Every human has a “default” speed that their body prefers to operate at. This doesn’t mean that your muscles can’t move faster or slower. It just means that you have to put thought and effort into moving them outside your default speed.

Default speed becomes obvious when doing Florentine because it is rhythmic and repetitive by nature. Once you settle into a scene, unless you’re actively trying to go faster or slower, most of your flogging strikes will tend to hover around your default speed.

As you can imagine, this can get a little boring for your bottom.

To prevent yourself from settling naturally into your default speed every time you flog, I recommend practicing regularly to a metronome. For those of you who aren’t musicians, a metronome is a device that emits clicks at precise intervals, measured as beats per minute (bpm). Metronomes are one of those boring-ass things that every musician gets annoyed by at some point, but they are absolutely vital to developing a solid foundation of musical skills.

As I see it, flogging is just a kinky way of playing the drums, so the same tools that musicians use can serve us just as well. Get yourself a metronome by downloading one of the many free apps out there, set your metronome to a bunch of different bpm’s, flog along to said bpm’s, and you will 1) learn to flog at a consistent rhythm and 2) develop more versatility by being able to flog across a wide range of speeds.

If you’re just learning Florentine and sound like a galloping horse when you flog (in musical parlance, we’d call that “swinging” the beat), using a metronome will also help you keep the beats even between your right and left hands. Click here for some exercises you can do specifically for Florentine.

Check out the videos below to see how practicing to a metronome works.

Slowing It Down

In this first video, I start at a comfortable 180 bpm, and then incrementally make my way down to 120 bpm. The slower I get, the less momentum the floggers have. As a result, I have to adjust my arms to keep the floggers spinning smoothly.

Flogging at really slow speeds (especially with finger floggers) is a lot harder than you may realize! So give it a try and push that tempo down. It will help you develop fine control over your floggers, so that you can deliver sensual impacts without flailing your floggers around like cheerleader pom poms.

Cranking Up the Intensity

In the second video, I start at 200 bpm, and then incrementally push it all the way up to 440 bpm.

It’s easy to get sloppy as you go faster, though, so really focus on hitting the same spot over and over again, using the same amount of force each time. This is where practice will really help you develop a consistent rhythm and timing.

Point of Failure

450 bpm is what I endearingly refer to as my “skills breakdown point.” This is the tempo where I start struggling to keep up with the metronome. Naturally then, this is the tempo for me to focus a big chunk of my practicing if I want to continue pushing my limits.

That’s what I suggest you do as well. Use a metronome to figure out where your limits are, and if you so desire, keep practicing to push yourself past said limits.

And eventually, you will in fact become a human carwash.