Leather Belts?

Ok, so as i walk along this self discovery mission with absolutely no experience, in a setting where there is absolutely no clubs, with closest munch being 3+ hours away in all directions, i was a little curious about pain tolerance. Of coarse this is certainly something you 'must' learn through experience, or so I am told and if i am misinformed please feel free to offer suggestions, so in my very 'curiosity killed the cat state' i asked a dear friend, whom is very aware of my self discovery mission, to give me a few swats with my leather belt.
and this is what i learned:

(1) Vanilla Friend does in fact enjoy swatting butts with belts
(2) Do not, and i mean NOT grab the holey leather belt with pretty silver rings around little tiny holes and ask vanilla friend to use it.
(3) Be 'very specific' about what you are requesting with Vanilla Friend who takes 'Give me a few whacks' as to mean 'Bend over Bitch, i'm in the mood to play dot to dot' which you could by the way, *see lesson number two*
(4) Do NOT NOT NOT let Wify 'give it a try cause it looked fun' *Please refer to lessons 1, 2, and 3*
(5) Do not tense or hold your breath because neither helps
(6) Do not wear yoga pants while letting Vanilla friends beat your ass with holey leather belts.
(7) Although it hurt like hell? Once the sting of 'OMG, That really freaking hurts' passed into a very sensitive throbbing burn, it was actually quite nice.

So here is my question. Is there a warm up phase before swatting one's butt with a leather belt?

Yep. (From my very little experience). I'm an once again calling on the expertise of Ian Rath and Aiden Star

There are "warm up" toys and "middle play or end of play toys"
Watch:
Impact Play with Dixie Comet
And maybe
Pain Play with Milcah Halili

Good stuff there.
( I would really like to own a flicker whip crop. I have something close)

Well, from one Newby to another, I will take your advice and watch these shows, perhaps I will invite vanilla friends as they both seemed to really enjoy the dishing out the spanking *wink*
Thank you for the suggestion

Let me know what you think of the videos.
Let me know what your friends think!

By the way, just for my own curiosity, were these female friends or male friends?

I will let you know about friends and videos soon.

Vanilla friends: One very Alpha Male and one very quirky female. and both have one hell of a swing *wink*

ok, so the update:

First? I found the videos to be very great learning resources, Ian Roth and Aiden Star are very good at explaining the many things to watch for, consider, and how to's along with giving personal real life experiences in ways that are understandable, along with giving pointers and suggestions on things to consider when opening negotiations and yes, they even went over how to properly warm up an ass before using a leather belt.
Second: I am very happy to report that vanilla friends are now perfectly corrupted and if not yet? they should be joining the Library very soon. *wink*