct them and give them another opportunity to get it right. Show them what went wrong, make sure they understand the correction, and let them try again. Corrections during training are part of teaching them.
This is also why I don’t recommend treating every training mistake as punishable behavior. If you’ve only practiced something three times and your submissive forgets it the next day, punishing them for forgetting doesn’t teach them the behavior any better. They probably need more practice, clearer instruction, or another reminder.
Once the training is established, though, the situation can change. If you know your submissive understands what’s expected and they deliberately choose not to do it, you’re no longer dealing with a learning mistake. Depending on how your dynamic handles disobedience, that may call for accountability or punishment.
And don’t forget to look at your own training when the same mistake keeps happening. Don’t immediately assume your submissive is being careless or difficult. Go back and watch them do it. Ask questions. Have them explain what they think they’re supposed to be doing. You might discover that the problem isn’t where you thought it was.
Being the Dominant doesn’t automatically make your instructions perfect.
Sometimes you correct the submissive. Sometimes you correct the training.
When should I add more to their training?
There isn’t a magic amount of time you need to wait before introducing something new. What matters more is how your submissive is handling what you’ve already taught them.
If they’re still relying on you heavily to get through what they’re learning, adding several new expectations probably isn’t going to help. Give them some time to get comfortable with what they’re already working on.
That doesn’t mean they have to perform something flawlessly before you can teach them anything else. If they understand what you’ve taught and can usually do it without much help from you, they may be perfectly capable of learning something new at the same time.
You can also build onto training they already know. Maybe you’ve taught your submissive to stop outside your office and ask permission before entering. Once that behavior is familiar, you could add what you expect them to do after they’re given permission to come in. Instead of teaching two completely unrelated things, you’re building onto something they’ve already learned.
And sometimes progression doesn’t mean adding another rule or behavior at all. You may simply start expecting them to need less help or pay closer attention to the details you’ve already taught them.
More training isn’t automatically better training either. You don’t need to constantly add another expectation just because your submissive successfully learned the last one. Some things are perfectly useful exactly as you taught them.
Pay attention to how they’re doing. If what you’ve already taught is going well, you have room to build on it. If they’re struggling to keep up, slow down and give them more time.
How long should training take?
There isn’t a standard timeline for training. Some things might take a single session to teach and only a few days of practice before your submissive is doing them consistently. Others may take weeks or months before they really get the hang of them.
A lot depends on what you’re teaching and how often your submissive gets the chance to practice it. Something they use every day may become familiar pretty quickly, while something they only have the opportunity to practice occasionally may take longer.
Try not to turn speed into the measure of whether training is successful. If your submissive needs ten repetitions to learn something that someone else learned in three, that doesn’t mean they’re less submissive or that you’ve failed as a Dominant. It means this particular thing took them longer to learn.
At the same time, training shouldn’t continue indefinitely without any progress. If you’ve been working on the same thing for weeks and your submissive is still struggling exactly where they started, don’t just keep repeating yourself and hope it’ll eventually click. Stop and figure out what’s not working.
Pay attention to progress rather than the calendar. If they’re remembering more, needing less help, and getting more consistent, the training is moving in the right direction. Whether that took three days or three weeks isn’t really important.
What do I do when training isn’t working?
If your submissive keeps struggling with the same thing, repeating it over and over isn’t going to magically make it change. At some point, you need to stop and figure out what isn’t working.
Start with the expectation itself. Does your submissive actually understand what you want? Ask them to explain it back to you or show you how they think it should be done. You may discover that the two of you have been working from completely different interpretations of the same instruction.
Then look at how you’ve been teaching it. If explaining it verbally isn’t getting you anywhere, try showing them. If there’s a lot to remember, write it down or break it into smaller pieces.
You may also need to ask whether what you’re expecting is actually doable. Something can sound perfectly reasonable when you create it and turn out to be a pain in the ass once they actually try to do it. Adjusting something that genuinely isn’t working isn’t the same thing as giving up on the training.
And pay attention to effort. There’s a difference between “I’m trying and I’m struggling” and “I know what I’m supposed to do, but I’m not putting much effort into doing it.” The first may need more instruction, practice, or a different approach. The second may need a conversation about accountability and whether they’re actually putting in the effort you’re expecting from them.
This is also a good time to look at your own consistency. Are you reinforcing the expectation regularly, or do you enforce it intensely for three days and then forget about it for two weeks? Are you correcting something one day and ignoring it the next? If you’re inconsistent about what matters, don’t be surprised when your submissive gets inconsistent about it too.
Don’t get so attached to your original plan that you keep doing something that clearly isn’t working. Change what you need to change. And sometimes, you may realize the training just isn’t worth continuing at all. That’s okay too.
If you’re having trouble figuring out where things are going wrong, writing the training out can make it a lot easier to spot the problem. I made a free BDSM Training Plan to help you map out what you’re teaching and keep track of how it’s going.
What should I pay attention to while training my submissive?
Agreeing to be trained doesn’t mean your submissive has agreed to absolutely anything you decide to introduce. Training doesn’t somehow put the normal rules of consent on hold.
Your submissive should understand what they’re agreeing to when training begins. That doesn’t mean every detail has to be negotiated from the start. But if you decide you want to take the training in a significantly different direction later, talk about it. Their original yes doesn’t automatically cover everything you might eventually want to add.
Training can also be really difficult. Your submissive can get frustrated, struggle with something, or be challenged beyond what they thought they could do. None of those things automatically mean you need to stop. But there’s a difference between being challenged by training and being harmed by it.
And don’t just pay attention to whether they’re getting the training right. Pay attention to how they react when they don’t. A submissive who really wants to please you can be incredibly hard on themselves when they keep getting something wrong. What you see as part of learning, they may turn into “I’m disappointing my Dominant” or “I’m a bad submissive” in their own head. Sometimes they need you to remind them that struggling with something doesn’t mean they’re failing you.
Your submissive also needs to be able to tell you when something is wrong without worrying that speaking up will automatically be treated as disobedience or failure. Safewords, verbal or nonverbal, still apply during training.
You’re the one leading the training, but you’re also responsible for noticing when something needs to change. Sometimes that means pushing them through frustration, and sometimes it means backing off. Learning that difference matters.
Training isn’t about creating the perfect submissive. It’s about taking the time to actually teach the person who trusted you enough to let you train them.
If you’re going to expect your submissive to learn how you want something done, be willing to teach them. And remember, be kinky and stay curious.
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Continue Learning About Training, Structure, and Power Exchange
Training is only one part of building structure within a D/s dynamic. These guides explore how expectations are created, reinforced, and worked into the way your power exchange functions.
- Behavior Modification in BDSM – Learn how reinforcement and correction can be used to shape behavior over time.
- BDSM Protocol – Explore how protocols create structure and establish expectations within a dynamic.
- Accountability in Power Exchange – Learn how accountability fits into maintaining expectations once they’re established.
- Structure in D/s – Explore how rules, routines, and expectations can work together to create structure within your dynamic.
