I guess the most obvious place to start is with a hurricane report. Despite the battering NYC took last week, I am fine! In fact I was very lucky. My neighborhood is well in the center of Brooklyn on high ground -- we were well-sheltered, unflooded, and electrically capable the whole time. The subway shutdown did cut me off from Manhattan for a week, but since my office was also closed due to power outage, that wasn't a huge problem. Being cut off my gym and grappling academy too gave me a week of forced rest, which I probably needed since I am THE WORST at voluntary rest.
It was quite incredible to discover that without work, gym, or training, I STILL didn't have time for everything else I wanted to get done in my downtime. (Witness, for example, this blog only getting posted after I was snowed in last night with our SECOND big storm in two weeks.) I set ridiculously high goals in that department, though -- quite a bit DID get done. Mundane things like closet cleaning and computer work backlog (exciting to me!), but also heavy doses of filming, dipping my toes into the MMA sparring arena, and even a session when one fellow volunteered to walk from Queens to meet me at the Brooklyn studio. Now, that was dedication.
Since Diablo and I both live near the Brooklyn studio, we had a pretty easy time meeting up for shoots. We'd hoped
Orlandoe and
Wrecks would be able to join in, since they're both in the area too (quite a little wrestling community we've got out here), but coordinating that many people's post-disaster schedules was too much. So we stuck to solo shoots for me.
First up, I set out to fulfill a long-standing request for flexing and posing in a "clingy" outfit -- the result:
Mini-Dress Flexing. This was great, as I'd had a long-standing desire to show off in this dress myself ;)
After that, we started getting more creative with a whole series of bondage escape challenges. I've gotten pretty good, if I do say so myself, at wriggling out of rope ties, so we upped the stakes with
duct tape bindings (and
more duct tape bindings). A good idea! The stickiness makes slipping and slithering escapes impossible so I had to revert to strength to stretch and tear the tape giving my muscles a better workout (and display!). Branching out even further, we tried an
escape-peril clip (tied in a bathtub with the water running), and a
special challenge for my balloon fans -- blowing up and popping a balloon with my hands tied behind my back. Who'd have thought that would be the hardest thing of all!
Last Wednesday and Thursday, Diablo and I also put in some training time at the studio. We train together in grappling quite often, but I've been angling to shift into MMA training lately, so we figured we'd play with a little MMA sparring. Now I swear these were training bouts with friendly intent. We agreed to keep the strikes to the head light and strikes to the body not-crazy. But between not wanting to give the other person TOO much leeway and wanting things "real enough" to be a useful fight simulation, this was a balancing act. Add in that when the other person's moving too, some strikes won't land AS lightly as you planned. And add in the other person's reaction to that. Conclusion: trading blows will tend to heat things up a bit!
We ended up having two still friendly but pretty aggressive -- and pretty awesome -- bouts. Diablo may argue that I punch too much to the belly, but it only took receiving one very winding punch myself to sell me on the value of this technique! He may also argue that I punch too much from defensive positions, or that I punch too much in general. Now strategically, in the long run, he may have a point and more practice will tell, but in the first flush, after six years of grappling and thinking "Oh my god, from here I could just hit you!" there was a beauty in getting to do it ;)
We ended up going at it for around 40 minutes straight each day. Hard to stop, once you get going! And I would gladly have kept it up every day of our Brooklyn exile, but on the second day, a slight mishap befell us -- actually, it befell Diablo's jaw. He decided to switch things up and duck in for a low shot -- not sure if he was thinking body shot or upper cut, but regardless, it meant he brought his head straight in line *and was moving forward* at just the moment I was throwing a should-have-been-light right hook. Rocked him back pretty sharply. Did I mention this happened at the beginning of the bout? Yeah. One of those shots that contributes to heating things up. It wasn't until about 30 minutes later that he began feeling that all was not right and perhaps we should stop for the day. We concluded he'd actually gotten a mild concussion -- quite mild, really, but enough to put an end to sparring for a week or two. Sad. But we'll be back at it ASAP.
As for the end of the week, this is when the hurricane coverage I had been seeing about expedited government aid and the gradual restoration of the transit and power systems, which all sounded hunky dory, started giving way to stories of uneven recovery and severe conditions in the worst-affected regions. So on Sunday I spent the morning rounding up donations for the nearest relief center, and most of the rest of the day on my bike pinging between the center and nearby shops picking up and dropping off supplies. It was a drop in the bucket, but I figure one more drop is a good thing.
Now this week I'm back to work as usual, and though I'm keeping an eye on post-hurricane news and
local relief effort's updates and supply calls on Twitter, everything is seeming quite normal in my little corner. Since the hurricane break brought so much solo filming, it seems high time to get some good wrestling action on camera.
On Monday, Wrecks did make it in to the studio for a special-request full nelsons match with me. This was a match with wrestling singlet attire and an inescapable holds theme -- the full nelson had to be held for a full 15 seconds to score a point. Somehow, Wrecks can manage to turn even a fight into a laughing matter, so this was not only an interesting challenge but also a ridiculously fun match. The only people not having a good time were the studio's downstairs neighbors, who've been unusually quick to bang on the ceiling this week. I suppose there HAS been quite a lot of fighting going on.
I'm beginning to feel the pinch of having fought (and occasionally demolished) the same guys time and again. I love 'em all and plan to keep shooting with everyone, but variety is the spice of life. So a casting call for new male opponents and victims is in the works. Look out to hopefully see a few fresh faces in the coming weeks, or *if you have a serious inquiry* apply yourself.
And coming up just a little later,
Bettie,
Page, and
Tommi are all going to be visiting NYC around the end of November/early December. I don't know Page well yet, but I'm hoping she may be up for a good competitive match with me. I'll be super excited if Bettie is up for trying out a bondage match -- and maybe a straight grappling rematch too, since it has been over a year since our last battle. And of course match suggestions and custom requests for the visitors or any of the Doom Maidens ladies are always very, very welcome!
