where I've been...

Well, it's lucky no one strictly enforces New Year's resolutions, or I'd be in trouble -- I've been neglecting this blog again!  But I'm back now.  Here's a quick recap of what was going on in the quiet time, before I move on to some very exciting stuff that's coming up incredibly soon!

So my last post was in February; I was talking about the killer, 2-hour marathon match that I had with Kevin.  Looking back on February now, it's not surprising at all that I disappeared in March.  I've got to admit those months were hard (but worth it in the long run).

February was absolutely turbo-charged (and for that, I actually blame January, when the weather was so miserable that a we had to postpone a lot of shoots due to models' travel problems).

So we did everything in February!  We shot 24 videos that month, and besides the marathon with Kevin, this also included the Battle of the Sexes bondage match, an awesome but exhausting late-night, hour-long, hard competitive war.  There were some other great creations, like my Handcuffed Smother Domination with Thrash, and the excellent bondage match I got to have with Robin.  All stuff I'm proud of, but add on all my regular training and lifting AND general winter factor, and I was getting pretty tired by March.

BUT we had a big two-day long shoot scheduled with Lia Labowe before there could be a rest.  I knew it was coming to a point because I was losing my voice during the shoot with Lia -- which might have produced an interesting effect???  We did some private commission assassin videos where I had to deliver evil monologues and sounded especially husky.  Always a silver lining to be found somewhere.

Anyway, I went into "hardcore resting" mode after the shoot with Lia in order to be ready for my Northern Tour.  Thank goodness this all worked out -- the tour was lovely with some great wrestling in Montreal, Toronto, Detroit, and Chicago; I met some wonderful (and tough!) new folks, got to see some of my very favorite regular sessions guys again (I hope you guys know who you are -- you're fantastic!), and got to meet and film with Ashley Wildcat for the first time.  Rounded the trip off with a stop at my parents' for Easter -- a very nice time overall!

Now throughout April, I *thought* I'd been continuing the resting-up theme from March.  But I just counted up the videos from April, and there were actually 25 -- one more than in crazy February!  I think the difference is not having to travel through any snow to get to the studio, and also the fact that we've been working on some very fun, experimental type projects.  There was the 4-Way Superheroine Bondage Battle -- how could anyone not love that and love doing that?  I know for myself, wanting to be in superhero movies as a kid is a big part of why I'm so pleased with what I do now.  And I've yet to meet another wrestling lady that doesn't think the superheroine videos are extra fun.

There was also the Hunt for the Spider Queen video; this was something of a pet project that Diablo, Howl, and I had been dreaming up.  We knew we wanted it to be a bit more like a movie than a clip, and we wanted it to involve a lot of different bondage for Howl.  We were quite committed -- we even ran a dress rehearsal/test run of the video, which was a great benefit.  We tried the concept first as a sort of slow, seductive piece, but afterwards we realized that it would be much better as a more fighty and abusive scene.  This was a great and fun theater experiment type-project that turned out a result I just loved.  I wish we had time to workshop more pieces like this.  Well, for special occasions we just might...  And in any event, the Spider Queen will certainly be making some reappearances!

All right, that brings me up to date.  Good that I had that rest-up time because in two days I leave for my West Coast tour, which is going to be another whirlwind.  See my next post for a preview on that, and a roster of the ladies I'll be shooting with out there should you want to order a custom...

most epic bondage wrestling I've ever had...and probably ever will!

Oh, my fucking god.  Well, whatever else I might have written about this week just got blown out of my mind by the insane bondage wrestling match I just had with Kevin.  I'm recovering/refueling right now with a ton of sushi and some nice red wine, and it's fresh in my mind.  So that's it; that's what this post will be:  a report on that match.

I can't do a play-by-play because there's actually TOO much for me to remember (by "fresh" I may have meant kind of a blur).  Diablo actually had to pause us in the middle of the match to change the camera battery -- that's how long this marathon went on!  It also meant that at the end, we weren't totally sure how long we'd gone -- we guessed 90 minutes.  But Diablo just put the two parts into the editing program, and told me it came to almost two hours!

So no play-by-play.  Here are an overview and my general impressions.

I had fought Kevin before early last fall, so I knew he was going to be tough.  He's a solid wrestler and grappler (with training in both styles) and solid in terms of size too -- he was 180 last fall.  I didn't think it would matter much, but I was pleased going into this match that I'd bulked up 10 pounds since last time.  The sneaky bastard had too!  He was 190 today.  Plus, I knew that Kevin was the sort who really wanted to win and wouldn't give up for practically anything.

When we fought last fall (a combo of facesit pins style and submission style), it took me about 30 minutes to get a submission on him.  I knew this would be harder.   I maintain that a basic quality of bondage wrestling is that it's harder than submission wrestling -- you can get a submission from countless different positions; when it's on right, it only has to last a split second; and when it's over, it's over.  When you get a good tying position on someone, it has to be somewhere that hides the knot from their hands and teeth; I have to hold it long enough to get the knot tied; and once it's done, it has to keep holding while they struggle and I work to tie other limbs.  A huge advantage of mine is that most other people aren't experienced with how to finish a tie in competitive real time, but huge advantages of my opponents (especially big strong ones) are that they don't need to finish a tie to make a few wraps of the rope into an annoying handicap and that they can be extremely frustrating by  just focusing on removing ties.

So we jumped in.  Right away I was reminded of my tangle with Danger Dude in the Battle of the Sexes 4-Way Bondage Wrestling.  Smaller or less skilled opponents aren't much trouble for me to sweep over and then attack from on top, but bigger, experienced guys can make me fight from the bottom.  It's a fine position for BJJ, but, honestly, I don't usually have to deal with that in bondage wrestling.  I experimented for a while to see if I could rope Kevin from the bottom of guard, but he kept pulling his arms up and out (and all the while attempting to wrap my arms as well).  This went on long enough to become aggravating and tiring.  I realized this was too much like the match with Danger Dude -- it wasn't a particular opponent thing but a general thing -- bottom of guard is a crummy place to secure ties.

I realized I had two options -- eliminate distractions, throw the ropes away for a while, and rely on pure grappling technique to the get a sweep; or rope a leg instead of an arm and use the attachment to force the sweep.  Either way I needed a big effort to get on top.  Well, I went for my big effort -- a few times, in a few different ways, I think -- and at one point we broke apart...I dove for his ankle...he sprawled on top of me to defend...I caught myself with my hand turned just a little funny...and I sprained my thumb.

Oh, no!!  That was about the worst thing that could have happened.  Thumbs are pretty damn important for tying ropes.  They're also important for all kinds of grabbing, catching, propping, and pushing in grappling.  What had already been a hard match just became colossally challenging.  But neither Kevin nor I was about to give up.

I admit things became a bit of a mess and kind of emotional after that.  With my thumb hurting and also frustrating the hell out of me when it wouldn't work as well as I wanted, and with the match getting longer and longer and more exhausting, AND with my needing to call up some pretty big bursts of strength to move Kevin around, AAAANND with him torturing me by escaping several times from ties that were SO close, I went into drama mode.  I did a lot of yelling, sometimes from exertion and sometimes from frustration.

Kevin, obnoxiously, thought this was funny instead of terrifying.  He was clever enough to steal some rest at various times when I was working to tie him, and explode out when he'd caught his breath and I was just about to get somewhere with the knots.  He kept threatening me too, and at one point when I was just too tired to do much about it, he almost had me...but the ropework was too messy to hold once I caught my breath.  Two can play at that game, Kevin!

I'm not going to give away the ending here, but what I will say is that that was one of the hardest, and definitely the longest, match of my life.  And two hours in there was a final tie.  What finally made the difference was a pull-out-the-stops, tight-as-hell chicken-wing tie.  But how it happened, and to whom, and what happened next is a secret!  ...until the video comes out.

UPDATE March 5:  The video is now released!  Find it HERE.

Plus, Promo Pics!

leveling up + plus awesome shoot = great week

Well, the most urgent and exciting news that I have to share this week is definitely that I got promoted to brown belt at my BJJ academy this week!   I started "unofficially" training jiu-jitsu in 2006 at open mats with friends, and started training officially at my academy in late 2007, so it's been a seven or eight-year journey, depending how you look at it, for me to get to this point in my wrestling life.

This is something that I've been simultaneously thinking might happen soon and thinking might never happen for a few months now.  Now that it has, it's very neat and, frankly, also a tiny bit terrifying.  No matter whether or not you think you're ready to be promoted, and no matter whether your professor thinks you've already earned it, a new belt brings a sense that now is when you need to start earning it.  Now you have to live up to it.  Maybe that's just me...but I think a lot of my classmates would agree.

Have to break in this shiny new belt now!

 

Then, another very excellent thing happened.  Yesterday, Diablo, Howl, and I had a wonderfully fun and productive video shoot.  Howl was been away from New York for about four months, and as one of our most scrappy, game, lightweight, and flexible male wrestlers, he's been sorely missed.

He was pretty tickled to find out that he has little fan base of his very own; indeed, no sooner did he return to New York, than we got a custom request for him.  This was for a men's pantyhose pro-style match between Howl and Diablo.  Howl made for an extra-feisty and troublesome jobber, so while this match was a near-domination by Diablo, it wasn't a shut-out by any means.  But, oh boy, when Diablo did catch Howl in those camel clutches, it looked like they were going for the record on bendiest, most back-breaking hold!  Seriously, people are not supposed to be that flexible.  So this was a lot of fun to see, and also a lot of fun to film.  I always like when Diablo has a video to do with someone else; it's the only time I get to run the camera and practice my filming.  I was pretty proud of myself after this one :)

Then we followed up with a video featuring Howl and me.  After much success with our "more traditional" female/female pantyhose catball videos (like this one, for example), we got some requests and were curious to try a mixed catball video.  Yes, Howl is at risk of becoming quite the pantyhose wrestling star here.  Our storyline was that we were ballet dancers rehearsing a show, and Howl was trying to upstage me during my solo!  The intro with him cutting me off and bumping into me was brilliant, funny, and, of course, infuriating!  I couldn't stand for it, and so...FIGHT!  Howl turned out to be about the most ferocious catballer yet, right up there with Candy Pain in our original Furious Pantyhose Catball Fight!  Oh my goodness, twisty-twiney-legged, hair-pulling, rolling madness!  But in the end, it didn't help him -- he ended up excessively tied up with many pairs of my old, torn pantyhose!

A few little preview pics from this one, too:

OK, now these were not the only things going on recently, just the most immediately exciting.  Quick run down on other stuff:  

My computer almost died, which was scary, irritating, and a definite fly in the ointment of an otherwise great week.  But I just got it back from the technician today, and it wasn't the whole hard drive that was shot, just the drive's connector cable.  Huge relief there.

I also had a couple new costumes for upcoming custom videos arrive in the mail.  Some not-fantastic camera phone shots of them here, just to give a sneak peak.  The videos will be much better than these quickie shots:

Also, bondage wrestling with Kevin scheduled for this Sunday!  Heh, heh, heh, Kevin really wants to beat me in some kind of competitive match or another, but I don't think it will be this one.  (Or any one!  Though he's welcome to keep trying, of course!)

And finally, a lot of RSVPs for next Tuesday's training session.  We had a very small little practice start-up gathering this past Tuesday, which was nice, but expecting a bit of a "thing" and some new faces next week, yay!

a very, very, very full month!

So here's a look at what's been going on over the past month or so.

The BIG event recently was that on Feb. 8, I finally left my office job to concentrate full time on wrestling, training, sessions, and videos.  I'd been planning and looking forward to this for a long time.  There was delicious cake and terrible snow storm to mark the occasion.  And then...

I had thought, naively I suppose, that I was going to have SO much time to do everything I wanted once I got out of the office.  I was going to increase my training schedule, never have to turn anyone down for a session due to a time conflict again, and travel several times a month.

Phew!  Well, I shot out of the gate and hit the ground running.  It was quite exciting.  I booked trips to Texas, D.C., and Chicago.  D.C., especially, was a super-trip -- I don't know what it is about that city, but the guys there love their wrestling.  I was going non-stop -- domination, competitive, boxing, and -- a rare treat for me -- a real, serious, can-actually-handle-the-pain beatdown.  Drove back to New York in the afternoon (through more snowstorm warnings), and met a favorite regular client for a late session that same night.

I cranked up training too.  I joined my academy's "elite" Muay Thai program and added sparring classes to my BJJ, MMA, and pad work regimen.  I thought I was doing awesome to have made it all the way through winter untouched by cold and flu season...then March arrived and I was finally brought low by a hideous fatigue-sinus-throat thing.  I had to admit that as much as I love being busy, I needed better planning and balance.  It was actually lucky that the sponsor for my Chicago trip, originally planned for right now, had to pull out and look to reschedule at a later date.

NOW, I can say I feel like I'm beginning to get the hang of this full-time wrestling thing.  I made a few excellent discoveries -- plan trips further in advance whenever possible.  Evening training does NOT work well for me.  That one's still killing me, actually, since my academy only offers sparring and MMA at night.  And I haven't yet figured out how to get as much lifting in around my martial arts as I want to.  But I've ID'ed the challenges, and I've got the destination in mind -- just working on the map!

There's been exciting stuff going on with other ladies at Doom Maidens too.  Indra's back in the US -- for a long stay this time!  For her welcome-back present, we got her victims!  First, we offered up Ben for some classic, cheeky Indra domination, and next it was Thrash for some bondage tickle-torture.

BUT Athena spiced up the party -- like the giver of birthday spankings, she turned the tables on Indra and dealt out some tickle torture of her own.  There will be more to come from Indra this very Sunday -- she'll be taking on a visiting victim in a new bondage wrestling match, and possibly subjecting him to some judoka foot domination too!

We've also got a new lady training with us now.  Well, not entirely new -- some may remember Sircee from her matches with Clobberetta and Athena last year.  But after a recent bondage wrestling shoot, where she had a lot of fun being introduced to bondage wrestling and even more fun showing off her wily escaping skills (to my ultimate frustration), Sircee is newly fired up and ready to start rolling in earnest.  She's been coming by the Brooklyn studio for practice to beef up her wrestling skills, and she's a quick pupil.  Must be the dance background -- show her a movement, and she soaks it right up.  The next training is this Friday with me and Orlandoe.

Ah, Orlandoe!  The ongoing drama between Orlandoe's and my secret agent characters has been the video theme of the month.  This was both really cool and a little funny.  You may recall that last year we launched the Stockholm Syndrome Collection, which was soon retitled the Lethal Leotards Syndicate series -- a video series featuring the Doom Maidens ladies as black-leotard-clad super-villians, who seduce, capture, torture, subjugate, and occasionally assassinate their male prey.


And fans loved this!  So much that they began sending custom video requests that carried on the story of the Syndicate.  It has been truly fantastic to see how different guys all writing separately have been creating different episodes of this story.  BUT here's the rub -- in the hands of our fan writers the Syndicate has strayed from its original purpose of persecuting men and fallen to in-fighting -- a continuing power-struggle between the Grand Domina herself (me) and the Second-in-Command (Orlandoe).  In the past month, Orlandoe and I have struggled through two death-matches and one bondage torture abduction.  Way to protect your own necks, guys, turning us on each other!  No worries, we'll get you soon enough!

And, finally, a look ahead -- not wrestling-related for a change.  I would like to announce that my birthday will be here in just two weeks, and I'm looking forward to a fabulous present.  My mother and two sisters are all coming to visit me, and we are preparing to hit NYC in true girls'-weekend style.  Dining, theatre, wine bars, warm springtime Botanic Gardens if we're lucky, wedding planning for baby sister, and maybe (if I can talk them all into it) kickboxing for everyone ;)  So if I'm a little incommunicado at the end of the month, it's because I'm partying on the town with my guests!