Journaling of a producer of female and mixed wrestling videos and events. Videography, match shoots, coordination, editing, imagery, training: it's an adventurous line of work!
FYI, folks, we are in the process of getting together a "Newcomers Showcase" Live Event, slated for Sunday, October 2nd in Brooklyn, NYC.
We have a new studio space in Brooklyn, and we think it would be a nice place to try this sort of gathering!
The Live Event will include Female/Female matches (mostly competitive, but rope-tie, pro-style, and fantasy possible by fan request). It will also include opportunities for Mini Sessions with the wrestlers.
Ladies on board for October 2nd include both newcomers and returning faces:
Cat Wily
Aralia
Kinzie Fire (?)
Rachel DD
Orlandoe
VeVe Lane
Sweetie Dreams (photos to come)
And a mysterious new 6'3" tall wrestling amazon! (photo to come)
This is just scratching the surface for info to provide for this event, but I wanted to get it out there before I become consumed with working on the new FetCon videos (that 8-Way Free-For-All Bondage Mayhem match is looming big time!).
More information on location, timing, and ticket sales will be available shortly (especially once the 8-Way is released!). Stay tuned for more.
And if you have any questions or suggestions, or need more details directly, please drop me a line here: orders@doommaidens.com
We're back from a very, very busy time at FetCon 2016 in St. Petersburg, Florida! And we filmed SO much with so many models and wrestlers, whew!
I arrived home from the road trip tour on this past Saturday, and I imported all of the video footage right away. After completing and delivering all of the custom videos from the event, I'm finally now chipping away at the general releases! Here's a list of things to come, potentially slated for general release, in order in which they were filmed:
1. Smooth Predator. Whitney Morgan and VeVe Lane (a vampire-inspired Python and Prey themed vignette with emphasis on vintage stockings).
2. Mixed Pantyhose Battle. VeVe and Diablo. Evenly matched, smooth pantyhose wrestling, both in hose.
13. Superheroine Hogtie Escape Race: VeVe vs Camille Black
14. Woman to Woman: VeVe and Vika
15. Bondage Beatdown and Interrogation: VeVe and Mark
Whew! There we have it for now! I will be updating this entry as we release the various videos into our studio. But for now, enjoy this quick list so you have an idea of what's coming up. If you have any questions about any of these videos or any of the ladies, just let me know: diablo@doommaidens.com
This post is a Transcript from our Wednesday afternoon webcast with VeVe Lane, Keri Spectrum, Cat Wily, Kinzie Fire, Michi Moon. The video of the 33-minute long webcast has been embedded here too for the sake of completeness. But if you'd more in the mood for reading, check out the transcript below. Topic Discussion: "Newcomer Experiences" VeVe: OK, it says it's live. Ok, reload that page. That's been muted to create no feedback, and we're good. All right! Hello everyone! We are beginning promptly on time I think for the first time in our webcast history, go us!
Keri: Yeah!
VeVe: Wait what? Yeah! Keri's here too. No technical difficulties have happened yet. I'm enjoying it while it lasts. We're welcoming Cat Wily and Kinzie Fire and -- Keri, have Michi say hi too --
Michi: [waves]
VeVe: And Michi Moon! Some new ladies on the wrestling scene here, and we're doing a webcast on "newcomers' experiences."
Kinzie: You made that sound so foreboding.
VeVe: Or Newcomers' Experiences Yay!
Keri: Hip, hip, hooray!
VeVe: Let's have everybody introduce themselves to start with. New folks, who wants to go first?
Cat: I'm Cat Wily, I'm from right here, hometown New York City, really excited to be having some matches with doom maidens. and yeah, hi everybody
Kinzie: Hi, I'm Kinzie Fire, from New York City as well. super excited to be doing this. I've done two matches so far, and I'm looking forward to our match [Kinzie vs Cat Wily] right after this, and a few more coming up.
Keri: Yeah. We're excited too. What kind of match are you going to be having after this?
Cat: Competitive.
Keri: Well, duh. But what kind of competitive match?
Cat: I'm not sure, what does that exactly mean? That's an interesting question...
Keri: VeVe?
VeVe: Well, I believe the conditions for this are going to be three 6-minute rounds, general submissions are allowed, most submissions wins, and anything else is going to be determined by you two. What kind? Can be - what's your style, what's your favorite move, how mean are you...
Keri: What kind of submissions are you training them in right now, VeVe?
VeVe: Let's see. Let's have you guys answer that. What are your favorite submissions so far?
Cat: Favorite submissions. I actually really like the crucifix submission. It often times comes unexpected to my opponent. and it can actually be pretty easy to execute and finish --
Keri: Why do you think it's easy?
Cat: Why do I think it's easy? Cause it's easy to get off of someone's back while you have side control. All you have to do is grab a leg and roll them over. I guess maybe it has to do with a power thing. Maybe I have a little more strength in my legs. But every time I go for this submission, it always works. Even in training outside. I do a little more training than what we do here. And it's even been successful with me on a jiujitsu brown belt. So, it seems to really be effective for people who don't see it coming. It's not conventional, but I like it a lot.
Keri: Ok. Cool. And you -- what about you, miss?
Kinzie: I like a lot of stuff coming off of the kimura grip and a lot of submissions with the arms. and I had a lot of luck with scissors in my last match with Hanz, so I'm sticking with it. If it works, I'll do it.
Keri: Are you talking like body scissors, head scissors...?
VeVe: We had a fun moment with everybody's training where we did the classic jiujitsu thing, teach everything but scissors. and then it was Hanz , actually, who shook things come, came in did some matches with some newcomers and did all these man scissors on everybody. So, all right on everyone, scissors, we have to address them! You do need to know them, both doing them and escaping them.
Cat: Talking about body scissors. My first competitive match was with Adrian. And just like VeVe said. I'd wrestled on the underground scene a little bit before hooking up with Doom. So, it was part of my repertoire, but then when I started hanging out with these jiujitsu professionals, I kind of let it go, and I forgot all about them. And literally, the day before my match with Adrian, we did a really brief training on escaping the scissors, but it didn't really incorporate back into my training plan and my repertoire. And, I just got destroyed by the scissors.
Keri: I was gonna say, the worst thing you can do when coming into underground wrestling is forget about the scissors.
Cat: I got destroyed. I got demolished. My ribs hurt for 6 weeks, no lie, no joke. It was really hard to train after that. But it's part of the game, I learned my lesson. And I'm really hopeful that if Kinzie tries to execute some scissors on my today, I'm gonna take care of that.
VeVe: My recommendation would be attempt the head scissors over the body scissors
Kinzie: Yeah, I might have more of a chance there.
Keri: Are you reffing this, VeVe?
VeVe: I'm time keeping. I hope to not have to ref. I usually refrain my reffing to Oh my god, don't hurt the wall. Or go through it. Otherwise, play amongst yourselves.
Keri: I know, that's me too. I'm constantly worrying about damage to my wall. That's a huge problem for me. All about the wall. We never want to fix our walls, so do not hit them, ok, don't.
VeVe: Well, it's it's between hurting your opponent and putting a hole in the wall, you can put a hole in the wall, but ideally --
Keri: Oh, no, I don't think that. No. Hurt your opponent.
VeVe: Ok, so, Keri and I can talk all day, but want to hear the new folks talk. I'm going to ask both of you, and Michi to, what has been, what got you into doing this. I'm super glad you joined up, but why did you do it?
Cat: I'll start. I've been wrestling playfully with friends at parties for a few years. It's always been an interest of mine from way back, for as long as I can remember, into adulthood. Just enjoyed watching a lot of MMA on TV, and wrestling, not too much pro-style wrestling, but real rumbling. And I remember a couple of years ago, actually, I met Hanz, Hanz Vanderkill, at a wrestling party here in New York City. And he just saw me raising some ruckus on the mat with my friends, and he came over and he's like, hey you should meet up with this group Doom Maidens, I know them, they do training once a week. And it just didn't line up at the time. It was on a day I just wasn't available. And a few months ago, I just happened to see something about Doom about some practice they had going on. And I just showed up, and I've just been rolling with them ever since. I just really like the rough body play. It's more than just having fun on the mat, you know, I've learned so much about body awareness and respect for people. It's a really humbling experience. And as long as I am physically able to and young enough to, I will be rolling with these guys, or, you know I'll probably pretty much take on any match. So, that's kind of what got me into it, that's what's keeping me here. And I'm having a lot of fun, everyone I've met has been really great and warm and welcoming, and I feel really fortunate to be hanging out with this group.
Kinzie: So, I don't have as much history with wrestling as you do. I always kind of enjoyed it just playing around with people I hang out with and stuff, just for fun, rough and tumble struggle play, wrestling type stuff. But I was always kind of at a size and strength disadvantage. So I saw some information about your trainings, and I thought, that's relevant, and I can start winning, which would be great. So, I showed up at one of the trainings, you guys are super rad, and I just kept coming. And I stuck around, yeah, it was a lot of fun. And you guys talked about doing videos, and that's super awesome. So, yeah.
VeVe: I remember I started training in wrestling too cause I was like I like everything about this except the losing part, so let me just figure out how to stop doing that. That got me started hardcore at a certain point. Michi! We forgot to ask you your favorite submission too, so I have two questions: why did you start this and what is your favorite submission?
Michi: Actually, I started cause of you [points to VeVe], you right there, right in the middle. She introduced me to a world I never thought existed. And I was like, holy crap this is hot, I have to do this, this is my calling. And then you guys told me, all right, let's do X, Y, and Z, and then introduced me to Keri, and Keri lives like 5 minutes down the road, so I've kinda been bothering Keri every day since.
VeVe: I wanted to ask you -- cause we wanted to connect the two of you, yeah, Michi, we've only gotten to have you over to use twice cause you're just not as nearby -- how are you and Keri getting on? What have you been up to?
Michi: Getting on a lot [Keri headlocks Michi]
Keri: It took us a while to actually connect our schedules.
Michi: It gets kind of intense.
Keri: The past month or so we've been able to work a lot together and, you know, we're starting to train together. We get along really well, and it's been a lot of fun.
Michi: Yeah, she doesn't mind I look like a chia pet.
VeVe: Before or after wrestling? Because after wrestling [gestures to hair puffing up] a lot of people have that problem.
Michi: You've seen it. It gets kind of untameable, once in a while. I squirm a lot. So, one of these days. [fight gestures at Keri] Oh, my favorite submission.
Keri: What's your favorite submission? Like, what hold do you like to use?
Michi: To tap somebody out? Triangle. Flying triangle? Besides that...
Keri: A flying triangle, somebody your height, your agility...
Michi: I'm a fucking ninja.
VeVe: I totally want to see you flying triangle somebody, as long as it's not me.
Cat: What is a flying triangle?
Keri: All right? Who wants to do the flying triangle? This bitch. This bitch with the flying triangle. I'll try.
Cat: I'll take a flying triangle. I want to feel that.
VeVe: Ok, so after...
Keri: Let's just see the flying triangle...
Michi: [laughing]
Keri: Jesus christ. Flying armbars and triangles over here in New Jersey, everyone.
Michi: The crucifix ends on that, though. That. I might have a lot of trouble. Like. No? No? [Keri shakes head] Doesn't work? Ok. I'll shut up. Ok, no more chokes [laughing]
VeVe: So, Keri, we're responsible for keeping these hooligans on track. You have to ask them an interview question now.
Keri: Ok! So, ladies, let's say that you get told that you are challenged to a catfight. Would you be ok with hairpulling, face slapping, and body punching in a match?
Kinzie: Yes.
Cat: Heck yeah. That means I get to punch back? Absolutely.
Keri: Do you think that's an actual fighting style, or do you think that's just insulting as a competitor?
Kinzie: If it's prearranged and it's a style you're fighting in, yeah, it's a fighting style. I wouldn't say it's a traditional one or something that people train in. But if two people sit down and go hey, this is how we're gonna fight, then, sure, that's legitimate.
Keri: And what about those tactics used for submission?
Cat: I didn't hear that question -- what was it?
VeVe: Slapping and hairpulling for a submission.
Cat: Oh. Oh, interesting.
VeVe: Or body punching, for a submission.
Cat: Oh [smiles]
Kinzie: That'd be serious hairpulling.
Cat: Yeah, seriously. I don't know. I might be ok with some body punches, for sure. As a submission? Why not. Yeah. Hairpulling, I don't know...
Keri: Yeah, that can be a little rough. Like a hairpulling contest. So, that would be like where you're both standing, and you have to hairpull, and the first person to end up on the floor is the person who loses.
Cat: Well, maybe that doesn't sound so bad then.
VeVe: That sounds like whiplash. [all laugh]
Keri: So you guys are open to all different sorts of competitive fighting?
Cat & Kinzie: Pretty much, yeah.
Keri: Now, if you could come up with your favorite style of match, out of any type of match, what would it be?
Cat: Bondage.
Kinzie, So far, bondage.
Keri: Ok, and why is that?
Cat: I like that it incorporates some wrestling, but more just physical control, without the submissions, and of course just the rope is just so much fun --
Keri: Now is that the domination and the submission portion?
Cat: I'm missing that part of the question, what was that?
Keri: Do you like to be on the losing and the winning end?
Cat: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I don't mind getting tied up. No problem. It's fun. I just had a really impromptu match with VeVe over the weekend, and I totally got my butt kicked, but I was hysterical the whole time, because it was just so much fun, so absolutely. On either end.
Keri: I don't find it fun on either end.
VeVe: Michi, what are your thoughts? What's your favorite type of match? That you've done or would like to do ever?
Michi: I really do want to go back to the BDSM portion, just cause it is a lot of fun to try and hogtie. The one that we did with 6 girls. That's just -- I don't really see it being anything more than like I guess everybody just going after each other --
Keri: Like a multi-person match?
Michi: Yeah, like that to me is all hands down, everybody's free for all.
Keri: Like a 4-person bondage match?
Michi: We had 6. Right?
Keri: I wasn't there.
Michi: You wanna be there? We can get you there...
VeVe: Ah, that's actually... We'll discuss this off camera later, but we're trying to get it up to 8, and we'd would love for you two to both come back. Keri, we had you in one of the 4-way ones. One of the early ones.
Keri: Yeah, with Darling. And Ginary.
VeVe: That was very sexy. That was a fun time.
Keri: Yes, it was a sexy time.
VeVe: [turns to Kinzie] You said bondage was also your favorite too. What do you like about it?
Kinzie: So, I've always just liked rope, cause rope's great. But I really like that as someone who doesn't have a ton of technique under their belt, I can still have an edge and I can still win. Because it's a lot of just struggling and doing what you can to get the rope on the other person. Obviously specific wrestling techniques help, but as someone who's on my skill level, I feel like it kind of balances things out a little bit.
VeVe: That's something I've definitely noticed about the bondage wrestling. It can even the playing field a lot, between skill levels, cause it's mostly, to everybody, equally new. Almost.
Keri: So is something like pins wrestling. Have you guys considered doing that type of match?
Cat: yeah, absolutely, yeah. I actually had a domination match with Dachi not very while ago, and it was just a bunch of pins. It's great, I love using my body weight to hold people down. It happens all the time. I have a weight advantage on almost everyone I train with. That doesn't mean a strength advantage, just a weight advantage, and sometimes people have trouble dealing with that. I even have trouble dealing with it when I have other opponents who are solid muscle -- muscle is super heavy -- so when I have in the training and I'm rolling with someone who's really muscular, their body weight is tremendous for me. So, I have to take advantage of my weight and use it. So, absolutely, pins? Totally. Sounds like fun.
Keri: Do you feel like you distribute your body weight well? Like proportionately. Or is it harder for you to distribute it?
Cat: No, you know, I'm kind of both top and bottom heavy, and I don't, I'm trying to think, in just in training, I don't really like... in very seldom occasions do I feel like I roll a little further than I want to because of my lower body weight. But usually I distribute it pretty well. And as I continue to train more, my body awareness is just getting really great. So, I think it's been ok.
Kinzie: Yeah, I would say as someone who wrestles you, I don't usually feel like you're off balance or whatever if I'm trying to throw you or something.
Cat: Ah ha, throw me. [smiles]
Kinzie: The key word there was "trying." [laughing] But I never feel you have your weight heavily weighted more one way or another.
Keri: Now, when you're against somebody who's a lot smaller than you but is very lean muscle, do you feel like they use your weight against you more so, or do you feel like you have the weight advantage still?
Cat: You know, people who are smaller than me are really fast. So, there are a few of our training partners that I'm like "I need to wrestle you more" because I need to learn how to grapple with these really small, fast people who are -- you know, going back to the initial question what got me into this and my comments about not underestimating people, appearance means nothing. You can meet someone and say oh look, you're tiny, you're not even muscular, I'm gonna throw you around, and before you know it, you're rolling with them, and they're so fast, they're spinning around you, they're escaping you constantly. So, I wouldn't underestimate someone on their size. I try, absolutely, to use my weight to control them, but a lot of the time, honestly, on smaller opponents, they slip away so easy. Like even Kinzie, sometimes it's like, damn it, I can't get a hold of this girl, she keeps slipping out of my grasp, and out of my holds, you know, but it's good, it's a challenge. Those people I'm frequently saying hey, meet up with me for extra mat time, because I need to learn how to control that.
Kinzie: I'm squirmy. It's the one thing I've got going for me.
Cat: I know!
VeVe: Your foundation. You can build on squirmy. Oh, hey, let me ask new folks, who's your preferred sort of opponent or match partner? Do you like going with other new people, or do you like going with more experienced people?
Cat: [points to Kinzie] You go first.
Kinzie: Ah. I don't know. I think they both have their advantages. When I go with other new people, I feel a little more evenly matched, and like I feel like there's a chance I can win. But when I go with more advanced people, I feel like I'm pushing myself more, and they have more technique under their belt, so I'm really able to see what they're doing and try and see their plans and recognize techniques. Whereas someone at my level who's more evenly matched, they may not be using techniques that I can recognize from practice and be like "Oh, I'm about to be triangled. That's gonna suck in a second." So, they both have their advantages, plus I like getting thrown around. So, I mean, wrestling people who are better than me isn't always a bad thing. [laughs]
VeVe: Michi, what do you think?
Michi: I personally like to be submissive, but I [looks at Keri] Shut up. [all laugh].
Keri: Lies.
Michi: No! It's just like -- I'd rather learn from somebody that's professional [gestures to Keri], that way -- [Keri smiles, blushes. all laugh]
Keri: [aside] I paid her. [more laughing] Go on.
Michi: It's just a great learning experience -- stop laughing at me before I smack you! [laughs] But, all in all, when you go and you do get dominant, it does feel great, but I prefer submission. [points to Keri] She doesn't believe me.
Cat: Can I answer that question?
VeVe: Yeah, answer the question.
Cat: So, I like, like Kinzie said, I like both. Because some days I feel like I really want to crush someone, so I'll just pick on someone tiny, and I'll call them out and say, ok, you showing up to training today? Great, I want you. And then other times --
VeVe: You mean Aralia.
Cat: Well, I actually would really like a competitive match with Aralia. She is getting much better. One thing that I've noticed, and I'm being very careful, I'm calling it out, she has gotten really good at framing [shows forearm]. Often times, when we practice and we train, I can just dominate and toss her around, but she's getting really great at blocking me. She's developing the razor edge forearms that VeVe has, so I'm keeping an eye out for that now, because that hurts. So, yes, Aralia, but a lot of the time, also, because I always have the challenge of other wrestlers showing up who are smaller than me, if the occasion comes and one or two people show up that are bigger, or more skilled, I will call them out, because my opinion is I have to get my ass kicked on the regular if I'm gonna improve my game. So that's why I do practice outside of the training that we do here, because I want to bring some more excitement to the mat. The fancy sexy wrestling moves, scissor holds and pins and all that is really cool, but if I can learn and gain an advantage on my opponents in other way that are more traditional wrestling / jiujitsu styles, then I definitely wanna be able to do that, so. But going back to the answer, yes, both. For very different reasons, and I'm looking forward to maybe smashing some more people. And also getting my butt kicked! Cause like Kinzie, I don't mind getting my ass kicked once in a while, I don't really have much of an ego, and I like to be humiliated, so, I'm down.
Keri: Do you guys prefer to fight women, or do you prefer to fight men competitively? What do you think is more rewarding as a win?
Cat: As a win? Definitely the mixed. Fighting men.
Keri: Why?
Cat: I don't know. I think it's a psychological, emotional thing to just be empowering and destroy them in the whole misconception of the weaker female and the stronger male. --
Keri: Bad bitch, huh? [??]
Cat: I do have a little bit of meanness. Wrestling women, I feel like I get really excited, like I have --
Keri: Oh yeah?!
Cat: yeah, it creates a lot of excitement, and gets me, like --
Keri: You wanna fight me?
Cat: Sure. Come on over. Come over. I'll take it. I'll take that match. [laughing]
VeVe: We now have you fighting both of them [gestures at Keri and Michi]
Cat: I'll just do 2-on-1 bondage. That'll be fun.
Keri: I'll lose that one.
VeVe: I will happily not participate and just watch that.
Michi: She said she wants to bring more excitement to her matches, but what is she bringing in to make it exciting?
Keri: What do you want to bring in for more excitement?
Cat: Just some of the skills that I'm learning outside of the training here.
Kinzie: So tricks that I don't know.
Cat: Exactly.
Keri: What's your focus right now? What are you focusing on in your training?
Cat: Escapes. Escapes and fighting off my back. And I hate to put it out there, but that's a little bit of a struggle for me, fighting off my back. Maybe it's a weight thing. Maybe it's just a body awareness thing. It could be just a strength thing. So that's really what I focus on and work on a lot in my training --
VeVe: Here's a great question for everybody: as you're coming in, being new and developing your skills, what is the thing you want to work on most, what's your biggest area you want to be improving right now?
Kinzie: I need more attacks. I'm super squirmy, and I know the defenses, and I'm getting to a point where I'm recognizing techniques, and I know what to do to get away from them and get the other person off of me, but, and I can even sometimes get the upper hand, but once I'm there, I'm like, so, if you could just tap out, I'm going to hang out here.
VeVe: Pins match would be good!
Kinzie: Yeah. But a lot of submissions are not my strength, so actually being on the offensive and attacking is where I think I need to put a lot more of my focus.
VeVe: Michi, what about you? What do you want your next area of focus to be?
Michi: What she said. She actually hit every point on the nail. I wish I knew more submission moves, but it's not as --
Kinzie: So what you're saying is we shouldn't wrestle each other because we'd just roll around forever --
Michi: Yeah, but I think it'd be fun because you're squirmy, I'm squirmy, so who's gonna out squirm each other. [all laugh]
VeVe: We also have this style called catball, that's all squirming. You'd do really well. There are like no submissions in it.
Kinzie: Awesome.
Keri: I'm gonna actually have to go.
VeVe: Yes, we are 4:45. This is the official end of the webcast. Thank you, Keri.
Keri: It was really great meeting you guys. I so look forward to seeing your match. I wish you both the best of luck. You guys are awesome. And I hope that you are in the industry for a really long time. You're beautiful, and thanks for talking with me.
Cat & Kinzie: Thanks Keri!
Keri: VeVe, kiss my ass.
All: Bye Keri!
[Keri & Michi sign off]
VeVe: So, we said good bye to Keri. We're still here for another minute. Would you like to make any closing comments? Wait, I have one extra question I wanted to ask. We've had such a happy, upbeat thing, but I did my foreboding "Newcomers' Experience" at the beginning. So, I wanna ask, was there anything that was scary for you about jumping into this? A lot of people, you know, don't just show up and wrestle with strangers, like, hey, I can do this. Amazingly enough, not everybody does this. Was there any thing you had to overcome to getting yourselves out and doing this?
Kinzie: I think, for especially for the videos, for me it was a lot of: "But I'm not the best, who's gonna film me? I'm not the best yet." And not knowing a lot of specific techniques, I was really intimidated, and then I started doing it, and I was, like, oh yeah, I can do this. But I think that was my biggest fear and struggle going into it.
Cat: For me it was about really rolling with people and wrestling people who are trying to hurt me. Because, for most of the time, prior to this experience, I was just hanging out with friends, rolling around, rough and tumble struggle play, and that's fun, you know, there's a lot of giggling going on, some hurting, but it's not that bad. But coming on to the scene, where people are really putting armbars on you, and you're really injured, injuries are no joke. Like I had a really bad muscle injury in my back just from doing some simple rolls in training, nothing specific, nothing really strenuous. The fear of getting hurt, really hurt, was a little initially concerning, but then you see that, ok, you get hurt, you recover, it's a lot of fun, I'm still happy. Then, once I get over it, I get over that. But, you know, honestly, I still have that fear.
VeVe: That's a fear that will keep you safe, though.
Kinzie: You're allowed to be afraid of that.
VeVe: One of the scariest things is to roll with someone who doesn't know when to tap themselves. Who's like too stubborn. So, be a little afraid, and at the same time,be a good partner. So that both you and the other person are happy afterwards. Ok, we're gonna bring it to a close, cause you guys are gonna fight, so, any closing comments from you both?
Cat: [to Kinzie] Watch out for my breasts. I'm gonna put them right in your face. I'm gonna try. We'll see what happens.
Kinzie: You were talking about framing [shows forearm]. Not as pointy as Aralia,
Cat: All right. I'm watching out for that.
VeVe: All right, I think they're raring to go. We are ready to see not just some talking action, but some fighting action, so we're gonna bring this webcast to a close and hit the mats. Thanks everyone for joining us. Thank you both, and belatedly Keri and Michi for joining us. And we'll see you later [all waving].
So, there's a lot going on, and I'm having a hard time communicating everything to everybody in an organized way, so, here we have a blog entry! Again, sorry to be redundant, but there is a LOT going on behind the scenes, a lot of pots on the boil, and a lot of potential welling up for the upcoming season. As ever. As ever! It is just traditional for June!
Our recent newcomers have been practicing and training for competitive submission wrestling, so competitive submission wrestling has been on my mind. Plus, June is just a time for competitive matches, mini tournaments, and live events. We had mini-tournies in June 2010 and June 2011. On a similar note, we had our first 4-way bondage wrestling tourney in May 2013 and first 6-way bondage tourney in July 2014 (ok, those weren't in June, but average them together, and it's close to June!). We also had our 4-way NYC bondage wrestling battle of the sexes in June 2015.
But back on track here. Enough history lesson. So, competitive submission wrestling!
Here immediately in New York City right now, not only do we have our newcomers Aralia, Cat Wily, and Kinzie, but we also have local ladies Indra, Rachel DD, and Jade Indica who are curious to dive in for some more competitive wrestling action. We sometimes have Sahrye, who likes to mix it up in F/F competition. We have VeVe finally coming home from her multiple tours, we have Amazon Annie coming home from her multiple tours, and we have Orlandoe coming home from her years at art school. We also have little sweetheart ShaSha who, though she's not the most skilled wrestler in the world, is still adorable!
Must Haves:
Rachel DD vs Indra
Jade Indica vs Indra
Other proposals:
Rachel DD vs Kinzie
Indra vs Kinzie
Jade vs Rachel DD
Cat Wily vs Rachel DD
Cat Wily vs Indra
Cat Wily vs Amazon Annie
ShaSha vs ??
Aralia vs ???
VeVe vs ????
Then there are potential visitors and ladies from across the river in New Jersey, such as Keri and Michi Moon. It's easiest to coordinate with the ladies who already live in NYC, but travelers and out-of-state friends can sometimes make it work for their schedules. For the sake of completeness, I am going to post headshots and stats below.
Competitors can be matched by weight class, or they can be matched in "open weight" matches, which can be intriguing:
That's a lot of possible competitors! And this doesn't even take into account visitors whose trips happen to coordinate with any match scheduling. These wrestlers listed here are those I know to be pretty readily available.
And that's not even getting into thoughts on possible mixed matches (or even a possible 8-way bondage wrestling tourney...). One thing at a time!
Ok, fans and readers, let us know what you think. Are there particular matches you'd like to see? What sorts of rules? Regular submissions (anything goes)? Smothers-only? Scissors, smothers, grapevines?
You can write to me or VeVe at any of these e-mail addresses and let us know your thoughts:
orders@doommaidens.com (goes to us both)
diablo@doommaidens.com (just me)
veve.wrestler@gmail.com (just VeVe)
I've made some previous posts here about our two newcomers Aralia and Cat Wily, but we are now being joined by a third newcomer: Kinzie Fire!
So, that is three new wrestlers all from our local NYC area -- wow!
Our newcomers are all novice wrestlers; they all started training with us at local community practices that we've hosted over the past year. Their experience levels range from 6 months to 6 weeks, so they are very novice, indeed! However, they are feisty and spirited, and they really enjoy the physical tussle of wrestling.
And they're all quite different from each other.
Aralia is petite and scrappy, but also studious. She's also a figure model for artists. She had the "pleasure" of taking on Howl in fully competitive bondage wrestling as her very first video match. With so many advantages in Howl's court, Aralia ended up roughed up and tied up pretty soundly in that one. She seems set on revenge, but she also has great potential as a bondage model!
Additionally, Aralia also was the "prey" in a Python and Prey video with Howl. I had a sense that she could really rock that part and she really understood how to handle one of these fantasy scenarios. She definitely hit the mark. I also wanted to give Howl a chance to show off his latent, menacing predator persona, and he executed that very well. Aralia and Howl were great together... but I do suspect Aralia wants to get one over on him when she can.
She also had a competitive F/F match against the fabulous Indra. Truly, none of the match-makers knew what to expect from that combination. But Aralia ended up getting a taste of Indra's classic sassiness, along with her equally classic squeezing and smothering.
Cat Wily is quite an opposite to Aralia; she's got considerably more size, she's got a slinky and sassy personality, and she's got radiating potential for domination. Cat has only done one video match so far, and it was a competitive fight against male wrestler Adrian. This was a tough, uphill battle for Cat, but she kept a stiff upper lip and learned a lot. Like Aralia, she got a School of Hard Knocks welcome. But also like Aralia, she is scheming, working, and planning her vengeance.
Cat Wily is also keen to show off her scissorhold potential and physical domination abilities. Again, she's got a great natural dominant streak in her personality, and I would love to give her an opportunity to show that off and see where it goes. I also think she could do really well with nylons/pantyhose domination, and she might be able to devise her own personal style of "Python and Prey" scene, featuring her as the predator.
Kinzie Fire is our newest newcomer, but she's a real natural when it comes to wrestling and struggle play. Kinzie may be a novice wrestler, but she is tough, scrappy, has a great "mat sense," and takes to rope-tying quite well. She's done some modeling before and is jovial, savvy, and outgoing.
As of writing this, Kinzie has yet to appear on video, but she is excited to give it a try as soon as possible. She's quite interested in bondage wrestling (and gave it a try last night at practice), and she has been curious about a bondage wrestling match against VeVe Lane, to see what that is like (more hazing, for sure!). Kinzie and Aralia are also eager for a match against each other, which I think would be a splendid idea. On its own, this match would definitely be fun, but it could also be great as part of a larger live filming event (more on that topic later). It's even possible that Kinzie may get a chance to get on camera this coming weekend. Stay tuned for more on that.
All righty. Thanks for reading folks! Look forward to more from our newcomers as we move forward into the summer season. They've been doing great, and I'm excited to see them learning more and more with each practice. And...
Live Filming Event?
There's some possibility that we may do a "mini" live filming event to give the newcomers a chance to match up against each other all in one place, in the same day. It's sort of a tradition around here to create little live filming events when we encounter a new "class" of novice wrestlers. VeVe was baptized in fire at a live event in NYC in 2007. Amazon Annie, Indra, Orlandoe, and Crazy Azy made NYC debuts with live filming events, in 2010, 2011, 2011, and 2013, respectively. Maybe it's time to fire up the crew for another "big" "mini" get together. It'd be great to also get Rachel DD and ShaSha in on the action as well, since they might make good opponents for the newcomers as well.
All right! Now, I'll curtail for now, since I've already made this entry pretty long! Send best wishes the newcomers and say hello to the on Twitter, if you're on there as well. Until next time, dear readers!
Last night after wrestling practice, Hanz Vanderkill conducted a wonder little introductory interview of our two new local wrestlers, Aralia and Cat Wily.
This is a charming little Q&A session where the ladies show their personalities and talk a little bit about how they got interested in wrestling, their favorite moves, and their beginning thoughts.
Thanks so much to Aralia and Cat for sticking around afterwards for this brief little chat, and thanks too to Hanz for being a nice host! We look forward to seeing Aralia and Cat strut their stuff on the mats in this coming season!
I'm so excited to introduce our new wrestler Aralia, who had her very first video shoot with us last night. It was a toughy, but she's a trooper.
Aralia is not a professional model, nor is she a professional session wrestler. Rather, she is a sweet and unassuming girl from the neighborhood who happened to join us for wrestling practices last summer. She had no prior training, but she loves wrestling. She's been practicing with us regularly, and she just recently decided to try out some video matches and scenes.
She's really scrappy and loves rough play, so we paired her with Howl for a bondage wrestling match for her very first video. Not the most fair pairing for the newcomer (indeed, some stacked odds), but she fought hard, tried her absolute best, and loved it.
She also did a last-minute Python & Prey scene with Howl. Since she is inexperienced, she portrayed the Prey, which is a divergence from our usual female-dominant Python & Prey series. However, Howl did a great job as the predator. This one was a fantasy scene, despite the hard struggling and physicality.
We hope to get Aralia some more competitive opportunities to come, but I also think she has great potential for other styles too. To put a face to the name, here is the opening interview with Howl & Aralia from their bondage wrestling match. Aralia's very first on-camera appearance for us:
She's so great, fun, and sweet, we look forward to working with her more!
Reposting a message VeVe sent out to our yahoogroup earlier this week: ................................................................................. Hi, Everyone!
We have been ploughing through an incredibly busy shoot schedule this season, and there's more coming up!
I wanted to let you all that these ladies will be filming with us / will be available to film with us soon. Any custom requests or match sponsorships or even just video suggestions you might want -- let me know!!
As some readers may already know, we've been having a lot of fun exploring possibilities with our new Wrestling Webcast, hosted by VeVe Lane and Hanz Vanderkill!
The webcast is a live broadcast from our studio, streamed via our interview collection youtube channel called DoomMenagerie (www.youtube.com/doommenagerie). Though the interview channel has been around since this past summer (Ashley Wildcat and Tae were are first official interviewees, in July 2015), the live streaming broadcasts only started in December 2015. We've had 4 official broadcasts, and we've had tele-commuting guests including Miss Scorpion, Keri Spectrum, Minxy Li, Anastaxia, Amethyst Hammerfist, Ashley Wildcat, and Sarah Brooke. Wow!
But what's a tele-commuting guest?
Thanks to certain accessible technology, we are able to have guests join our webcast via their own web cams. We can have multiple people join in on the same broadcast (I think to a max of 10 separate guest feeds), and their individual live video feeds all show up in small boxes at the bottom of the live show. So it's like a picture-in-picture, and you can actually see everyone reacting at the same time. And here's my favorite part of this: During the discussion, whenever someone speaks or makes a definitive movement, the program will automatically auto-toggle to show that person's image on the big screen. It's like having someone in the control room who is making the choice to cut between cameras on a live show. I think that creates a really cool effect.
But, in addition to this "auto-toggle," we can also control which guest's feed goes onto the big screen; this way if someone is presenting something, they don't have to risk the camera cutting away if one of the silent guests makes a little sound or movement. And also, another thing that I really like: any of the guests or the host can choose to share their screen, meaning they can broadcast any windows they have open on their computer. Handy for sharing pictures in a presentation.
We've also had some interesting developments with our tele-guests, including the fun antics of "virtual arm wrestling" and "virtual head scissors" contests. To fully understand what that entails, I recommend checking out the little excerpt we have up from the US vs UK show.
Topics, Plans, and Format
My original plan was that there would be a certain "hot button" topic to discuss with each episode. Original topics that VeVe and I had discussed including were things like differences in mixed vs F/F matches, "dangerous" moves and holds, the definition of "competitive," differences/similarities in various wrestling communities around the world, preferences between fantasy and competitive, and such! Then, once guests were assembled, we would chat about a selected topic in a "panel discussion" style. However, we're not quite at the stage where we are following a formal panel style!
In fact, things have been rather informal for the first few episodes, even with our large number of guests (shows #2 and #4 each had 4 tele-guests). So, I am working now to bring in more formal format, to steer the show more toward specific topic discussion. I have several ideas and techniques in mind for that, the most prominent of them being taking on a "discussion moderator" role myself, and thereby freeing up VeVe and Hanz to be more like guests themselves. As it has been, VeVe and Hanz (VeVe in particular) have been trying to act as both moderators and contributors simultaneously, which has hindered their abilities to fully fulfill both of those roles. It's hard for them to keep order if they are also trying to play the game as well. So, I think this is where I can step in, freeing them to concentrate primarily on answering questions, engaging in peer-to-peer interactions, and sharing their thoughts.
Audience Interaction
Our youtube live stream also allows for a "chat" option, wherein real-time viewers can type questions/comments/whatever into a chat room column that runs along the side of the broadcast screen on the youtube site. This is really neat, but it does have some limitations:
1. There is a 10-15 second delay between the broadcast and the streaming display on youtube. So, if guests mention a certain something in their talking, that won't be seen/heard by the live viewers until 10-15 seconds after the fact. Then, by the time viewers choose to respond or comment in the chat area, the discussion topic may have shifted such that the viewer's comments cannot easily be addressed any more without a jarring shift in the discussion.
2. In order for guests or hosts to even see the viewers' chat comments, the guests and hosts need to open an additional window to view the youtube site's stream.
So, the guests and hosts would have their Hang Out window open, where they are actually seeing each other and broadcasting in real time, but then they would ALSO have to open another window/tab for the youtube stream display, where they would then see themselves being broadcast with a 10-15 second delay.
This can result in a lot of juggling.
So, between the delay and the need for multiple windows/tabs, it is difficult to interact effectively with viewers during the main body of the broadcast, unless a lot of attention is devoted to doing so. Not much of a problem if it is a one-person broadcast, but once you bring in tele-guests, it becomes a tricky feat. Not impossible, but indeed tricky.
I hope that made sense.
However, we do love interacting with the viewers, and we do enjoy input from the audience. So, we are going to be making a special "Audience Q&A" segment for the last 10 minutes (or so) of each broadcast in order to focus on the youtube display's chat area.
Upcoming and Next Broadcast
One fan last time had asked if we could publish a schedule of upcoming topics and dates for the shows. Frankly, I think that would be a wonderful thing to do. However, I don't know that it is very possible at this time.
As it is right now, the broadcasts tend to be rather spur-of-the-moment, despite being somewhat regular in their bi-weekly re-occurrances. Though I myself usually have time to think on and brainstorm about the topics, VeVe and Hanz unfortunately don't have much time to pre-plan beforehand. I usually end up pitching a number of topics leading up to the webcast day, and as time ticks down, VeVe will grab on to a topic that strikes her a few days beforehand. Guests are often assembled as soon as possible after that, and off we go!
Kind of seat-of-the-pants, but the spontaneity of it has been interesting. And speaking of selecting topics, we've locked in on our topic for tomorrow's broadcast (Sunday, January 24):
Wrestling Parties and Live Events
The topic of wrestling parties has been swirling around recently on places I frequent on the web. I've been trying to get this topic into the rotation from the start, and we've finally settled on giving it a go. In addition to commenters VeVe and Hanz, we will also be joined by tele-guest Minxy Li, who will contribute her insight and perspective from the London wrestling scene.
VeVe, Hanz, and I have a fair amount of experience with wrestling parties. In particular, VeVe and I ran a successful party in NYC for several years, and we've attended and hosted parties in other areas, such as Atlanta, Philadelphia, Boston, Ohio, and Toronto. In fact, we both first met Hanz at a live event we had here in NYC about a decade ago.
But anyway, that's on the agenda for tomorrow! Info on that broadcast:
If you have any questions, suggestions, etc for this particular broadcast and topic, drop me an e-mail here: orders@doommaidens.com
.........or Tweet to us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/doommaidens
And with that, I'll send this post up and off. We're having a huge snow day here in New York City today, and there studio is begging for a good round of cleaning. And so, away we go!
