happy grappling news
Current mood: pleased

So...an exciting development at my jiujitsu class this morning -- I was promoted from three stripes to four stripes on my white belt.  Yay.  I'd been waiting for a little while, thinking my attendance and performance had been pretty good lately, and I was reaching that time interval where they _usually_ promote people.  I have a certain childlike eagerness about stripes and promotions; I'd been getting a little hopeful and anxious toward the end of every class when they tend to announce these things...

Anyway, payoff came today.  And that's the last stripe before earning my blue belt, so that's what I can look forward to next.

In other academy news, I'm investigating trying out for my school's team to represent at the Pan-Am Tournament coming up in October.  Only two representatives from each school per weight/skill class.  So depending on the level of interest within the women at the school I might have a mini tournament to fight in order to get to the main event.  Also have to find out if this is one of the tournaments that will allow me to fight at blue/purple level as a white belt.  The academy professors are checking on that for me.  I should find out tomorrow.

10:54 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

grappling beach party!
Current mood: sleepy

So last night was the Grapple Den Party's one-year anniversary celebration. We've come 'round from August to August with fighting every month.

10:13 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

grapple circus!
Current mood: accomplished

Let me first note that I wrote this whole blog post first this morning, and My Space lost, demolished, or somehow or other devoured it.  So.  Grappling is good.  My Space, at the moment, is on my shit list.

Can I remember all the brilliant things I wrote?  Let's see...

So!  Another party update I bring to you.  Last night was the Grapple Den Party's 11-month birthday, which was celebrated with circus-themed fight club festivities.

The circus theme was chiefly evident in Lady MacDeath's awesome and terrifying red rubber clown nose.  It honked!  But honking her clown nose did not count as a submission, oh no!  This tenacious warrior, the great Punchinello of Pugnacity, fought on despite all attacks to her humorous schnozz!

And let me just add -- have you ever tried to wrestle a clown?  It's unnerving.  You don't really want to get that close...

There were other bits of circus-y-ness worth mentioning as well -- Veronica's Tiger Lady leotard, my acrobat attire, Ring Master Zorikh's top hat (which was actually my top hat...all of Grapple Den loves that hat.  If ever you see one of us wearing a topper, rest assured that it is THE hat, which is to say, MY hat.  If only it were more wrestling compatible, I would get to wear it more myself.)

But more exciting than the theme of the night were the attendees.  We had a fantastic turnout of first-time fighting ladies who charged the mat wanting to be allowed to wrestle.  Best gung-ho, jump-in-there-and-play energy you could ask for.  We held a group mini lesson for all the fresh meat...er, fresh blood...damn! delightful newcomers, and then people were lined up around the mats just waiting to jump in. 

From Tiny (who dwarfed the guys and delivered excellent Amazonian smackdowns) to Miss Juliet (who rolled with me and gets major points for sharing a dance break with me in the middle of our third fall) to our wrestling cocktail waitress to the grudge-match battling roomies...it was a great night for ladies' fighting.  Thank you all for coming and being such a lot of fun!

Aaaaand there was our traditional Midnight Royal Rumble, only last night it was not so much traditional as record-setting.  Sure, it started out as your average, nice, respectable tag-team match...and then eventually I lost count of all the pairs (and double-teams) that were going at once.  Five or six -- they were spilling off the mats onto the perimeter padding.  Crazy.  The bar owner ran down to see what was going on.  Fortunately, she loved it.  Three cheers for Tagine for being such an accomodating host to our wacky event.

After midnight the crowd thinned to our diehards, and grappling social hour commenced.  We had a few marathon matches going on, and a few gauntlet-runners pitching themselves into consecutive marathon matches with new opponents.

All in all, a smashing night.  With no actual smashing!  Just hardcore, safe, fun wrestling.

I believe I've been outvoted on the July party theme.  Looks like it's going to be superheroes.  Which will be a lot of fun.  But keep your eyes peeled, and if you see announcements for a Wrestling Picnic with Audience Super Soaker Participation, know that this will be the updated incarnation of my Wet 'n' Wild suggestion, which everyone wisely pointed out to me shouldn't take place in a hookah lounge basement.

5:20 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

super grappling day
Current mood: busy

Good news and bad news.  Mostly good news. 

I went to my academy's no-gi submission grappling class for the first time this morning.  That was a ton of fun.  I'd been biding my time to make the leap up to the more advanced academy classes, but with the NAGA Florida and Grapplers' Quest tournaments both coming up for me in June, I decided it was time to step up training my no-gi game. 

And, DEAR GODS, can I feel how this is going to help me.  We don't work competitive takedowns in the beginner level classes, and through we try to drill them at Grapple Den trainings, we're limited by the mats and people's widely varied experience levels.  In this class, I felt like I held my own pretty well on the ground, but while working takedowns, it was observe, soak it in, and learn something.  Granted, I had to do my observing from a moving postition -- this was all in the midst of active drilling and competitive sparring.

The style of instruction was also more basically demanding -- more complex techniques, demonstrated fewer times and explained less.  Really demaded focus and tapping into some physical intuition.  Very demanding, very awesome.  Could also feel that my training partners had broader vocabulary on the groud than I did (though my basics served me well).  For one thing, I've never worked lower body submissions before, and today was leg lock day in a big way.  But also more fluidity of movement, less dependency on basic holding positions, more comfort in and versatility from non-standard positions.  Excellent people to roll with.  And very pleasant and helpful.

So, yes, that class was definitely a level up.  And, I repeat, SO MUCH FUN.  So much good, good movement.

The bad news is that between a very tight backroll I did over my right shoulder and a partner who was very excited over a headlock submission he'd just learned last week, my neck is now killing me.  Killing.  Ow.

But I don't feel that it's a serious kind of killing me.  I'll be monitering it throughout the day.  Should be fine to roll at Grapple Den tonight. 

Oh, yes.  Grapple Den Party tonight.  I did not mean that it's a super grapple day just because I went to a good class.  No, it is because this day began with intense early morning training and it will end after midnight with a marathon of party wrestling.

Now, I conserve energy.  And go back to doing my office work.

8:50 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

action! (with lights and camera)
Current mood: catalyzed

1:59 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

grapple den april: the endurance challenge
Current mood: triumphant

Holy hell.  That was one rockin', rumblin,' and wrasslin' shindig we had last night.  Captain Zorikh provided our rockabilly soundtrack -- very fun; I've never heard such bouncy, lighthearted fight music.  People could not help but be happy hearing it, and they said they like the contrast to the intense action going on on the mats.  Zorikh also provided a lot of theme-appropriate slang to everyone's mild horror and immense amusement. 

The crowd turnout was great -- just a fantastic party attitude from everybody there.  Our audience was cheering, booing, coaching in, occasionally stirring up trouble...and they were awesome about just jumping onto the mat and getting into the fighting themselve.  We had a new lady wrestler, Sly, in attendance, and Veronica Viscious's sister and wrestling protegee, Roxi.  Much color commentary and some extremely salacious arm wrestling was provided by Roxi.

And the was so much wrestling.  Full mats from start to finish, and I was in the thick of the fray ALL NIGHT LONG.  That rocked, but let me just mention how exhausted and godawful sore I am today.  It would be a great feeling, if I weren't also stuck at the office job.

But let me just list out my matches here:

In our ladies' tournament --

Me vs. The Snaggler

Me vs. Sly

Me vs. Princess Slayer

(And let me say, super props to all these ladies.  Snaggler and Slayer keep getting better and better as they keep training -- Slayer choked me out last night, and though I had to GET HER for it at the time, I respect that immensely.  And Sly jumped into all this green as a bean and put up a great fight, so I respect that mightily too.)

Me vs. Veronica Viscious (ah, the age-old rivalry, and always a hell of a fight)

And then in open rolling and mini-session mat time

Me vs. Vincent (for one-third of a three-girl mini session -- VeVe vs. the Mountain!)

Me vs. The Rookie (a fine fellow and session enthusiast; he's got some size and freestyle background to him; made me work.)

In a special exhibition match, Me vs. the M.C. (Is it sporting to attack the M.C.?  Who cares?!  This is wrestling, and I'll fight anybody.) 

Me vs. Paul (not a fight, but a strength challenge mini session.  Many, many very heavy squats and crazy deadlifts.  Did I mention I'm sore today?)

Me vs. Roxi (salacious arm wrestling)

and finally, Me vs. Blade (another fine sessioning fellow, to whom I handed his ass, but who, for all that, did not go quietly into that good night.)

Yee-aahhgh!  Terrific, exhausting fun.  And let me mention that Veronica was working just as hard all night.  Go, fellow Doomie!

So, now the task is to make it through the work day, and tonight...rest?  Hell, no!  To the gym!  And then to buy lumber.  There are construction projects afoot in Castle Doom.  Always busy...

And, of course, the May Grapple Den Party is coming up fast, May 14th.  Musical theme to be Tribal.  I personally hope this will mean the return of our "capaoiera-style" spectacle dance wrestling.

8:42 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

tale of a very fun shoot
Current mood: tickled

So last night Princess Slayer and I of Grapple Den teamed up with Maxx Mayhem of Phoenix Wrestling Club to shoot a pro-style women's wrestling video. 

Now, be advised that I don't know pro wrestling at all.  I believe I've seen advertisements.  A friend once tried to direct my attention to it when it was playing on his TV.  We were given a script and fight choreography to look at before shooting, but since I didn't recognize the names of the various moves listed, this really didn't give me an edge on preparation at all. 

And due to very tight space rental availability at the studio we had an hour to film this.  But I love a challenge!

In this video, I played Eyelyn Vyse, a hot-headed, hot-shot wrestling prodigy (in a leotard that made me look like a body-buliding acrobat) taking on Princess Slayer as Ferale, the jungle-cat wild woman (in fuzzy leopard legwarmers (awesome!)). 

Maxx walked Slayer and me through our moves (with me happily calling out the BJJ names for the ones that had them), and we got down to work.  This shoot, I have got to say, was so much fun.  Never when playing BJJ do I get to scream, drag my opponent around by the hair, swing her through the air, and threaten the audience.  Nor would I want to; it wouldn't be appropriate.  But give me the venue, and I'm all for wild and crazy antics. 

Maxx was thrilled with how the shoot turned out and that we actually got it done with time to spare -- enough time to challenge the camera man to a combative defense of his honor ;)  We're talking about working together further to create a live show (and certainly more videos).  In the meantime, the plan is to have this current video prepared and available at the New York Comic Con, where I'll be tabling for much of this weekend.

And the nifty add-on advantage of all this is that pro-style wrestling has been a gap in my session specialties up 'til now, but no more.  I learned a lot of fun moves last night, and expect I'll pick up many more through this alliance.  It'd be a blast to bring them to sessions...

8:27 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

NAGA + ICON
Current mood: amused

So I’ve been quite irked that work’s been keeping me too busy to steal time to write a blog post when I have such exciting news from the weekend.

However, I have a free moment now, so here’s the slightly belated news:

First off, there was NAGA on Saturday in New Jersey.  This was the big NAGA, the titular World Championships.  I actually only know of one international competitor at the event, but it was definitely the best attended NAGA with the most women competing that I’ve seen yet.  Ironically, it was also held in the smallest gymnasium -- that was one full house.  Made it very hard to find warm-up space, but it did add a lot to the tourney spirit.

The especially great thing about this tournament was that we had some of our newer Grapple Den trainees with us -- Princess Slayer came to compete for her very first time, and Lady MacDeath came to cheer and spectate (and unexpectedly and awesomely furnish muffins -- thanks Lady MacDeath!).  Next time perhaps, we’ll lure her into competing...

So Princess Slayer fought beginners’ gi and no-gi and did a great job.  She was beautifully confident going in for takedowns (takedowns are a terrible weakness for groundfighters -- I wish I had Slayer’s spunk in that field), and she followed all Jolie’s coaching brilliantly (I swear by Jolie’s coaching; having an experienced outside eye on your fight, sending feedback back in to you makes all the difference).  And she took the silver medal in her gi division -- this, with only having gotten a bare minimum of gi training in pre-tournament.  I found with my own grappling, too, that no-gi training gives an amazing jumpstart in picking up gi fighting.

So  Congratulations, Princess Slayer!

As for myself, I had five matches total:  three no-gi and two gi.  Not a huge number considering the number of women at this tournament, but most of the competitors were in the beginner divisions.  Things really thin out in the upper levels.  Also there were an unusual number of flyweights this time around -- don’t know what that was about.

My very first match of the day was the hardest.  I went agains a girl from Tiger Schulman’s academy -- we were back and forth from top to bottom and dominant to defensive throughout the match.  At one point, her knee connected with my nose, and I knew it was just a matter of time until it started bleeding -- hopefully after the match ended.  But no, about a minute later, we had to take a bleeding break so I could pinch the damn flow into submission.  We restarted from standing, very close in points and close to the end of our time allottment.  We went down, I believe, with no points awarded.  She ended up in my half guard; I was two points ahead with 40 seconds left.  I could feel that she was slipping out of my hold and knew I couldn’t allow her to gain points.  When she escaped, I kept moving with her, concious that this was something I don’t normally do in my matches -- I normally am a little methodical in going from position to position.  It is, however, something I’ve been aware I should work on.  A complicated scramble ensued, and I finally managed a really beautiful, fluid roll from my back into the upper holding position of north and south.  The timer and the tournament pressure were incredibly helpful here.  They forced me to push hard without panicking and sort of drove me to "level up."

At the moment it wasn’t that completely clear, but I noticed myself do something similar, using the opponent’s momentum to drive them through the position they were trying to gain and on to the position I wanted, in a later match the same day (obviously, I don’t remember that one as clearly at all), and at that point, I put things together and thought, "I may have had a breakthrough.  Hope I can continue the good performance with the tournament pressure off .  We’ll see at training tonight, I suppose.

Now I’m quite late leaving work, so I’ll have to end here and finish the epic tale later.

12:10 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

an excellent wednesday
Current mood: rushed
Category: Parties and Nightlife

This is an account of my double-decker fun night this past Wednesday.  Inconveniently, though excitingly, scheduling just happened to work out such that this was the night of both the Doom Maidens’ physical domination demo at TES and the St. Patrick’s Day Grapple Den Party.  Demo 8-10; party 10-2. 

Unfortunately, set-up for the party required Jolie to be over at Tagine, moving furniture, laying down mats, and shooing away revelers from earlier party there.  We’d planned when we agreed to do the demo to do it together but this was not to be -- instead, I presented with the aid of Twiggy, one of our primeGDA members and an excellent wrestling submissive, who despite that is no pushover in a match.  Actually, you can see the two of us going at it in this video.  He was great to work with; the whole presentation went very well; people were entertained and, I hope, educated; and we did get a few of them to follow us to the party afterwards.

Twiggy and I started off the show with a wrestling exhibition -- very fast, very aggressive, involving me flattening him in three of three falls.  Then I talked A LOT, as I do, about wrestling for domination...wrestling styles and how they adapt to different sorts of fetish play, how to involve oteher kinks in wrestling, session wrestling stories, gender implications (which was funny because I don’t gender wrestling that much myself, and Twiggy actually ended up saying "I don’t agree with that at all," but it was the Dominant Women’s/submissive men’s group so I wanted to suggest the topic) and SAFETY of all sorts, headspace-wise, environmental, technical, and audience-related.  We demonstrated a considerable number of techniques, and I hope that more than specific moves, concepts stuck with people. 

The audience asked a lot of questions; they were quick to jump up and try things for themselves (poor demo-dolly, Twiggy); they laughed a lot.  Great success.  Lady Sabrina’s very excited to have us back for Leather Weekend in the fall.

We rushed over to Grapple Den, bearing our mats to combine with what was already on the floor over there.  It was a smaller but very active crowd this month.  I fought Twiggy again, and did competitive sessions with two different 190-lb guys.  Oof.  Defeated them both handily, but it was a tiring night and I got dinged up a bit.  One opponent bopped me on the nose (accidentally, he was a good guy), which got the honker bleeding and meant that we had to conduct the match in rounds so I could mop up.  Kind of ridiculous.

The highlight of my party was definitely our St. Pat’s-themed trample fest -- step dancing on Mistress Ivy’s submissive.  I love pretending I can step dance, and this guy was a great stage -- bore weight excellently kneeling on all fours, so I got a raised platform to work with and it was possible to dismount by jumping down into a ball-busting scissors.  Thanks, Ivy and friend.

So next month our theme’s going to be April Showers -- messy wrestling with super soakers and a kiddy pool.  Can’t wait!

10:07 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

well, that was fun
Current mood: accomplished

So yesterday I finally made it to the NAGA New England Tournament.  I was worried it wouldn't be well-attended what with this being the raindate (actually snowdate) for the tournament that was supposed to have occurred on Feb. 23rd.  And, well, it wasn't the largest NAGA I've ever been to, but the women's divisions were actually very nicely rounded out.  That's rare, and really quite invaluable to me.  So, nice.

And also, I fuckin' rocked that tournament.  So, VERY nice.

I was a little concerned going in because this was the first time I've had to fight in the intermediate divisions.  When you win any given skill class, you're made to fight up to the level above it in your next tournament -- in every event.  So, back in December, I placed first in beginner's gi at NAGA Ohio, meaning that this time around I was required to fight up in both gi and no-gi.  And I have seen some quality grappling from the intermediate girls in the past.

I've been on top of my training pretty hardcore of late, though, and especially great was that I had Jolie ringside coaching me along.  She did the most fantastic job cueing me; it was like a point-and-shoot team-up attack on those other girls.  Brilliant.  Go Team DOOM.

So, my matches.  The first was no-gi against a somewhat bigger, tough-looking girl, who started out getting a very nice sweep takedown on me.  But even in the moment, I remained calm, kept up a good defense, and didn't let her get a dominant position.  Eventually, I was able to get her into guard, force an arm down, and go for the triangle.  I locked that sucker in beautifully, but she resisted tapping like a fiend.  I ended up going through every triangle trick I knew, and surprisingly the ref kept awarding points for every fresh attack (tournament scoring is actually very foreign to me).  She did tap at last, though, when I slipped my own arm into the lock to tighten the choke.

Next, I faced a very enthusiastic lightweight girl, who, like me, was being made to fight up because she'd won at a previous event.  I don't think she was quite as ready as I was for the upgrade, but ,damn, was she into it.  This girl is actually my new tournament friend; we hung out a little ringside and cheered each other on in our separate matches.  We were all business fighting, though.  In our no-gi match, I pulled off a beautiful, textbook kimura submission from guard.  It was the only moment of the day that the video recorder of DOOM spazzed out, so I'm very sad to think it wasn't recorded for posterity.

Next were my gi matches.  I faced off against my new friend again first.  Let me say that after that first sweep in my first fight, every single opponent I faced jumped guard.  Rather annoying.  It's hard to drill takedowns in real time in training; I would have liked the chance to play with them a bit.  But it was not to be.  So: from guard.  I really tend to like the double-underhook + stacking method of passing guard.  Yesterday, though, I had it happen a couple times that the opponent would backroll to all fours out of the stack.  (Yes, I know I should have been controlling the lapel more strongly.)  It worked out well, though, because then I was able to take the back.  I ended my third match triangle-choking the other girl from behind, sitting on her back, and isolating an arm to perform a bizarre and creative joint lock based entirely on the principle of bend-it-the-way-it-doesn't-want-to-go.

I had just one more match for the gi title, and it was quite a novelty event.  My oppenent was fighting up from the advanced child's division.  She was 12 years old and really kind of adorable, such that it gave a bit of a guilty feeling to fight her.  She was no joke as a competitor, however; there was absolutely a reason she was in that finals fight with me.  She got me into a body triangle, which I reached back to unclamp, exposing my other arm.  I anticipated her attack, though, and when she unlocked to go for the triangle, I pulled both arms in and went for the stack.  In the ensuing scramble, she did manage to triangle me, but I fell to one side, shifted my hips, and threw a leg over her head turning the triangle into more of a two-way head scissors.  I stretched out, applying enough pressure to pull out of her leg-hold.  (I'm very proud of that escape, unorthodox though it was, and probably in another situation quite risky and inadvisable.)From there, I was able to stay on top, and eventually get to her back and finish with a rear naked choke.

I'd like to finish with a few fun notes.  Though, many of the women's matches yesterday ran out the clock and went to the ref's scorecard for decision, not a single one of mine did.  I finished every match with a submission (after taking the lead on points).  Yes, I'm bragging there.  Also worth mentioning is that, quite unexpectedly, I ran into another girl from my academy at the tournament.  She was fighting in the beginner gi division, and she also placed first.  We're looking forward to going in to the academy Monday and letting them know how we upheld their good name over the weekend.

Next NAGA April 5th in New Jersey.  That'll be the huge one with a much larger competitor pool.  We'll see if they consider that when assigning me to my divisions.  If not, I'll be fighting advanced.  And I've been doing this less than two years.  Could be crazy.  Will definitely be an adventure!

8:47 AM - 4 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment