☀️ The Buru Baltic Summer Camp 🌊

Participating in these group processes is intimate and vulnerable. It is always a balancing act between freedom and responsibility—or selfishness and self-sacrifice—or safety and bravery. Finding oneself in either extreme can result in paralyzing fear or traumatizing chaos. Dancing on this slackline of mystery is the fundamental skill we practice together.

In a way, we are playing a game of Jenga[1], where blocks balance in an intricate pattern—some are explicit rules, others are cultural norms, yet some are contradictory commandments. Shapes and forms differ between cultures and communities. Eastern Europe is very different from Scandinavia, which is again different from Japan, Brazil, New York City, and Berlin, which also differ widely from each other. There is no exact blueprint but a continuously woven social web of interactions. Yet, if enough blocks are compromised, the play will collapse, and people may be hurt.

For many of us, these human dances of life are evident and almost second nature. However, sometimes things, people, and even worlds fall out of balance and must gently (or violently)—but always lovingly— be guided back. Below are seven almost universal freedoms and responsibilities to help you navigate these intimate and vulnerable spaces.

1. Settle the score before you leave

To play, one must be vulnerable. To be vulnerable, one must trust. To trust, one must know that someone will help ‘settle the score’ when hardship happens—that you are not alone. Preferably all the persons involved in whatever happened. Listening, assuming accountability, and saying I’m sorry often go a long way. Sometimes more is needed, but at least by being there, you enable this process. Leaving without settling the score means unfinished business and long-term damage to the social web we are trying to weave.

2. Don’t kiss and tell 

Also, to be vulnerable, one must trust that what I share with you—in words and actions—remains safe with you. You can always talk about your own experiences, what happened to you, and what you felt. But leave everyone else involved anonymous by not mentioning their names and being thoughtful with what details you reveal about them. To gain the trust of others, demonstrate that you don’t kiss and tell when retelling your grandiose adventures of the past, just as you won’t kiss and tell in the future when you speak about the plays of today.

3. Don’t cockblock vulnerability 

Similarly, to be vulnerable, one must trust that vulnerability is met with respect. When uncomfortable with others’ vulnerability, one often tries to make the vulnerable moments disappear by arguing for solutions, diverting attention to silly jokes, playing the devil’s advocate or playing the overprotective saviour. If someone can express their vulnerability in a storm of intense emotions, watch them in awe—you likely have something to learn from them. You enable others’ vulnerability by being vulnerable yourself; you cockblock vulnerability by playing the tough guy who doesn’t give a shit about anything.

4. Welcome all your emotions

When I demonstrate a particular exercise, there will be an emotional, non-verbal dialogue with my assistant. Don’t try to copy our experience. Instead, have your own journey. For me, a group process is perfect when someone is laughing, another is crying, a third is moaning, a fourth is confused, and so on. Know that all parts of you are welcome.

5. No fucking charity

You’ll pair up in exercises, join trios and quadruplets, and do group rituals. Even if you promised someone beforehand, and it doesn’t feel right in the moment, listen to the latter. Don’t do things out of charity. I take pride in trying to provide structures where it’s easy to opt out without creating an awkward situation for anyone.

6. Play inside the play, not outside

During our group processes, we have moments inside and outside of play. And we have rituals, signs, and language to move in and out. Some examples are entering a circle to indicate our willingness to play, placing our arms across the chest for a break, kneeling as a sign of submission, and establishing eye contact before body contact. The exact semantics may change, but you must learn to distinguish and respect when play is happening and not. Inside, you may play with power, be seduced by it, revel in it, or rebel against it. Outside play, avoid being a macho or mothering dominant, as well as a helpless submissive or a assholish trickster.

7. Knowing, not knowing

I’m not your Guru Buru, nor your mommy or daddy. If anything I say doesn’t make sense to you, don’t do it. Similarly, the group processes are appreciated because they focus on the philosophical, emotional, or spiritual aspects of the eros, not detailed teaching of techniques. Suppose a specific skill is foreign to you (like face slapping, choking, tying a rope around the neck, pushing trigger points in the diaphragm, guiding the spine through twisting the neck, etc.); it is your responsibility to acknowledge this. Recognising the unknown can be tricky, but it’s an essential meta-skill to manage risk-taking in your play. However, the exact technique is often not the main point, so you can ask me for an alternative or simply do your own thing. Sometimes, I’ll also have time to guide you step-by-step. You can also ask before attending if you are worried that your previous experience isn’t enough.

If this text seems complicated to you, you likely have a lot to learn from sharing intimate and vulnerable experiences in a group. Please notify the organizers if this is the case so I can keep an extra eye on you. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to ask beforehand or during the group process itself. If you have a lot of previous experience or a more senior position in the group, I will have higher expectations of you to act as a role model. If you are new and insecure, you’ll likely have more leeway to learn our culture. If you are deemed unable or unwilling to comply, you will likely be asked to adjust your behaviour or leave the group process entirely.   

[1] Jenga is a kids’ game where players take turns removing one block at a time from a tower constructed of 54 blocks. Each block removed is then placed on top of the tower, creating a progressively more unstable structure. The game ends when the tower falls over.

Since August 2026, all my events have a “no-phone” and “no-social chit-chat” inside the workshop space policy.

There are several reasons for this.

Maybe most important, it matters where your attention goes. I might sound like a Luddite, but a backlit digital screen with an internet connection and a social media algorithm makes a great servant but a poor master. Whether you’re taking a little break, checking something terribly important, or quickly answering a message from a dear one. And I might also sound like an anti-social hermit, but the same goes for chit-chatting about things happening outside the workshop space, or dragging the experience out of the present into a meta-analysis of what just happened. Staying present is a practice that I want to make space for.

Even if you are OK with distracting yourself, you also distract everyone else. Who, very likely, are doing their best to focus on something intimate and vulnerable requiring a peaceful and attentive space. Of course speaking up about boundaries, avoiding danger, etc. is always welcome. You can think about focus as a spotlight. You decide where to shine yours. And your choice has a greater impact than you might believe. If you spend enough time in my spaces, you might even develop the ability to see where people shine their light. It’s a pretty trippy experience.

But if you truly need a break, you’re always welcome to step out. Bathroom, tea, a snack, doomscroll for a while. Or to flirt with that hottie you just met, or pitch your latest start-up idea. The reason for being strict about this whole focus thing is that I simply prioritize the people actively participating in the exercises and rituals. The ones inside the experience with me. Sorry. Not sorry.

Often in between exercises, we will have little silent moments to go inwards. To reconnect with yourself. To have a breath. To feel. These exist to help you manage your energy level, to concentrate better. If you instead spend them socializing, or even worse checking your phone’s nasty notifications, you will likely be more exhausted than needed at the end of the day. We also usually have both two hour lunch and dinner breaks, and at least twelve hours dedicated to rest at night. So you will have plenty of time getting to know the group outside play.

Then there’s the documentation. Some parts of my teachings can be documented using recording devices, but other parts are better experienced. Relying on later reviewing a recording, or even worse experiencing it through the screen of a phone, will simply ruin the quality of the experience. As an alternative to your mobile phone you are welcome to use a dedicated camera/camcorder/voice memo, or simply pen and paper.

And finally, commitment. Committing to something deepens the experience, and a committed group is simply a nicer place to be than a half-in one. It makes one think twice if “this is really for me?”. Over the years, I’ve been experimenting with pricing as a way of committing. And it kind of works. But it’s also unfair. Everyone, rich or poor, can give their focus.

Obviously I’ll still allow you to have your phone loud and ringing if a loved one is in the hospital, or if the grandparents are taking care of your kids over the weekend. The people who really made an effort to be here, who know the hardships of life, are never the ones glued to their phones or chit-chatting the days away. On the contrary, the person I let in for almost free, or who is so rich that the price means nothing to them, so they roll in a day late just to sneak off for a steamy afternoon with their lover — that’s usually the one who contributes the least. Funny how that goes.

In my group processes there is an early promise made in many guises; the most blunt way might be:

No fucking charity. No one will be paired up out of obligation, pressure, or pity. I will not force you to pair up, nor will I help you to pair up.

Since my work is highly relational and often both intimate and vulnerable, it matters a lot who you do it with. Especially when playing with submission, when you decide to put another’s will above your own. You must see them as worthy of this power. In some sense of the word, you must worship them. There must be a connection, a relationship, a spark between you. A polarity requires someone to dance with. You can’t be submissive without a dominant, and vice versa. Don’t get me wrong, you can identify with the preference, but you can’t really act it out. So having someone to work with is almost mandatory, and who that is matters enormously.

So people often ask if they should enter the process with a partner, or not. And it has pros and cons. If you enter with someone, you also enter with expectations, agreements and a previous dynamic. Which might not only be of eros — attraction, mystery, relational charge — but of everyday life. With family, households, hobbies, social networks. And preexisting, maybe unconscious and unspoken power dynamics. You’ll carry them all into every exercise, and they’ll colour your every encounter. Which might be amazing. Or a tragedy. If anything, when working with these intimate and vulnerable topics, you’ll learn a lot about your relationship. Whether it is exhausting or exhilarating. So, when I say in the beginning, No fucking charity — maybe that doesn’t apply if you have several decades of relationship together, because you are probably acting out of charity to the other from time to time.

On the other hand, if you decide to enter the group process alone, you’ll have to be responsible for creating relationships on the fly. And this is a skill to master in its own right. Of course, the way the work is structured, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to build rapport with others. Some in non-verbal short interactions, others over lunch or in the sauna. But eventually, as the process progresses, the exercises will become longer, more complex and more vulnerable. So at that point you kind of need to have woven a little spider web of connections.

There are no young hot willing assistants waiting for you. And there are no double circles where you rotate to be forcefully paired up with someone. No walking around with your eyes closed finding two other pairs of hands for an erotic massage. No lottery with twenty pairs of leaves deciding who you’ll sleep with tonight. These are all examples from the neo-tantra schools of the 1990s, and some still do it today, even after #metoo and the age of consent. I’m not one of them. So I can’t help you further than giving you the opportunity to weave your web.

On the other hand, you are always welcome and even encouraged to watch some exercises. They are often both beautiful and inspiring. I actually aim to take you to an edge where you actively decide not to participate. Because that is a perfect practice of boundaries and accountability. So others can trust that you don’t partner up out of charity.

If you think this sounds terrifying — to weave this social web, to express your desires, to partner up — then maybe this is your workshop. Because if you are not interested in learning these skills, I highly doubt that my work is right for you. If you want to learn, then it’s a great container to practise. Sometimes, when people self-isolate during the group processes, I invite them to ask the group for help. To talk about their hardship. Maybe even ask for feedback on why people do not want to partner with them. To show vulnerability. Because almost always the people who attend my group processes have had exactly the same experience, and they know what you are going through, and they are often willing to lend a helping hand.

Or you come with a fixed partner, and then that relationship will become a big part of your process. Both are equally fine. Except if the theme is desire, where you’ll always work with at least three people, so you need either a fixed trio, or to commit to the fun game of inviting others into your relationship.

Just to contradict myself: I also think there is great value in partnering up in ways that break your patterns, whatever they might be. Some always go for attraction, others always go for safety, while others always go for freedom to avoid attachment, and others still are always weaving their web. So challenging yourself to pick or accept a partner outside these patterns is often surprising — if not great, at least interesting. But that must come out of choice. And not by the force of my or another’s hand.

Ultimately, the reason I operate this way is that I prioritise my customers who are willing, able and maybe even enjoy weaving this social web and challenging themselves. I prioritise them over the people who want to be forcefully paired up to avoid the very same thing. Because the trend I see over the years is that people who prefer my way will feel safe in my processes, and they’ll recommend me to their friends. While in the meantime, the people who are drooling over that young hot assistant piece of ass will learn that it isn’t to be found with me, and they’ll either stop attending, or face their demons and adopt a social behaviour that supports them to pair up.

If you want to dig deeper into this subject I recommend the book Love, Freedom, Aloneness: The Koan of Relationships by that favourite culty tantra guru of some, Osho.