Episode 4: The Impact of Connection - How to Serve As An Impact Top
What does it mean to strike someone, not to harm them, but to hold them through sensation?
In this pulse-quickening episode of Buried Alive, Rachel sits down with Bry — impact player, leatherworker, teacher, and seeker — to explore how pain and pleasure can become language, rhythm, and even prayer. Once a soldier, now a craftsman of leather and connection, Bry brings the discipline of his past and the intuition of his present into every strike, every pause, every breath.
Together, they talk about the difference between hitting and holding. About how floggers, paddles, and hands can bruise skin, but also open doors to surrender, catharsis, and healing. About the service behind sadism, and the care that lives in every good swing.
This is an episode for the ones who crave the sting, the ones who want to learn how to give it, and the ones who know that impact is never just about pain, it’s about presence.
What We Talk About
Impact play as rhythm, flow, and connection
The line between service and ego in sadism
Why negotiation matters more than toys
Bry’s BAD Method: Before, After, During
Recognizing energy shifts, drop, and aftercare needs
Impact as a form of healing and spiritual practice
Big Takeaways
Impact is intimacy. It’s about seeing and feeling someone, not just striking them.
Care sits inside pain. Every strike is both sensation and support.
Negotiation is sacred. Clear agreements make space for risk, play, and surrender.
Flow matters. Rhythm, breath, and intuition create safety and depth.
Service sustains. The best tops ask: What does my bottom need right now?
Listen If You’re Into...
Learning the difference between delivering pain and delivering presence
Exploring the psychology of impact as much as the technique
Conversations about masculinity, service, and self-awareness in kink
The poetry of floggers, paddles, hands, and leather
Honest reflections on care, ego, and embodiment
Bry on the Mic
“Every strike tells a story. Impact isn’t about how hard you can hit—it’s about the rhythm, the trust, and the intimacy you build with each touch.”
Meet Your Guest
Bry: Impact play educator, leatherworker, and founder of Leather by Hadrian. Bry carries stories in his hands: military discipline, leather craft, and the patient skill of someone who has made mistakes and moved through them. When he speaks about impact, it’s not just about technique. It’s about devotion, rhythm, and the alchemy of connection. Bry teaches the Flow Method, blending intuition, rhythm, and safety into an approach to impact that feels as much spiritual as it does physical.
Dive Deeper
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Bry and Impact Play
02:32 Bry's Journey: From Military to Kink Educator
04:50 Discovering Impact Play and Its Connection to Healing
07:29 The Flow of Energy in BDSM
10:03 Negotiation and Consent in Impact Play
12:32 Reading the Body: Understanding Limits and Thresholds
14:57 The Psychology Behind Pain and Pleasure
17:26 The Role of Ego in Kink
20:10 Communication Techniques for Tops and Bottoms
22:51 Exploring the Spiritual Side of Impact Play
