exercise · all tools
Progressive Touch
Forty-five minutes of touch that builds by stages, a minute each: breathing together, gazing, hands almost touching, then fingertips, then whole hands and forearms, a short contact dance, then one partner 'sculpts' the other's face in the air while the other follows with their face — and, if both want, touching face, hair and shoulders. Then the whole room mills with hands brushing arms, shoulders and heads in passing, before partners return for stems and shares. Its contributor calls touch a universal means of connection 'on a soul level'.
Prerequisites
- A group that has chosen a touch-based session with full knowledge of what this one contains; the manual lists the chapter for 'ecstatic dance, cuddle parties, and play parties' and for the end of retreats
- The face-and-hair stage is gated in the manual by 'if both partners would like to'; that gate should be spoken, and the person following with their face is the one to ask
- The milling stage moves from a chosen partner to the whole room — hands brushing heads and shoulders of people one has not agreed anything with; the manual's 'keeping appropriate boundaries' is the only instruction it gives there
- Not an exercise for a workplace, a mixed-consent room, or anyone who has not opted in with eyes open
Practical
- Time
- 45 min
- Group
- 2–∞ · pairs, large-group
- Settings
- in-person
- Mechanisms
- somatic-awareness, attention-training, dialogic-encounter
- Change scope
- state → skill · repeatable
Instructions
- Where
- authrev.org/ar-games-manual — Authentic Relating Games Manual, paid
- Availability
- In the source document — the instructions live inside the material linked, on its terms
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0 (Authentic Relating Games Manual)
Source link checked 31 Aug 2026 — unchanged since we recorded it on 29 Aug 2026
This directory describes and points home; the instructions stay with the people who made them.
Origin
Sharon Swedlow (Austin Love Juggernaut) — Authentic Relating (Authentic Relating Games Manual, 2025 edition)
In this directory via Authentic Relating Games Manual
Related: Reach Out, Touch Me (deepens)
status: checked · added 2026-08-31