back from down south! and upcoming...

Yesterday I was strolling along in 80-degree weather, actually thinking it was *close* to getting too hot, and today I'm getting nothing but chilly rain and more rain.  But that's OK, I might have hoped I could bring New Orleans's weather home with me, but really I knew it would never fit in my carry-on.

So the trip this past weekend was very nice.  The first stop in Mobile to shoot with Brutal Beauties was quite productive, and it was great to visit with Mark too.  He was one of my first-ever victims when I was still a bit new to wrestling, and the video we did together then was his very first too.  Good to see that he's doing well now with his own company, getting his own studio set up, and planning a lot for more to come.

This time around we did a custom judo video where I first walk in wearing a full gi but also high-heeled sandals.  After I throw Mark around a bit, he gets mad and take a swing at me.  In vengeance for the foul play, I kick off the heels, force him to suck on my toes, and strip off the gi to finish the rest of the match in lingerie to keep him completely distracted and helpless.  I *really* liked my outfit for this video - red lace bra and thong with black back-seam fishnets thigh-highs.  Definitely going to have to come back and edit this post with a photo when I've got one pulled from the video.

I'm even more excited about the other video we shot for Doom Maidens.  This one combined bondage wrestling with a beatdown scene.  Well, really that is to say, Mark's not a hot wrestler, so it was mostly bondage + beatdown.  The premise:  Mark's ex hired me to take him down and subject him to a torture scene.  Not for the faint of heart; he's pretty bruised and marked up by the end, especially around the midsection where I focused on unleashing some hellacious belly punching.  I had a great time toying with him -- untying and retying him in different positions and letting the slaps, kicks, and punches rain down.  AND the video itself looked great -- great light, liked my outfit again :)  Really excited for when we release this one!

So *almost*enough about work, despite that actually being a really fun part of the trip.  Got in some very good sessions also.  One of my biggest, roughest, and favorite clients was nice enough to drive three hours to see me in Mobile.  Gave me a very tough match that really made me earn my vacationing afterwards -- and also gave me a bit of a black eye for the rest of the trip.  Ai!

Headed over to New Orleans when we wrapped up with shooting.  It tried to rain on me Monday morning, but it was over that by Monday night when I headed out for free, it was steamy, hot and summery by Tuesday.  One thing that was fun was seeing all the Mardi Gras decorations still up.  The trees were all festooned with beads; giant masks were hanging on the buildings; and I got the feeling there was *zero* rush to get them down :)  A little disturbing though that the bakeries were all still trying to unload the leftover king cake -- really, it was a bit late for that.

Anyway, hit up Jax Brewery and conveniently there was some huge group of what seemed to be college theater students on an early spring break.  They were only a little annoying, but the waitress was so sorry about them that she volunteered drinks discounts, and I ended up getting some pretty fancy martinis on the cheap.  Not to mention the terrific catfish.  Yay!

Flew back to NYC yesterday.  I'd really thought that during my travel time I would get a lot of reading done for my personal training certification.  I tried getting certified once before, and I hated the ACSM course so much that I had to abandon it.  Now, I'm trying again with NASM, and I'm amazed at the difference.  The information is so much more relevant, interesting, and better presented, it makes me excited to finish the course.  I'm about two-thirds of the way through the textbook, but though I hauled it everywhere with me, I ended up negotiating a lot of scheduling for projects this coming weekend via Blackberry instead.

I'm running out of time for details, but basically my next adventure is this:  an artist-photographer friend of mine asked me to be an extra in a music video she's working on in exchange for a photo shoot for me.  And we're doing both shoots this Saturday!  First, video shoot of dancing in battle armor, followed immediately by a pro-style wrestling in pantyhose photo shoot.  Should be interesting!

question: so what's been going on?

Answer: SO MUCH. This is just a little whirlwind overview in a nutshell (and you thought it was hard to get a tempest in a teapot)...

Basically, I made the decision a month or so ago that after years of juggling my office job and my wrestling career, I am certain I want to go full time with the wrestling. Now, everything isn't in place for me to make this switch yet. As far as I'm concerned, the day can't come too soon, but I do also want to be fully prepared. So I'm trying to really step up video production, session travel, and training in preparation.

That's going pretty well for the most part. We just had a terrific video shoot last night where we doubled up shooting to create two wildly different videos. I'm pretty happy with both of them.

One was a double-team match where I took on Jason and Thrash at the same time. That one had a really fun, wacky tone, which I attribute quite a bit to Jason's being naturally fun and wacky to shoot with. Neither of these guys can wrestle worth a damn, so the idea was really to see if two non-wrestlers can equal one well-trained wrestler. And well, they couldn't. At all. They could put me in some tight spots, but ultimately, I got to have a blast handing them their asses and keeping up some heavy teasing and taunting the whole time.

The next video was a bondage match with Diablo -- because it was just about time he and I went at it again with rope. This one was a much more serious match: about 10 minutes of intense struggle as he tried to tie me but tried even more to avoid getting tied, and then once I had him bound and immobilized I got to switch into my tormentress mode. I'd worn my full black bodysuit & tights ensemble for this one, so I figured some high-evil femme fatale action was called for.

Now tomorrow I head off for a four-day session and filming trip way down south. First stopping in Mobile to shoot with Mark of Brutal Beauties at his new studio there -- I'm looking forward to some very sadistic bondage wrestling and more judo domination coming out of that shoot. Then off to New Orleans for sessions and, well, New Orleans! Yay, pretty excited for this one.

So, clearly, good success on the video and travel fronts. The one difficulty is training, and it's just a matter of finding time. Here's the issue -- I've been getting such awesome roleplay requests lately, I figured I'd take an acting class to step it up even more in that department. (And the crazy dreamer part of me said, "And if I get discovered, so much the better!") I went for Scene Study, which sounded like the most "classic" acting experience I could get. Now, at the same time this venture is competing for time with my grappling, Muay Thai, and weight lifting, I'm realizing an Improv class would have been more the thing to do.

Not that I'm not enjoying it, but unless I see Improv or some other perfect fit offered at the perfect on next semester's schedule, I'm out of the studio and back to the gym. That would be a bit of a relief, but I do HATE giving up on things or admitting at can't do it all. We shall see how that goes...

There's definitely more to say, but it will follow in other posts!