Five sessions since my last blog post )all with the Vice(, all but one of them fantastic. I can pretty consistently get multiple Os now, and I start getting them much quicker. I'm currently at a point where I don't think I can progress much further, mostly because I don't think I have anywhere further to go. I can certainly improve my technique and make small adjustments here and there, but I believe I've just about reached the peak of what I am able to experience with the Vice. Hopefully I'm wrong and there is something even more wonderful that I haven't yet achieved, but even if there isn't, what I am feeling now in amazing and I am quite happy with it.
Two things I started doing differently. First, I have reduced the amount of time I use the Vice with the vibrator off. No more than 10-15 minutes now, and often not even that long. While I had originally thought I would be better served long-term by spending more time sans vibrator, spending time with the vibrator off made my sessions considerably longer without really adding any benefit. I'll still use the Helix Syn here and there for non-vibrating sessions, but with the Vice, I am pretty much only going to keep the vibrator off while doing my breathing exercises and warm-ups.
Second thing I'm doing is only spending a short amount of time with the vibrator set to 'Light-Steady'. As above, this vibration setting isn't really getting me anywhere and it does drain the battery a bit. I'm still going to use this setting a bit, as I think it's a good way to get a little bit more sensation/arousal before moving to 'Medium-Steady' where the O's usually start for me. But on it's own, 'Light-Steady' usually doesn't produce anything. The combined effect of these two changes is keeping my sessions within a reasonable 2 hours, which I feel is perfect.
I did mention in the first paragraph that one of my sessions wasn't so great. A problem I've occasionally had with the Vice is that it would occasionally "stutter". If felt like the vibrator momentarily lost contact with the battery and then gained it right back again. I've always chalked this up to the battery not being seated correctly, or just a poorly charged battery. Most of the time, reinserting or changing the battery would fix it for that session. However, the one session this week it was happening far more than usual and nothing I did made it go away. It got to the point where I had to end the session because it was too distracting )and really wasn't feeling that great(. The next day, I took it out for another session and while getting prepared, I accidently dropped the vibrator onto my hard tile bathroom floor. No visible damage, but when I tried to insert a battery, I wasn't able to screw the cap on. I figured that the drop on the floor must have shifted something at the bottom of the vibrator. I took the flat end of a hobby knife )a.k.a X-acto knife( and inserted it into the battery compartment. When it touched the bottom, I gradually applied pressure until I felt the bottom shift down about 1/4 inch. After that, I was able to insert the battery and screw the cap back on. In the subsequent two sessions since then, I have felt no repeat of the stuttering from before. I am hopeful that whatever I did has permanently fixed the stuttering issue.