Katarina's Facesit Orchestra (and Facesit Games)

I just started a thread on the MaleVsFemale forum with the following post.  I am re-posting the post here to save for posterity!
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Last week, I had the pleasure of filming the first run of Domina Katarina's master plan of an idea: Her Facesit Orchestra!

This was something I filmed for her for her personal studio. We all had so much fun with this, that I wanted to share a bit of this with everyone here (with Katarina's permission, of course). It was a clever little facesit activity that made for a lovely evening in the mat room! This featured @theDommeKat @ursafierce and @lanaluxor

So, first off, Katarina herself made a follow-up vlog immediately afterwards, where she talked about the first run experience. Here's what Katarina had to say:

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"Hey guys. It is Thursday, November 7, and this is what I did today:

So, we had wrestling training today. It was really fun because there were a bunch of Doom Maidens there. It was Ursa and Lana, and then we had Pickles, you might have seen him in some videos, and Yogi. We had our subs there tonight! And El Nino was there, the one I did the mixed competitive match with. Trying to think who else... I don't know, I forget. If I forgot someone, I love you!

So, anyway, then, this is the really funny part, after training we did my masterpiece. My Facesit Orchestra. It was a funny idea that I had. So, we did Hot Cross Buns... because we were facesitting, and it's appropriate. But also, it has 3 notes. So, we did 3 faces and 3 dommes. We sat down. And every time we sat up, the subs were to sing a note. And, I guess I should have maybe auditioned them -- like a boy band -- first. Because, I mean... we had Joe, thank god for Joe, Joe was holding it down. Joe was the anchor. But... they just had a hard time getting it together. So, it was really funny. It was really funny. Diablo was laughing. He was like, we should have taped the entire thing, 'cause it was really funny.

But, yeah, so, we tuned them up, and they sang our Hot Cross Buns. And Ursa did this amazing thing with her tin whistle. I didn't even know she had a tin whistle or knew how to use it. She was fluting it up over there. Just crazy. So good. So, yeah, so that's what we did, and we got through it! I kind of want to try another one. Maybe 4 notes this time. I don't know, lofty goals. Yeah, we could tune them up, twist some nipples, tune them up, get on key, think of some punishments for when they mess up...

But, yeah, so that's what I did. Hope you guy had a great day!"

Above is text transcription of this vlog:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1Q5ICH4BoY

Katarina is on tour currently, but is also working on putting this Facesit Orchestra "Opening Act" video together for release (stay tuned for that). But in the meanwhile, here is a very quick pair of screen shots from the orchestral filming:

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So, that was an intro to the lovely Facesit Orchestra, which, also to note, makes a splendid participatory party game, as we also discovered this past Monday at the mini session party (where @HanzVanDerKill gave it a whirl).

Some other Facesit party game ideas have been mentioned a fair bit by the Facesit-loving ladies here in NYC. They really do a good bit of thinking about sitting on faces. This is a little starter. More facesit game discussion to come!

And also feel free to add more comments and discussion about Facesitting games you have tried or would like to try, or anything you think about the Facesit Orchestra and beyond.

The Dilemma of Too Much Video Footage

I was going to make a Twitter tweet about this, but there was no way I'd be able to express this fully in a single tweet.  And so, we turn to the old blog to expand on the matter.  The matter is:

The dilemma of too much video footage.

This direction of contemplation is prompted by my receiving of several inquiries about the release dates of various videos we have filmed.  For one, I want to state that I never have set release dates for videos.  The release date is always: as soon as I can.  However, "as soon as I can," is affected by a number of factors.  Let me tell you about these factors.  Let me tell you especially about the vital factor of "too much footage."

My fastest ability to process and release video footage comes when I do a single-video shoot.

If I film only one video in a shoot session, I can usually process and release that video almost immediately.  When I do a single-video shoot, I can concentrate entirely on that video while I am filming it, I can get totally invested in what is happening and get an intimate sense for the action.  Once the filming is done, the material is fresh in my mind, and I know exactly what I want to do with it.  Not only is the material fresh in my mind, but my mind is fresh as well (i.e. not exhausted, not over-full).

I can then process the footage right away, riding on inspiration from the shoot, and I can release the video quickly into the general store, because I am immediately intimately familiar with the material.  The more familiar I am with the video release, the more quickly I can write a description and create a cover image.  The process all flows into one continuous process:  film, finish, release.  All in one shot.  All driven by one wave of focused energy.

Years ago, many of our shoots used to be single-video or two-video shoots.  And this made for a quick turn-around ability for general releases.

However, factors beyond my control have changed.

And I have ended up facing the difficulty of too much footage.

When visiting models and wrestlers come into town these days, my scheduling manager finds she needs to offer these visitors a shoot that consists of many videos in order for the visitors' time to be best spent.  My scheduling manager will not just offer 1 or 2 videos to these visitors.  Rather, she will schedule a multi-hour shoot day of at least 3 videos.

Not only is she trying to meet a minimum for the visiting model / wrestler, but if she calls in another model / wrestler, she will often try to give that second person at least 2 videos.  If only one of those videos is with the visitor, than that means we have to create a whole 'nother video to film.

Due to people's complex schedules in our region, my scheduling manager will often try to make long, complex shoot days, where she tries to get as many different people to coordinate to come and film on one single day, often crossing over with visitors.

At the end of these long, complex shoot days, I usually have very little exact memory of everything I've filmed.  I will film each new video with total and complete focus, and I will be totally committed to each individual piece, in the moment.  But as soon as I have to switch gears and move to the next, I have to wipe my mind and start over again for the next.

This is not necessarily a problem.

When I am filming custom video commissions, this is absolutely not a problem at all (I love filming customs!).

I can film hours and hours of custom request videos, and I can process them quickly and immediately.  I am not worrying about writing a description, assessing the "essence" of the piece for the sake of creating marketing materials, or looking for the perfect images to convey the overall aspect of the video.  With a custom request, put all effort into simply crafting the video itself.  The request already exists, and my job is to deliver it directly.  This is very specific and focused.  There is actually no excess.

But it is the pile-up of non-customs that creates the problem.

When we don't have enough custom requests for a certain visitor to meet a certain minimum, then we need to create "general store" videos to fill in.  This is not a problem in a controlled situation.  But when those multi-person, in-and-out, long and complex shoot days require the creation of many "general store" videos, then I start to have problems.  These are extra videos that are not crafted to meet a certain request, and they do not have a definite time-bound deadline for delivery.

When I have to create a stack of "general store" videos to meet a certain minimum set by the scheduling manager for the sake of visitors and other models, this is when I run into the dilemma of Too Much Video Footage.

Because these long shoot days do not only happen once in a while.  They can happen multiple times in a week.  Even if that is only ONE week in a given month, it is a huge whammy of footage to drop on my head.  And it's footage that I usually only have a foggy recollection of.

Too Much Video Footage.

After a long shoot day, I immediately process and deliver all custom requests.  This ties up my machine for the rest of the day and possibly the next.  By the time all customs are delivered, I may be facing down another long shoot day.  Rinse and repeat.  And not all days are shoot days.  I have a lot of tasks involved with maintaining the studio and office spaces, which can take me away from the computer for an entire day.  And there are also SO many computer things to do that take up a lot of my time, such as handling direct sales or keeping web presences up to date.

Before you know it, it is mid-October, and there is still "general store" footage from a long shoot day from August waiting to be released... or even processed.

General footage from long shoot days is easy to get pushed to the back burner.

I can usually manage to bang out one general release after processing all customs, but then I am hit with another shoot day -- be it a long shoot day OR a rare-yet-beautiful single-video shoot day.  If it's a single-video shoot day, I process and release that footage immediately.  But that means even more waiting for that general store footage from a long shoot day.

I hope this all makes sense.  It is all stream of consciousness.

Anyway.

I wish more shoots could be single-video shoots, or even 2-video shoots.  I wish I had more time for focusing and crafting.  I wish I didn't have to be scheduled for these long, multi-hour, multi-video shoot days that result in exhaustion and excessive general footage.

But when management wants to hit more targets with a single shot, the best I can do is hang in and try to hustle along as best I can.  And try to remember what is getting overlooked or stuck on the back burner.

I'm trying to keep all parts moving relatively in sync, without losing too much along the way.  I thank you all for your patience with the general release videos.  Onward and upward!

Ursa Fierce and Katarina: Wrestlers' Progress and Development, Vol 3

The next and final (for now) two ladies that I will write about in this series are Ursa Fierce and Domina Katarina.  These are two ladies I have been seeing a lot of lately.  I speak with these two ladies quite often; they are both very interested in and excited about the Wrestle-o-sphere, but I don't think either of them expected to be as involved in the wrestling world as much as they are at this moment!

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Ursa Fierce
Twitter: @ursafierce
Ursa's page at Doom Maidens

I met Ursa in 2016, when she attended one of our public Beginner Wrestling workshops.  In my mind, she is one of the newest ladies of the "new generation."  In fact, I think of her as the newest of that 2016 generation.

It is tempting to think that Kaia is the newest of the 2016, rather than Ursa, but this isn't actually the case.  If you judge only by first video appearance, then Ursa's first video appearance precedes Kaia's by one month, that's one thing (Ursa in February 2017 and Kaia in March 2017).  However, it is not quite that simple.

Ursa first came to that afore-mentioned Beginner Wrestling workshop in March of 2016, but she couldn't come to many (or any?) of our regular practices during that year.  In May of 2016, she expressed some curiosity about filming some videos with us.  But, if I recall correctly, we didn't have much contact for much of the rest of 2016 -- Oh yes, I think this was because she was having some difficulties with her knee and back, so she didn't feel comfortable jumping in at that time.

But she came to our first "Spectrum Wrestling Party" in December 2016, which was our first official wrestling party in Brooklyn.  And she seemed to enjoy it!  Somehow I feel that this party, rather than the March workshop, was more of an official entry for Ursa.  It was after this party that she really started to dive in and head down the wrestling rabbit hole...

Ursa and Sweetie at the December 2016 Wrestling Party

Ursa came to several (or possibly all?) of our Brooklyn wrestling parties in 2017.  She also filmed her very first competitive wrestling videos in that year: one a bondage wrestling match with VeVe Lane (February 2017), and the other a submission wrestling match against Sweetie Dreams (March 2017), She was soundly defeated in both matches, before she really knew what was happening.

Throughout the middle of 2017, Ursa remained on the fringes of wrestle activity, but she did keep her eyes on the action and kept in communication.  I think this fringe-ness had to do with the fact that our practice location and main filming location at the time was quite far from where she lives, and travel by public transit between the two locations is awkward and lengthy.  A tough obstacle for a newcomer.  But we were keen to give her opportunities where we could --

And in September of 2017, Ursa claimed a hard-earned, fight-by-intuition, just-jump-right-in-without-any-formal-training victory in a competitive match when she took on Aqua X.  This was Ursa's second competitive submission wrestling match, and she still hadn't yet been able to practice.  But neither had Aqua.

The match was grueling and hotly contested, and it had a lot of back-and-forth submissions -- always an exciting thing about novice matches in our realm.  And in the end, Ursa tasted her very first official competitive victory.

After that, Ursa started coming to practices.

(we also started to have practices at a new studio that was located much closer to her.)

And following that, it was in that autumn of 2017 that something clicked for Ursa and propelled her forward.  It was at this time that she began to have a fuller concept of the wrestling game and of our underground wrestling world.  She had a match against Kari Anthony, a fellow heavy weight, in front of a live audience at our November 2017 Live Filming Event.  Ursa mentions that the live audience aspect added a new level of commitment to the game and raised the stakes for her.

She went on to film many videos all throughout 2018, of a variety of styles, including more competitive F/F matches, fantasy matches, specific-holds videos, domination displays, and pro-style matches.  A sudden burst of activity from a previously dormant-seeming Ursa.  2018 was a year for Ursa to find her legs on the mats and to really develop a personal style as a wrestler.

Also in 2018 and into 2019, Ursa discovered an interest in sharing wrestling with newcomers, especially newcomers who were curious about wrestling but were uncomfortable just jumping straight in.  She assisted in presenting at several Beginner Intro workshops, and she even co-presented at workshops as a main facilitator.  She is interested in making wrestling accessible to people who don't feel they have a natural athleticism, and she co-created a Body-Positive wrestling intro workshop as well.

Ursa continues to learn and expand her skill set as an underground wrestler: she keeps working on her competitive techniques (despite not being enrolled in a formal grappling school), she keeps learning new ways to apply pro-style holds, she has been demonstrating an impressive domination style, and she continuous to expand and develop her theatrical performative abilities.  A lot going on there!  After a period of watching from the sidelines, Ursa hit the gas pedal here and made a running-jump-splash into the pool.

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Domina Katarina
Twitter: @thedommekat
Katarina's Page at Doom Maidens

I first met Katarina in December 2018, at one Lola Jean's wrestling parties.  She is the very newest of the ladies to jump in to wrestle with our group!

Katarina first encountered our Doom crew when several of us came together to Lola's December party.  She seemed intrigued our wrestling shop-talk and the team-familiarity aspect.  We had a lovely networking exchange at the party, and we soon afterwards connected on social media.

Katarina is a dominatrix with a background in dance, but with no background in wrestling.  However, something she experienced at that wrestling party spoke to her, and putting her into contact with the local wrestling crew was like putting a fish into water.  She just needed to learn how to use her gills and fins.

In January 2019, Katarina attended her first wrestling practice with our group -- and she also ended up appearing in her first video with us that day as well.  This was a spontaneous video shoot that took place after the competitive-style practice.  It was a candid, real-time Pro-Style lesson that VeVe gave to the ladies, where they learned and practiced essential pro-style holds on each other.  This memorable early experience with us gave Katarina her base go-to pro holds, and she remembered them well even months afterwards.

But it was in March of 2019 that Katarina got her real wrestle-hazing.

Without much practice time at all to speak of, Katarina merrily jumped in to take on Ursa in a competitive submission wrestling bout.  So, the newest wrestler was meeting the second-newest wrestler on the mats.  All right.  But Ursa, the second-newest wrestler, although she was the previous "rookie," was by now sporting 2 years of experience in the wrestling realm.  And she was eager to get her turn at breaking in the newest newcomer.

Needless to say, the newest newcomer got soundly hazed.

And so, it was also in March 2019 when Katarina began to set her eyes more firmly on training.

Amusingly, Katarina started attending our leg lock specialty practices in the spring of 2019, and, for a while, this was the material she was most exposed to in her very first starter days of training.  Members of our training group get together every Saturday to work on very sophisticated and advanced level leg lock attacks and principles: heel hooks and leg clamps (aka "ashi garami").  It's not entirely suitable to new beginners, but Katarina was very intrigued by the movements and concepts.  Her dance background and natural movement savvy let her quickly imitate the movements and patterns, and she was able to follow along just as well as everyone else studying these techniques together.

However, also amusingly, she had no firm concept of how these movements fit into the overall context of the submission wrestling game.  She hadn't yet had the beginner-level pre-requisite training sessions for fundamentals, and yet she was practicing this leg dexterity "swizzling."

This is the danger of being the new person in a group that is full of more experienced individuals beginning to explore more specialty areas.

And so, as we entered May 2019, we all agreed, and Katarina included, that we needed a solid turn toward the essential fundamentals.  So, with a match against the second-second newest newcomer looming (that would be Kaia), Katarina doubled down and started building her wrestler's tool kit from the ground up.  Literally.  Starting with learning escapes from pins positions!

Katarina has been very committed to training lately, and she has been very invested in her development in the wrestling scene.  We just turned the corner into June 2019 now, for reference, and she spent much of May trekking across town to practices and waking up early to make her way on to the mats.  She's working quickly and diligently to fast-track her way into the wrestle game, hustling to catch up with her more experienced colleagues.  Concepts are clicking, lights are going on, systemic concepts are being recognized.  A nice immersive training experience can go a long way.  And, at the risk of sounding redundant, I really do think her dance background, body-smarts, and muscle memory are helping her to digest this information landslide.

Just this past week, Katarina even ventured over to a grappling school downtown for her first official, formal class in submission wrestling in a mainstream training environment. She reported that although she saw there were a lot of things that she doesn't know, she also didn't feel lost.  In fact, she reported feeling pretty comfortable.  Immediately after the class, she reported:

"So at #training today, I wasn't sure where to go, so I ashi garami'd the dude and just stayed there. He finally stripped my ashi so I pummeled to the other leg and ashi'd him again. Not a very exciting live round, but I didn't get mounted! Living that #leggame life. Haha #wrestle"

Can you imagine that sort of language coming out of a beginner's mouth!?  She's getting a nice mental idea of the sport, for sure.  I'm impressed by her conceptualizing.  With more practice time, the wrestle improvement will really be exponential.  But how much learning can be done in time for her match against Kaia in 2 weeks?  Time will tell, and everyone involved is excited to see what happens there.

Oh, right, and the dominatrix element!  So, Katarina is a natural when it comes to domination, but of course.  She's a natural trash-talker, very sassy and cheeky and confident, but also with a great smile and positive attitude.  She has a great personality for pro-style wrestling as well; she's theatrical and demonstrative and loves delivering punishing holds.  I'm excited to see her in some mixed wrestling domination scenarios, especially in the Female Supremacy Syndicate series.  And I am excited to see her continue to expand her repertoire of pro-styles and do more in the pro-style genre as well, especially with possible on-going storylines.  Oh, what wrestling adventures will the future hold for the Domina?

Katarina tormenting Aralia in a pro-style bout

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Wow, those entries were really long!  Thanks, readers, for following along, as always.  It's a journey through text as much as it is a journey through wrestler history!

I will continue to document the progress and development of these 6 lady wrestlers as we go.  I recommend following them and supporting them.  They are an earnest and sincere bunch, and they are a great group within the wrestling community.  Be sure to watch their respective Twitters, if you like Twitter, as well as the overall Doom Maidens Twitter (@doommaidens), which is always updating about the goings-on from our New York City posse.

And now, I am off.  It has gotten very dark out, and the cafe-bar where I am composing is making me type by candle light while surrounded by very loud music.  Talk about a challenge for the senses.  More to come, and, as ever: Onward and upward!

Sweetie Dreams and Kaia: Wrestlers' Progress and Development, Vol 2

The next pair of wrestlers I will write about are Sweetie Dreams and Kaia.  These are two ladies I don't see very often, but who always keep an ear in for wrestle goings-on.  Both of these ladies are tall, and both have demonstrated a good ability to remember wrestling techniques well, even after only a little bit of exposure.

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Sweetie Dreams
Twitter: @sweetiedreamsbb
Sweetie's page at Doom Maidens

I first met Sweetie in 2015.  Like Aralia, Sweetie had first come to one of our beginner wrestler workshops and had no previous wrestling training.  I think she was just checking us out out of curiosity, and I'm not sure she expected wrestling to suit her as well as it did.  But something struck her, and she stuck around.

In 2016, that fateful year for the "new generation," Sweetie upped her training and started to learn grappling movement patterns that would become ingrained in her muscle memory.  She seemed to take a noticeably thoughtful approach to the wrestling training work, mentally processing in a markedly pensive way.  She had a natural physical strength and casual athleticism, which, as a beginner, may have been a double-edged boon/detriment to her for starting out; she could make things work without them being entirely spot on, due to having both the strength and natural movement savvy.  And she did seem aware of this -- she knew she could smash smaller and less-experienced opponents, but larger, physically stronger opponents presented a considerable challenge.  But that's par for the course as a beginner wrestler!

Sweetie had her first appearance on video in 2016, for our October 2016 Live Filming Event.  She had matches against Cat Wily and Kinzie Fire (both now retired), which she lost and won, respectively.  She continued training through 2016 and into 2017, facing a variety of opponents in video matches -- opponents that would match her in size and strength. She had matches where she completely smashed the opposition, and she had matches which were considerable uphill challenges.

Despite not having time available to enroll in and train formally at a grappling school, Sweetie has conducted herself commendably in competitive matches, even when down on the scoreboard.  While she hasn't had much time to drill and train, the muscle memory she built during the 2016-2017 period has stayed firm.  Even in her difficult matches against the likes of Amazon Annie, Layla Moore, and Bella Rush -- powerful ladies, all -- Sweetie held off the tide as long as she could, relying on those natural movement-smarts and muscle memory to avoid being utterly crushed, even though she was eventually defeated.

Into 2018 and 2019, Sweetie became very busy with other work, and so I saw her much less often for wrestling practices.  But she was still keeping her eye on the game and still able to come out for the occasion video filming.  I would see her at Lola Jean's wrestling parties, where she'd continue to show her wrestling enthusiasm, wrestling charm, wrestling inclination... and her favorite signature move: The Hand Smother.

In fact, it is unusual to have Sweetie Dreams without having a Hand Smother attack as well!  While she likely learned this tactic (the hard way) from Cat Wily, Sweetie put the hand smother to use quite widely and merrily in wrestle situations (and it was later adopted by Ursa, who had previously felt the merriness Sweetie's smother).  Not a bad move to be known for!

Anyway!  Just last week, Sweetie came over to join us for wrestling practice.  Things lined up well, and her schedule gave her a chance to jump back in with the Doom crew on the mats.  I will say, despite her time away, her strength, athleticism, and muscle memory are still great assets for her.  She was able to pick up where she left off, remembering her previous learnings very well and naturally.  She's definitely got an intuitive thing there for wrestling.

Anyway, again!  Competitive action and development, aside, Sweetie is also quite a ham for pro-style action, though our general release video productions have not shown this side of her very much.  Pro-style jobber-ing, I believe, seems like a great fit, with her personal style of expressiveness.  But in any case, continuing on -- even though I don't get to see Sweetie as often as I used to, I do I keep in touch with her remotely, and I get to see her for meeting, meet-ups, and parties.  Maybe we will all get a chance to see more of her again in the future, and perhaps with some pro-style action.

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Kaia


Kaia is the tallest lady we have wrestling in our home group right now, at 5'10" tall.

I met Kaia in 2016, if I recall correctly (such a year, 2016).  She had come on occasion to practice with our wrestling training group, but for several reasons, including travel distance and scheduling, she wasn't able to train with us very much.  However, she was getting some "mat time" with rough body play wrestle-y action at kink parties.  Wrestle play and nightlife do make for a fun and adventuresome combination, I must say.

Although she was only able to come over and practice with the group on occasion in the earlier years of 2016-2018, Kaia grabbed on to the material that she encountered, and she locked it into memory.  In fact, despite a lack of regular training beforehand, she was able to access techniques from her memory banks when she fought Ursa in 2018, her first official competitive one-on-one bout on video.

And just the other day, a few weeks ago, when she was over for practice (this is 2019 now), she spontaneously started to remember moves from back in her memory.  And not just mental memory, but muscle memory as well.  Recently, too, when I saw her wrestling at Lola's wrestling party in early May, I was impressed by her wrestling domination style -- is this intuitive?  Is it learned via osmosis?  Via observation?

Kaia's first video with us was a 7-Way Superheroine Bondage Wrestling Tourney, in March 2017.  I believe this was around the time she first officially decided to get more into modeling and public presence.  Of course, she wound up hogtied in round 1.  By Sarah Brooke.

A year passed before Kaia's second official video, which was the afore-mentioned competitive match against Ursa.  Kaia showed good instincts, mat sense, and tactical recall in that match, but Ursa had been training regularly for 6 months beforehand, and she had the definite training edge on Kaia there.

Now we are here in 2019, and Kaia has been having more time available to get back into wrestling training, practice, and mat-hitting action.  This past month, she has been coming to practices, working on her game, and re-discovering moves she had stored in her memory banks.  For instance, after hearing a brief mention of the mounted triangle, Kaia accessed her memory files and then proceeded to find her way into applying the hold.

Although Kaia has been around off-and-on for a while, she still seems like a "newcomer" in the wrestling arena.  And that's not a bad thing!  Let's go onward and upward and see where her wrestling journey goes!

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As always, thanks for reading!  I had to take a break between writing Sweetie's entry and writing Kaia's entry to go do some errands, so that interrupted my train of thought a bit.  But I hope everything read all right.

These are two ladies who I feel that we (as a wrestling group) and you (as an audience) have not seen very often.  A lot of the difficulty comes from challenges with scheduling.  But both ladies have a good physical sense, and it would be nice to see them try out other wrestling styles and genres, in addition to continuing to test themselves in competitive situations.  Maybe this summer will be a good time to build and grow and experiment and see how these two tall ladies continue to evolve as wrestlers!

Aralia and Lana: Wrestlers' Progress and Development Summary

It's an exciting time over here in the NYC Doom realm right now!  New wrestlers are coming around and joining the fray.  New-ish / "journeyman" wrestlers are progressing, developing their skills, and finding their personal styles.  And veterans continue to evolve and explore new possibilities.

As we go forward into this year, I will be using this blog to talk about the developments of the newcomers and the "journeyman" wrestlers, and I will attempt to document their progress in our realm!

In addition to several of the ladies who have been very active lately, I would also like to say a few words about the guys as well.  But that's only the intention.  Let's see how far I get!

Progress and Development!

There are several ladies I have been following most recently on their wrestling-progress journeys.  These ladies are: Aralia, Lana Luxor, Ursa Fierce, Kaia, Sweetie Dreams, and Katarina.  I think I can best organize this entry, and those that follow, by talking about each of them individually.

Aralia

Twitter: https://twitter.com/araliadm

I have known Aralia the longest of these listed ladies.  We "officially" met in 2015, around May of that year, when she came to a beginner wrestling workshop I was hosting alongside VeVe Lane.  However, as I later learned, Aralia had attended one of my Grapple Den parties several years before -- I believe this was in 2010 -- but she just stayed quiet and didn't wrestle with any of our regular characters (I believe she said she only wrestled her roommate, who had come with her).  And then, 5 years later, she found us again in 2015.

And *then,* after practicing for only a few months, she jumped into video matches in May 2016, with her very first F/F bout against the fabulous Indra.  A little School of Hard Knocks Hello for Aralia there, like you do.

Aralia has always been scrappy, and she has frequently said "I love to fight!"  She is the smallest of our local wrestlers, consistently weighing in at only 115 lbs.  She started training with us at our small group wrestling practices.  When she started out, she had the fighting spirit, but she also had to work harder than most other participants to learn the techniques of the sport.  With her small size, she didn't have much leeway to fudge techniques; she couldn't rely on strength or size or natural sport-ish-ness to see her through in the beginning.  And so, she realized she'd need to study hard and train her brain.

She tried out a few different jiujitsu schools (training in the gi / uniform), while also continuing to practice grappling with us, until she finally landed at a gym she likes, to train specifically in submission wrestling, in 2018.  So, she's only been there for a little over a year, as of this writing!

Aralia has proven to be very studious in her training, recording techniques in her training journal so that she can review them later on.  She loves doing repetition drilling, and it would be great if she had more time for more of that.  Between travel and a generally busy schedule, she looks for any opportunity she can get to do more drilling and practicing.  Now that the weather has warmed up and we are practicing outdoors in the park again, Aralia has more opportunities to get together with the other girls and guys of our group to practice her moves even more.

Pro-Style & Drama & Domination -- Competitive action aside, Aralia has really taken off with her pro-style performance and domination abilities.  Though her #1 go-to is undoubtedly the Camel Clutch, she has added other popular pro moves to her repertoire as well, along with the great expressiveness that pro-style wrestling demands.  She's a lovely jobber, but, as I recently observed, she's an even better heel!  Her recent domination of Ursa was really impressive -- great trash talk, great menace, sweetly wicked.

She seems sweet and innocent, but she's got a great unsettling darkness when it comes to domination.  This is something I've really seen coming out in the past year.  Knowing smile, casual cruelty, purring menace, a gentle touch, elegant.  Onward!

And here's Aralia's page at Doom Maidens

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Lana Luxor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/lanaxluxor
Lana's page at Doom Maidens

Of my list above, Lana is a lady I have known for the second-longest, after Aralia.  However, we met Lana under rather different circumstances than we met Aralia.

In July of 2016, VeVe organized our first-ever 8-Way female bondage wrestling tourney.  We had had multi-ways before, but this was the first time attempting to bring 8 people together.  VeVe reached out to several models via a modeling website, to see who would be up for jumping in.  Lana was one of the ladies who responded and turned up on that day.  I'm not sure if she knew exactly what to expect, but she got a fun-filled intro to wrestling, surrounded by a bunch of very game ladies slinging ropes at each other.  Prior to this, Lana had no wrestling experience!  So, needless to say, she didn't win the bondage wrestling Tourney, and she wound up getting hogtied by none other than Rachel DD!

As a a result of meeting the great ladies at that shoot, Lana created a Twitter account to keep in touch with them.  We reconnected with Lana again for feature filming to kick-off 2017, where she tried pro-style and one-on-one bondage wrestling with VeVe.  Lana was totally overwhelmed by VeVe in that bondage match and stood no chance at all, but she had fun doing it nonetheless.  She still had no wrestling training to speak of.

Skipping ahead a bit, in April 2017, Lana took on Aralia in a competitive match.  Aralia had been at this "officially" for a year now, and so Aralia did to Lana what Indra had done to her -- except less cheeky and with more submission holds!  Lana stayed totally positive and was excited nonetheless.  In fact, I think she just enjoyed the thrill and physicality of the bout.

Skip ahead more... As the year progressed, Lana started training with us and started doing mixed wrestling.  And she started making exponential improvements.  A little training and a bunch more mat time went a long way for Lana in 2017.  And in November 2017, she entered our Live Filming Event Tourney, where she fought her way to the finals and defeated Aralia to win the championship!  It was a remarkable turn-around!


Lana was on to something here.  Her cool-headedness under pressure and her natural physical sense paved the way for her progress as a wrestler.  She is also very studious, curious, and savvy, and she would watch matches to try to learn more about the sport and her various opponents.  As a beginner, she showed an impressive ability to figure out where her opponent was in relation to her (during a match), what her opponent was attempting, and what she herself might be able to do to deal with that.  But she didn't have enough experience or technique-language to answer every situation being presented to her.

So, after investigating a few options, Lana joined a grappling school in March of 2018 to learn as much as she could about jiujitsu and submission wrestling.  When I was first talking to Lana about training at a formal school, one thing she told was that she was determined to get promoted to the rank of blue belt.  In my mind, I was like "why stop there?"  But, regardless, this was a great short term goal that she had identified!

And so, Lana hit the books -- or, well, she hit the mats, actually -- and dove in for training at her new school.  She would always keep me updated about all of the new techniques she was being exposed to, and how fascinated she was with the various new movements.

I will say, I don't physically see Lana too often, because she lives fairly far away, despite the fact that we are all here in New York City.  It is actually a fairly long trip between where she lives and where most of the rest of the Doom Maidens people live (90 minutes or possibly even 2 hours, depending on time of day).  So, we see each other for shoots or occasional practices, or for group meetings in an in-between spot.  But thanks to social media, Lana keeps us posted remotely!

So!  Lana proved to be such a dedicated and studious student, training both physically and mentally on the mats in class, that she was able to achieve her initial goal in 14 months!  A big congratulations to Lana, who has come so far very quickly in the grappling realm -- she was promoted to the rank of blue belt 2 weeks ago!

It's an impressive journey to consider:  from Lana's very first exposure to wrestling by answering a casting call in July 2016 for a bondage wrestling adventure, to her experiences with losses and wins in video matches in 2017, to her joining a school in 2018, and then, in 2019, achieving the rank of blue belt at her school and being formally recognized for her efforts and progress on the mats!

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So that was a long blog entry!  It was so long, that I'm just running out of time here.  

Aralia and Lana are the most active ladies of what I consider the "new generation."  It seems odd that I consider them "new generation," since they both started with us 3 years ago, and other new people have come in since then.  But something about 2016 marked a "new generation."  It was a turning point when a bunch of new lady wrestlers started coming in and creating a new "core" group who would practice together, talk to each other, keep in constant contact with each other.  A renewed era of togetherness, whereas VeVe and I had been more about "individuals operating together on occasion for shoots" for several years prior.

Anyway, I can talk a lot about that at another time.  But for now, let's post this entry.  I will also make entries about the other ladies listed soon.  Thanks to everyone for reading!

Hello 2019, from nearly mid-way. New wrestlers and Training

Oh, my poor blog!  I have been so unable to update for way too long!  Twitter has really taken over for me, posting via the Doom Maidens main account.

But I was just talking with newcomer Katarina this evening.  We were talking about blogging.  And I went back to check out my old blog.  And, it is so faithful and reliable, it is still here!  And it remembers everything!  It was so nice to come over and be able to read my very first entries on here from 2010.  And also to remember the "Post-Apocalyptic Thong" photoshoot we did with VeVe on the pier.

Anyway, things are happening.  Just not macro-blogging!  Sadness.

But the lady wrestlers have been training especially diligently this year, and I am so excited to see such progress and such hard work going in!  Hats off especially to our relative newcomers -- those who have been training for 2 years or less -- They have been putting in a lot of effort to catch up.

Wrestler Training!

I'd love to talk more about the wrestlers' training and progress!  I am deciding that the blog may be the medium to do that, since Twitter only allows for the short bursts of info, before everything gets lost in the shuffle.  So, yeah, indeed, maybe back to the long-form blog for talking about wrestler progress.

With that said, let's make a starting point for this!  Here are some candid shots of the ladies training in the park last week.  Here we have Aralia, Katarina, and Ursa.  They work on their Mount attacks and escapes... and they also pause for a moment for the camera!

 

The ladies have been drilling their skills for working from the top and bottom of a mounted pin.  Escapes are coming along, but everyone is looking forward to drilling attacks, of course.  

All righty, it has suddenly gotten very late at night here, so I will curtail.  But more to come!