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