Hey there, Gentle Readers.
Now, mind you, I normally avoid topics of controversy (uh oh...), but recent Twitterings have gotten my attention and have moved me to speak out.
I recently read a piece discussing how Brazilian jiujitsu ("BJJ") is threatening to dominate the underground female wrestling video industry. The claim implied that technical styles of grappling are not as interesting or, one can infer, not as sexy as instinctive, untrained squeezing and pressing.
Sure, I can definitely see that. Raw passions, innocent risk-taking, and wild fury may very well have greater appeal for an underground audience than sportsman-like chess playing. It was implied that it is better to see untrained ladies performing hard, strenuous wrestling than experienced grapplers on the mats together. Indeed, one can see the appeal, surely. However, we need to consider a few things before we can move on.
Firstly, from a production stand-point, unbridled, untrained, "anything goes" is like playing Russian roulette when it comes to competitive underground wrestling. How long will it be before one wrestler turns the wrong way while in an incidental lock, before another gets her neck cranked in a headlock, before too much random leg tangling leads to the loss of a knee ligament... All is well and good, until injury happens. And when bad injuries occur in the underground, some really bad feelings can result.
But training and experience can greatly reduce the number of accidental, ignorance-based injuries. For one, wrestlers will be less likely to attempt potentially self-damaging movements (I keep thinking of forcefully spinning the wrong way out of a heel hook - which can potentially happen incidentally). Furthermore, the wrestler will be more likely to immediately realize when she or her opponent are in a potentially damaging situation or position, and she will be able to adjust for safety.
But I risk digression here. I just deleted a bunch of technical digression, actually. Back to the topic at hand.
The Conflict of Style
I have seen these comments time and time again. To paraphrase: No one fights "Old School" anymore! The women are using grappling styles that are too efficient! Scissors and smothers are being defeated by new-fangled grapple-y techniques in "open" underground competition.
Some people long for the good old days, before submission grappling schools became ubiquitous and when underground wrestlers relied on trial-and-error in the moment. What's a quick and easy way to cause pain? Scissoring with your legs. What's a quick and easy way to cause discomfort? Smothering the opponent's face. Untrained wrestlers can find these techniques quickly and easily, and against other untrained wrestlers these attacks can be quite effective. They are universally accessible.
Indeed, when I first tried underground wrestling many years ago, I submitted someone by front body scissors, just on instinct.
But these easily accessible techniques are also easily countered. As people are inclined to do, wrestlers sought ways to overcome these obstacles.
In the 1990s, on the "mainstream" stage, we saw the emergence of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). In the early UFC, we saw representatives from different martial arts come together to fight in "mixed martial arts" competition. The early events were dominated by the representative for Brazilian jiujitsu, Royce Gracie. As a result, BJJ grew tremendously in popularity, often championed as a way for a smaller/weaker opponent to overcome an untrained larger/stronger opponent.
Over time, BJJ schools grew in number, branching out across the nation and the world, and providing opportunities for adults to learn an efficient grappling martial art.
And please note where I say "adult." By this, I mean "non-school-age person" or, more specifically, "someone who is no longer playing sports on a school team." Indeed, someone on a school wrestling team has great access to wrestling training, but someone who is not on the team or who has already graduated has a very hard time accessing regular, formalized wrestling training... but BJJ and no-gi submission grappling are actually quite accessible for adult people. They are our most accessible form of wrestling and grappling education at this time.
Female wrestler Helen von Mott was one of the first, if not the first, underground female wrestler to bring her BJJ education to the underground scene. In fact, she even earned her BJJ black belt while still operating in our industry. Helen became legendary as an underground wrestler, known to be extremely skilled and confident, and she also demonstrated just how effective BJJ style training can be in the mixed / female wrestling environment. She even visited us here in NYC to show our local ladies some essential techniques and encourage all to take up BJJ training (easy to do with schools so accessible).
And so, Brazilian jiujitsu had entered the waters. Its effectiveness in mixed wrestling and against untrained opponents became obvious to see: by using leverage, off-balancing techniques, and a new arsenal of submission attacks, trained women started snatching victories from untrained (and sometimes larger) opponents.
Indeed, this style of training even provides the weaponry needed to escape from and defeat incidentally-applied scissorholds and smothers. How great! Who could ask for anything more!
Since BJJ style training is so accessible nowadays, many ladies have added basic techniques to their repertory. However, a downside does come of all this. Perhaps several downsides.
One is the guard position. I personally don't have issues with the guard position, provided it is an active, aggressive guard that is just a stepping stone to a sweep or submission. However, less experienced grapplers can lack the skill and confidence needed to progress from the bottom of guard and/or conservative opponents may make no attempts to pass the guard if there are no penalties for stalling. The result of those cases is a match with very little movement, few changes of position, and one big neutral position.
The next problem is the "calm" mentality that results from BJJ training. Generally speaking, the more experience one has in this style, the more likely that she will approach the match in a thoughtful, technical, chess-game state of mind. "Anger faces" become more rare, impulsive and passionate random movements become more rare, and the match can become more of an athletic discussion and/or surgical dismantling, rather than a clash-and-bash festival.
Next problem: the game is now top-heavy! While many ladies have accessible to jiujitsu and submission grappling training, many others still do not. So, in a world where prior training is becoming the norm, untrained newcomers and veterans alike are finding it harder and harder to win. In a world where everyone was playing by instinct, size and strength - or random anomaly - were often the determining factors. But now, with no formal skill level divisions in the industry, the game has changed to be potentially less inclusive.
What is this Brave New World like?
It's sporty. At least this is how it appears to me. It's competitive, certainly. It does start to run noticeably parallel with the mainstream. And not everyone is pleased about that.
Two points I want to touch on here:
1. Sexiness
2. Competition
As to Sexiness... one of my follow community members notes that jointlocks and technical athletics just don't have the same "sex appeal" as squeezing scissorholds and pressing smothers. I have two thoughts here, and my initial thought is this: Imprinting.
If, back in your "formative years," your first encounter with underground wrestling, be it mixed or female, was filled with images of ladies fighting competitively with scissorholds and smothers, then I would dare say you may have become inclined to seeing fighting with scissors and smothers. These moves were the bread and butter, and who can have wrestling that sexy-looking without them? That's how it's done! That's how it first appeared to you. And, if you liked what you saw, then that's how it should always be. Changes to the game, and the decline in use of these moves, for better or worse, are just... for worse.
But what if, theoretically, you never cared for scissors and smothers, but the first time you saw a triangle hold, or a mounted triangle, or even an armbar, what if then you had a little light go on saying "how sexy!" Furthermore, what if you weren't even around during the Old Days and instead your first encounter with underground wrestling featured small girls defeating larger girls by using slippery skill and mounted triangles... and what if you liked that very much... ?
Now, I grant you, squeezing and pressing is generally "sexier" and more sensual than putting pressure on a knee or elbow from off to the side. Probably a greater number of people find this to be the case. Body-to-body pressure in a slow, smothering manner, with sweat and (insert your favorite attire choice), the grueling strength battle, bulging muscles, gritting teeth, wild hair (like, think 80s hair), pressing, squeezing. But anyway, just consider this.
So Why Change?
Competition... Most people like to win. But the competitive lady wrestlers really like to win. And none want to lose. Especially when being video recorded.
In a given match, the wrestler will do whatever she can within the rules (ahem) to secure her victory. Or, at least, to prevent herself from losing.
We've established that BJJ and formal submission grappling training can teach a wrestler how to grapple more efficiently: conserve energy, escape from holds, launch time-tested techniques. And we've discussed how underground ladies are incorporating this style in order to stay ahead of the game - or how previously-trained ladies can quickly rise to the top. But what has happened to the scissors and smothers?
Since they are easily escaped and countered by trained grapplers, scissors and smothers may be falling behind in top-level underground wrestling competition.
Well, says I, that's easy to fix! Why not just change the rules to make it "Scissors and Smothers Only" or "No closed guard" or "No joint attacks"?
But!
You. Can't. Change. The. Rules.
What?! Rubbish, of course you can change the rules. You can make whatever rules you want. Furthermore, have we even established what The Rules are?
You. Can't. Change. The. Rules.
Yeah, but - what rules? What are these unspoken rules? We know there are rules, because, for one, you aren't allowed to kill or maim you opponent. So, there, that's one rule I have divined. We kind of think there are no small joint manipulations allowed (bending fingers or toes), but no one ever really mentions it. We know there's no striking. We kind of think that all submissions are allowed, by default, but we also do not allow submissions by hair pulling (or do we??). So, what are the rules? Do we really know? And if we don't have them written down, why can't we legitimately offer variations? And, by the way, who exactly is "we".....?
So, things change but they don't change?
The Rules = female submission wrestling. ...?
Isn't it perplexing? What if we had an underground circuit for scissors and smothers wrestling? Would it have a following? I suppose, if you build it.... maybe it's worth a shot. But one of my esteemed colleagues says that "special rules" are just a "side show" to the Main Event. Indeed, there is some phenomenon out there in the wide world that says "Scissors and Smothers Only" is not the "pure" default.
I asked Keri for her opinion on the matter.
On Twitter, I asked her how she would feel about winning a match using a scissorhold. Also on Twitter, she replied:
"i wouldn't be proud of a match won w/ scissors..no technical skill needed."
In response, I asked:
"But, Keri, how would you feel is only scissor submissions were allowed?"
And she replied:
"same way. I'd do it and it would be fun, but I would not count it as any part of win/loss record."
How intriguing! And thank you, Keri, for adding this very valuable point of view!
Win/loss record matters to the lady wrestlers. But what counts toward the win/loss record? It seems like only matches that follow The Rules.
Sadly, under The Rules, draws are allowed to happen. I think this is a key problem to complaints about the New Way.
Since a draw is not a loss, modern wrestlers may be inclined to fight for the draw. This means less risk-taking, more conservative styles, fewer attempts are scissors and smothers against high-level opponents. Low-percentage but potentially interesting/entertaining moves go out the window (such as risky guard pass attempts, school girl pins, or attempting headscissors from the bottom of guard). And, instead, a match may come down to a takedown followed by guard position for the entire rest of the time.
Attempting to pass someone's guard is risky. You can get swept and then stuck on the bottom after being so happily on top. So, if there are no penalties for not attempting a pass, why risk it? If you are pinning your opponent and The Rules do not specify Pins, then why bother with a submission attempt that could lead to the opponent's escape? As it is, there is no downside to a draw. And this can lead to "slower" modern matches, which are not slow because of sensual body pressing.
So, What Are We to Do?
If the underground wrestling world is uncomfortable with the modern developments of the game, then what can be done about it?
1. Change the rules.
I know, I know, this leads to a lot of belly-aching. But if you want to see the trained grappler girls fighting on instinct and impulse, you need to put them in an environment that is new to them. It's just like periodization in weight training: once you've adapted to a stimulus, you need to vary that stimulus in order to get new, dynamic results.
2. Do not allow draws.
This one is tough to implement, since draws have been allowed by default. Indeed, some women may refuse to compete if they knew a winner had to be determined somehow.
I disallowed draws in our competitive matches perhaps a year or two ago. I've tried several tie-breaking techniques, such Sudden Death overtime, arm wrestling, positional point scoring, and judge's decision. Of all of these, I think the most satisfying is Sudden Death overtime, but that can make the match unreasonably lengthy...
............. but just think about it - if you came into a match knowing that it would never end unless someone won, wouldn't that light a fire under you?
I think the least satisfying is arm wrestling. That's a totally different game.
The jury is out on Judge's Decision. I am actually a submission grappling referee, so I am used to deciding matches by decision in the mainstream world. We select a winner based on "skillful aggression" - whoever tried for the most things, whoever took the most skillful risks and pressed the advantage. However, I don't get the impression that the underground scene as a whole is prepared to accept Judge's Decision. But I'm not sure - maybe the ladies would accept it...
3. Standardize Pins-and-Submissions as the default
This may be considered "changing the rules," but a number of people, particularly in mainland Europe, tend to lean toward Pins-and-Submissions as a potential default.
But really, at the end of the day, it all comes down to what the ladies and the rest of the community will accept as The Rules.
If I say "no draws" for my company, then people will just think it is just a unique quirk of ours. However, if I can somehow, for example, mobilize my wrestlers and colleagues to accept the "no draws" policy, then we might be on to something. However, if the promise of a not-loss (aka draw) is very lucrative, then it might be difficult to get rid of draws.
Whew, so there you have it! These are my words on the topic for this lovely, humid summer afternoon here in New York City. I'm motivated to try putting together some new female competitive matches with new faces (however, fantasy FF, mixed, and bondage wrestling are far more popular, I find... but that's a topic for another day).
Maybe MAYBE I can conduct some video interviews on the matter with the ladies. That would be just swell! But in the meantime, I leave you to muse on the matter. And, as always, my ears and inbox are always open, and I'd love to hear your comments on the subject. (I'm really quite friendly, under the right circumstance ;-D )
Thanks for reading, and catch you all later!
