Poise – self-awareness of how one is and acts, and punctuation – attunement to relational dynamics, describe integral relational sensitivities for practitioners in Participatory Design (PD). These concepts describe important personal and embodied “practices of readiness” for participating in contingent and relational processes of designing with others. However, more attention on these “practices of readiness” is required in design research and design training to better comprehend and develop relevant relational sensitivity and competences. Through an empirical study, this paper explores what relational sensitivity i.e., poise and punctuation, could be in a participatory practice and what it can do for the process. The paper also explores ways in which relational sensitivity could be nurtured through participatory practices. This research contributes to PD literature by connecting concepts related to relational sensitivity with an empirical study, elaborating on the role of relational sensitivity in PD practice.