Montreal was beautiful as always -- gorgeous weather, gorgeous city, new favorite patisserie - yum! I definitely need to make a longer visit next time. I enjoyed some shopping in the Latin Quarter and the Village -- found what I thought might be some good new wrestling video thongs, but upon further consideration, they may be TOO tiny. We shall see.

My match with Pamela proved to be an unexpected adventure. I had assumed we were doing competitive grappling, since that's what I usually do and no one told me otherwise beforehand. But I showed up at Gladiateur Gym and discovered we were doing a pro-style match.

Now I've done choreographed pro matches before, and back in my wild young wrestling days, I used to do pro-style jello wrestling on top of nice soft mattresses in a pool of squishy jello. But never before had I done an unscripted match in a hard-surfaced ring with a drop through the ropes to a cement floor below. And especially not with an opponent like Pamela who was versed in all sorts of ways to lift, bend, and toss me.

But what the hell? I'm game and a pretty quick study too, so pretty soon we were yelling and kicking and Boston crabbing all over the ring, and I was getting lofted and hurled around (nearly straight through the ropes a couple times, which would really have been the end of things!) So that was a lot of fun and a little bit terrifying, and Pamela deserves super props for being great to work with and great at what she does.

After that shoot we got some good footage of me kicking judoboy's ass six ways to Sunday, and also some photos, particularly a little set of lift and carry photos. There hasn't been a second to work on any of this stuff since shooting it, but hopefully it will be up on Doom Maidens and this site soon. All around a good collaboration with the Fightingirls crew.

By this time I'd done a lot of fighting, and it was getting late, but I rallied and made it out to the Montreal Fetish Weekend Rococo Ball. Very high fashion event with not a trace of wrestling. I was an idiot not to take a picture, but my corset and sparkly, feathery masquerade mask definitely deserved one. I did cheat on the formality to wear my comfy dancing shoes though. There were good drinks, great performances (fetish fashion exhibits, of course, and also an excellent strip + trapeze dance number), and a wonderful spectacle made by the audience. And dancing!!!

And afterwards I was very tired. Got back to New York late on Monday (scenic route = beautiful but loooong), stayed up late on Tuesday tweaking the Grapple Den Party playlist, and stayed out late at the party yesterday.

And the party was great. I invented a Solar Sorceress costume for the superhero theme (complete with solar sceptre and solar sandals). This was all an excuse to wear my cool new shiny gold leotard -- worked out well. I got to see, fight, and chat with a lot of good friends. But I did have two fierce and very large men gunning for me all night -- after having The Bulk (280 lbs.) and Mike (220 lbs.) going after me as hard as they could, I was yet more exhausted. But still victorious in both cases!

Aaaand today I was at very good and responsible and made it into work by 9 a.m. Thank god that's done now. Now I will go home and RELAX!

  August24, 2009, 11:12 p.m. -- OK, so it's the end of August, and most days it's horrid and sweltering out. Actually, I think that's great. I love hot weather, but it is very lazy weather and makes it hard to actually do anything. I'm distressed that I've been trying for a week to make it to any Fringe Festival show at all and have been prevented by subway malfunctions, over-scheduling, or heat-induced fatigue. (I WILL succeed tomorrow night; there is no other option!) I STILL have to make it to the beach this summer. My academy has added several new class options in the morning, which is ideal for me, but I haven't managed to increase my training frequency yet despite a couple weeks of good intentions. (Again, this WILL happen this week; I'm determined.)

However, some very good things HAVE happened lately. Somewhat in order they are:

My vacation at the beginning of August. I swung south to Wildwood on the Jersey shore for a couple of days, where I had fun strolling the boardwalk, witnessed a fantastically impressive storm sweep in off the ocean, and was able to watch some live MMA at a Reality Fighting event there.

Then I proceeded out to western PA for my yearly trip to Pennsic, a giant medieval festival. I spent a week camping and sword fighting (well, I personally use a polearm rather than a sword) in huge armored battles with a 1,000 people per side. I got a bit carried away buying belly dancing costumes even though I can't belly dance, although I did take a class while I was there. Unfortunately, it was a fairly advanced class focusing on the particular art of balancing things on your head while belly dancing. So now I know more about balancing than the basic dancing. Oh, well. Also went out to a few excellent parties around campfires. The best one was the Ladies' Night Party, which featured ungodly amounts of wonderful food and drink and (mostly) attractive shirtless male servers being indecently harassed by the feasting ladies. And, yes, this too was done around a campfire. Great night ;) And great trip.

Next, I confirmed that I'll be travelling up to Montreal again this year for the Fetish Weekend there. I'll be doing sessions and shooting wrestling videos with Pamela and judoboy while I'm there, but enjoying the city and the fetish galas will be a big part of the trip. I’m having fun planning for the high fashion scene at MFW (designing Rococo Masquerade Domina wear!), and in anticipation (and as a result of actually not having the past few weekends at home) I've been getting out to New York parties again. Dropped in at Suite Abyss the other weekend, and I must say that club dancing is a good time. Planning on much more soon!

(Other upcoming travel notes: I won't be going back to Atlanta in September after all, sadly. But I will be going to Indianapolis later that same month. Should be an interesting trip: I’ve got family out that way, and they'll get to meet some of my wrestling colleagues. Worlds will collide.)

Also, there was lately the Grapple Den Two-Year Anniversary Party. We had a summer beach theme and an arena rock soundtrack. A lot of good matches – we've had great talent over the past few months. I continue to believe, though, that more people need to be brave and try oil wrestling at the beach theme parties. Sure it’s a little disgusting, but it’s great fun. Cloberella was game for it and, of course, Tony, who's always game. Props to them.

Also a good news/bad news note: I had such an utter hell of a time putting together the party music on my dying laptop that it finally convinced me to get a new laptop. Alas for hellacious difficulties. Yay for the new laptop! I'm composing on it now.

Finally, there was the afore-mentioned video rematch with Kim on Sunday. That girl is so much fun to fight and really frikkin' good. I'm thrilled with my takedown performance this time around, but I also nearly died in one choke… It was an even closer fight than our last December battle, and our highly critical video editor has been raving to me about it. A good sign! And best of all, it will be available very, very soon. [ETA: It is available NOW -- VeVe vs. Kim REMATCH Video] This should be the start of a good run of video production - besides the Montreal matches, I've got a mixed competitive video and a second (and maybe third?) spandex match lined up. Good stuff heading into September; stay tuned!

  August21, 2009, 5:04 p.m. -- It's been forever since I posted a blog, and I blame two things for that --

1) My extremely busy and travel-filled summer

2) My laptop, which has gradually been dying a slow, painful death, making it really unpleasant to get online.

So let me just throw a few things out here to get a little bit caught up.

First, an exciting announcement for this weekend. I'm going to be taking on Kim in a video rematch this Sunday, and we're opening up the match to a live audience. Kim and I faced off back in December, and it was an excellent, very close, very technical, very intense and exhausting submission grappling match! Now we're both just that much better -- we were both blue belts last winter; Kim's actually been promoted to purple belt since then. I don't plan to let that make a difference, but it's going to be a hard fight!

So if you want to get a front row seat at the live event, follow this link for all the details: Live Taping Tickets

And if you want a preview of the action, or if you want to get caught up on the full drama of our first battle, you can check out these links:
YouTube Trailer
VeVe vs. Kim I in the Doom Maidens Video Store

Damn it, now I've run out of time for the rest of the updates I wanted to make, but I vow that they're soon to follow. Stay tuned for tales of my fantastic summer vacation, the latest Grapple Den Party, and my upcoming travels!

  July14, 2009, 1:24 p.m. -- Damn, so my last post was my June Grapple Den report, and here we are on the eve of the July party. Well, it's been a busy month. Just a few odds and ends about what's been going on --

My Fourth of July was nice and mellow, but NOT restful. I spent the day biking through both Brooklyn and Manhattan in glorious sunshine but too much wind. Summery and exhausting. A fine day. Then I finished off the weekend on the fifth with a late-night trip out to TES Fest in New Jersey. TES Fest is a yearly BDSM Convention; I visited to teach a Wrestling for Fetish Play demo and run a fight club party. The fight club was more or less one of the closing events of the weekend, and some people had already headed home, but the people who stayed were serious devotees. I wrestled (and demolished) one fellow who told me he'd been waiting through the whole event for that.

Just this past weekend I travelled down to North Carolina. It was a quick trip but good. One of my clients, a fine fellow who can take a HELL of a belly punching, gifted me with an awesome pair of weighted police enforcement gloves. Needless to say, we tried them out in a very fun session.

I also got to attend a UFC 100 party at a local martial arts school while I was visiting. They'd hung up a big projection screen, and I was able to grab a kickpad for a pillow and lounge on the mats while bunch of other fighters crowded around to watch and place bets on the matches. I was sorry to see Bisping lose to Henderson, but I had more stake in the St. Pierre and Lesnar fights, and those went just the way I hoped. Perhaps I should go into a big defense concerning why I DON'T hate Brock Lesnar, including why I thought his post-fight interview was NOT awful, but I'll try to be brief -- let's just say a session wrestler who prides herself on being a legitimate athlete can easily sympathize with a former WWE star who's also a legitimate athlete and an utterly impressive one at that. And any audience that boos a guy who just successfully defended his title is being inappropriate and has no business getting offended at an appropriately inappropriate response.

  June 18, 2009, 3:58 p.m. -- So the Grapple Den Party last night was a blast! We had so many wrestlers, and so many new wrestlers, it was incredible. Scarlet Menace and I were there representing the session wrestlers (Scarlet was treated to experience of taking on the Incredible Bulk -- something of a GD initiation ritual for session ladies); we had a slew of regulars, a few new martial artist fellows, two tiny new ladies who were brand new wrestling but very brave, and one bubbly, ferocious, and CRAZY girl who reminds me of myself before I had any training.

There was a main mat and a warm-up mat, and both were full continually with a queue for main mat time. Oh yes, and these fighters were not only numerous but insatiable. Just kept coming back for more, until we had to toss people out at closing time. Fan-fucking-tastic night.

My personal favorite bit of the night was my "revenge match" against a fellow I'd fought at the last party. He'd put up a hell of fight until I finally managed to pull off a win, and this time he called me out demanding vengeance. The ref gave him the option of a 5-minute, most points or submissions wins match or a sudden death, first submission wins match. He opted for sudden death.

Well, having only one chance to win was extremely motivating. I locked a guillotine on him in about five seconds, and it was VERY tight. He barely managed to pull out, and he admitted afterwards that in any other situation with less pride on the line, he would have tapped. But he managed to get free and take my back. He made the mistake of crossing his feet between my legs though, so even as he thought he had the advantage and was setting up a choke, I was able to trap his feet and score the victory with an ankle compression lock. And it was all the better because he'd chosen the sudden death option. Needless to say, we have a rematch scheduled for the July party!

I also had a great time rollin with a new girl who gave herself the fighting name Road Kill. She was new to wrestling and very light, so we were able to have a fun, easygoing match with a lot sweeps, somersaulting, and tumbling. Road Kill was very excited to start training in grappling, so we're expecting to see her at training in the park on Sunday.

Looking forward to July now...

  June 17, 2009, 5:05 p.m. -- I was extremely pleased with the photo shoot I had last night. I was working with photographer Lou Benjamin, and I put together two excellent variations on a punk Apocalypse outfit. One involved an ironically contrasting dainty white blouse, and the other made use of my giant black buckled and bespiked "stompy" boots. Both used stockings, garter belt, G-string, and my ridiculously badass posture collar made of bullets.

A third and final costume had something of a showgirl look -- turquoise vinyl top, mesh panties, and rhinestones.

I've gotten to see the raw images at this point, and my favorites are definitely the stompy boot shots, though there are some winners throughout. Lou did very nice work with the lighting, so the two blouse-less series turned out as beautiful muscle shoots. Lovely shadow and accentuation. I can't wait to get images up in my photo gallery.

I do begin to wonder, though, if it's somehow mandatory for photographers to own cats they forget to mention to the models in advance. Resulting in a practically ritual exchange before shoots --

"Oh, I'm sorry, you're not allergic to cats, are you?"
"No, no, that's fine."
"Oh good. Well, this is [cat's name], and sometimes she likes to get into the shots."
"Of course, she's the star after all."

And only after this formality is complete can we proceed further.

A few other things I've been meaning to mention, i.e. stories from my return trip to Atlanta over the past weekend.

Had a great time Friday night despite horrible weather related mishaps. My traveling companions and I were supposed to meet up with some local wrestling friends of ours at 1763, a BDSM club that was large enough and kind enough to give us permission to lay down mats during one of their parties. We fought our way out there through torrential rain to discover that not many other people had gone to the same trouble. And that the lady bringing the mats was feeling ill and didn't want to take herself out into the weather.

We ended up rerouting to a nice pub with the couple of other brave souls who showed up. We planned more grappling on future trips (and also potential white water rafting -- ???) Lovely low-key night.

I then spent the rest of the weekend WATCHING a lot of grappling. Saturday night I enjoyed the UFC at a splurge-worthy, posh sports bar. I wasn't pleased with the outcomes of the fights necessarily (I was definitely rooting for Marcus Davis over Dan Hardy, and Cheick Kongo is one of my favorite fighters, and he made a complete ass of himself against Cain Velasquez), but I fully approved of my crab cake burger.

On Sunday I saw the kids' division at a local grappling tournament. This was well worth watching. Some of the kids are amazingly impressive, and some are just freakin' adorable. I don't like kids normally, but fighting children are able to (temporarily) change my mind. I saw a 3-year-old girl, who actually trains in judo, hip throw a 5-year-old boy. And then go around for the rest of the day with her medal hanging down to her knees, grinning beatifically. I wish I'd started training so young -- I like to think I'd have conquered the world single-handedly by now.

  June 5, 2009, 11:20 a.m. -- I really thought I would get this report out yesterday, but it simply was not to be. Summer is obviously wake-up time for everyone, myself included -- I have been SO much busier lately with email, session and video requests, and more travel planning, not to mention belated spring cleaning of my website. Thanks to everyone who's making this a lovely full season for me -- you're keeping me jumping!

Anyway, the trip. Since it was a quick session trip, I did spend a lot of time in and out (mostly in) hotels with not too much chance for sight-seeing. But a few things that I did see were the Chicago subways and the Milwaukee bars. These things may sound unexciting, but I am always comparing everything to "how it is in New York," so they were fascinating to me. The Chicago trains have working intercoms, and the above-ground tracks are very scenic and pleasant. But there are no Unlimited Ride Passes -- that makes no sense. And you can still smoke in Milwaukee bars. In fact, they sell cigarettes in the bars. I'd forgotten such things were ever (and still, obviously) done.

As for fun highlights, also in Milwaukee I got a chance to meet up with the Madtown Beatdown crew, a bunch of grapplers who've lately been bringing rough combat and martial arts play to the Madison BDSM scene. I'd been corresponding with these folks online for a while -- it was awesome to meet them in person and hear about what they've been doing to build a recreational fighters' community out in their area.

And of course we celebrated the meet-up with a party -- matted out my hotel room for a late-night open mat. The featured event was a thong bikini anything-goes catfight match between myself and Zen, one of their fighters. We allowed submissions, slapping, hair-pulling, spanking, smothering, and even licking, and despite all that it was still a very fun, friendly, and sometimes hilarious match. Also, with Zen standing at just 5 feet, I got to fight someone smaller than I am! We did film the match, but the bikinis proved so flimsy that the final product turned out too scandalous to release. Great still photos came out of it though:

I have an entire new gallery dedicated to this fight up on the website here: Fight with Zen Gallery

And the rest of the party was very good too!

On the way back home, I stopped in Cleveland. Cleveland was an old stomping ground of mine when I was in college; I pleased I got to revisit a favorite restaurant there -- a New Orleans Blues venue where they give you crayons to draw on the table clothes and provide you Mardi Gras beads. (New Orleans Blues in Chicago? -- I know, I know.)

Here I also got to shoot another fun video that, I believe, WILL be released. I was working for the second time with Utopia Entertainment and much enjoyed demolishing the producer, Kip, in a scissors domination match. Again on the comparing everywhere to New York topic -- NYC would never spare space for such a filming studio as that, or if it did would charge for its use in bricks of gold.

So now I'm back home -- got back to the gym on Tuesday and back finally back to training last night. Whether I got too much rest over this trip or not enough, that was an unGODly gruelling class. Welcome back me!

I'm really going to have to get a good and disciplined groove going with my training immediately, since I'm going to have so many disruptions from MORE travel throughout the summer.

Should hopefully be posting my calendar for that (travel, not training) later today. Or tomorrow, if things go the way they did yesterday with this bog post.

  June 2, 2009, 4:58 p.m. -- I am newly back from my week-long session tour to Pittsburgh, Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Philadelphia! Just arrived home last night after a lot of wrestling and a lot of driving.

I'll have a fuller report out soon, but for now let just say that was a lot of travel to fit into a short time. I would have liked to have more time every single place I stopped. But you take what you can get, and you plan return trips!

And on the subject of return trips -- I had SO many people contact me on very short notice about sessions during my stop in Philly. I wish I could have met with everyone, but the quick-time scheduling was messy, and I ended up missing a ton of people. So for everyone I didn't get to see in Philadelphia yesterday, I am planning a return trip very soon. June 19 & 20, I think -- just need to double check and confirm that.

Overall, this was a very successful and inspiring trip. I'm revved up to do more traveling, and this summer is going to be a very busy one! Atlanta, Providence, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania trips are all coming up... Stay tuned!

  May 21, 2009, 4:44 p.m. -- Writing in on the day after the May Grapple Den Party, and dear gods, am I sore! It was a fun night with a smaller crowd and a good number of spectators, which meant those of us who wanted to wrestle got all the mat time we wanted. Yay! And also Ow.

So the theme last night was Jocks vs. Nerds, and I went representing the jocks (having already gotten my nerd on earlier this week seeing the new Star Trek movie, which I quite enjoyed). I got to battle Princess Slayer in her wrestling cheerleader get-up, and Damien and I fought the signature match of the evening with him in the nerd camp (we're always on opposite sides!). That match came to a draw, so while jock pride was not damaged, I didn't score any stolen lunch money or get to stuff him in a locker either. Ah, well...

I'll also mention that the nerd highlight fight of the night occurred when "Hanz" Vanderkil and "Princess Slayer" faced off. This wasn't pre-planned, but fortunately I had the Star Wars theme on the playlist anyway, and it served well.

And another fun thing for me was getting to spar with a quite skilled former high school and college wrestler. Collegiate wrestling always fascinates me; the movement is so noticeably different than in grappling, and I love finding technically challenging opponents.

* * *

Now on another topic, it's high season for videos again. I had a very fun shoot with Utopia Entertainment last Sunday. This was a domination style match, very leggy with long, torturing holds. But again, it was such a fun shoot! My opponent, Thrash, was an excellent victim, great to work with, and loved getting beaten up. I couldn't stop laughing while choking, scissoring, and tossing him about; it was great play time. I'm told it's a little frighting that I grin so much when I fight; push me a little farther and I'm sure the gleeful cackling could be considered maniacal. Muah-ha-ha.

Also, I've got another shoot coming up with FemFightClub this Sunday. That'll be a couple of competitive fem vs. fem matches with Keri and, I think, another of her girls. Not to mention that I'll be shooting another female wrestling match when I'm on the road next week in Milwaukee or that my rematch with Gianna will be coming out soon at Doom Maidens.

  May 14, 2009, 6:35 p.m. -- Just a quick update to share some excellent news. I was promoted at my BJJ academy today! Well, not exactly promoted, but I did get a new stripe on my blue belt. So a step on the way to purple belt. Very fun. And encouraging!

Also, I have to say how much I like this morning's instructor. He teaches basic, simple, high-success-rate moves, he's super-positive even early in the morning, he gets to know students individually, and what especially struck me today, he sticks to traditions some of the younger (and "cooler") instructors let slide.

There was a mass of promotions this morning -- like 5 stripes given out and two people raised to blue belt. For the belt awards, the instructor made the whole class turn to face the back wall so we couldn't see what would happen, snuck through the class and delivered the ritual beatings with the new belts. So you could hear the thwacks but not see who was being honored. Or know, if you were a high-ranking white belt, if you were going to be chosen. And afterwards everybody was encouraged to congratulate everyone else.

It was a little mini-party atmosphere at 8:30 a.m. with everyone needing to rush off to work. But it completely set such a great tone for the day. I am so pleased this guy sticks to the ritual forms. It's much more fun and meaningful that just handing someone a new belt, which I've also seen. Like keeping Santa and the Easter Bunny real for kids as long as you can -- it means something; it's special.

So, awesome morning, and thanks to a great professor.

  May 11, 2009, 9:52 p.m. -- So things are a little quiet at the moment, but they're about to get exciting. Right now I'm hanging in, keeping up with my training and lifting, making a conscious effort to get up-to-date everywhere and with everything online (getting my MySpace out of the Stone Age...), and looking forward to getting my poor old clunking laptop fixed up at the Apple store tomorrow.

But I'm very excited my upcoming session tour at the end of the month! I got the whole thing confirmed after a good bit of uncertainty, and I'll be making stops to offer wrestling sessions in Pittsburgh on May 26-27, in Chicago on the 27th-29th, in Milwaukee on the 29th-31st, and in Cleveland on the 31st-1st. It will be a lot of driving, but fortunately I love that. It's high time to get out of New York for a little while and take the fighting on the road!

Also on this trip I'll be competing in a grappling tournament on the 30th (I can't get enough, clearly). AND I'll finally get to meet some online grappling friends from the Madison area -- they'll be coming to my tournament and hosting a fight club afterparty at their hotel that night. Cheering squad + party = tons of awesome. Can't wait to meet these folks. And to top it all off, I have a few video prospects along the route as well.

So this trip probably doesn't count as a vacation. It will be great, but madly busy. That said, anybody out there in Pittsburgh, Chicago, Milwaukee, or Cleveland who'd like to get together for a session while I'm visiting should get in touch and schedule! Time will be precious!

And as a final note, things are getting ready to pick up back home in New York as well. I have a few video and photo prospects brewing here as well; more soon when I see what materializes from them. Grapple Den is increasing its training workshops from once to twice this coming week, and since the weather is FINALLY getting nice, the Wednesday session will be moving outside to Washington Square Park. And of course the Grapple Den Nerds vs. Jocks Party will be May 20. Should be a good kick-off to the travels!

  May 6, 2009, 10:09 p.m. -- So now, belatedly, which is an unfortunate trend with my blog posts, I have an account to offer of my tournament last Saturday. This was a no-gi only tourney, so it was smaller and quicker than most of them, but it was still a fun, full day.

The adventures began even before I arrived. Going out on the train, I made a new friend, which is to say another tournament competitor recognized me as a fellow fighter and latched on. This was pretty amusing; the guy was just out of college, very new to grappling, and unbelievably excited about everything. I got to hear all about the intense water-fast, weight-cutting program he’d put himself through for this tournament and his involved strategy for winning it all. Good guy, and it’s fun to know people and cheer them on between your own matches, but, holy shit, this one was, I repeat, excited.

So, arriving at the event, I found that there were a lot of women there, more than I’d expected, but they were divided up into many weight and skill classes. I ended up with only four total women in my advanced flyweight division and five in the absolute division. There was also a freestyle wrestling tournament going on in the same huge warehouse-like convention center. Fun to see that side-by-side with the grappling.

My division rolled around. Unfortunately, I got no advance notice of this, so I went into my first fight totally cold and still subconsciously in warm-up mode. So that was not my fight. In fact, the other girl rather demolished me – but she only won on points, and I found out afterwards that she had a 20-year martial arts career, 12 years of grappling, and is training as a pro kick-boxer. So I didn’t feel too badly. I would have had another match for third/fourth, but my opponent was injured in her first fight and had to forfeit. So in advanced flyweight, I took third based on survival credit.

Then there was the absolute division. Sadly, the way the bracket worked out I ended up facing the same girl again, again in my first fight. She still had her 20 years of experience, but at least this time I was warmed up. I am very pleased that I was doing much better in this match. The score was much closer, and I had the lead for a while…but she went for a footlock, which she’d tried before and I’d managed to escape. I wasn’t worried; I went to perform the same escape, but then there was an audible pop from my ankle. For that, I had to tap.

Everyone was pretty distressed (“Was it your knee?!?!” “No, it wasn’t my knee…”). But I iced the ankle for a few minutes and felt all right to go in for my third/fourth fight. This time my opponent (at 170) was much heavier than I am, but also much younger – only 13. Some of these advanced kids can be amazing, though; they’ve started training young, and they can easily have been at it longer than I have! So in this match, my opponent took me down with a very neatly done hip throw and took side control. I got my hips out, hooked her leg, and executed the escape to take her back. I don’t remember how she recovered guard, but I managed to pass, take side mount, and finally gain mount to win on points. A more legitimate third place finish in absolute, so that was pleasing.

Meanwhile, in between matches I’d discovered that one of my opponents from the Providence tournament was at this one as well. We got reacquainted; she was very interested to hear about my March trip to the Atlanta competition and wanted to get in on future long distance tournament road trips. She also got to meet my eager young buddy from the train. They got on very well. Apparently they follow the same water diet.

So that was my tournament. An acceptable showing and more stock for my trove of experience. I made it back to the city in time go for a lovely but unwise walk on my compromised ankle and get a badly needed dinner.

  April 20, 2009, 9:27 p.m. -- I was going to post this much earlier today, when I was stealing internet time at my day job. Then, just as it was ready to go up, there was bizarre accident at work involving a car falling on -- not hitting, actually falling on -- my building. I emailed the blog to myself for later posting, and joined the general evacuation. Now, here's the original entry of 3:33, slightly delayed:

This will be a rather eclectic blog entry for I have many things to say --

First, a rant. There are all these flowering trees around my building with tiny, white petals. The wind keeps blowing them off so they look like snow, and it is SO DAMN COLD, the only way I can tell they're not snow is that it's also raining! Holy fuck! What is this weather? Where is my springtime? I am pitching a fit here, and it's damn well justified.

Second, a mini-rant. I missed UFC on Saturday! I was determined not to this time, but somehow I always miss Anderson Silva's fights; there's some kind of destiny around it. I hear it was actually a horrible fight though, so that's a consolation.

OK, now more positively and more importantly, some excellent news. I've got a video match lined up for tomorrow with Gianna, who's currently visiting in NYC. She's just my size, and an experienced BJJ grappler, so this should be a fantastic, technical, close-fought match. A spiritual sequel to my fight with Kim, I'm hoping. My one fear is that we're not shooting in my usual studio this time, but in another that I know, and there's a small but real danger there of going through the wall!

Other things to mention -- I had a very nice submission grappling class this morning. Techniques worked: Hip throw and single-leg catch from underhook set-up and many unorthodox triangle tricks -- triangle set-up for straight armbar; sidemount to reverse triangle step-over; triangle as a single-leg defense, and finally a very unusual arm-trap to arm bar via a sacrificed triangle. Also the live rolling was great -- you don't get such perfect guillotine set-ups often...actually, ever. What was my partner thinking?

I'm trying to increase my technical drilling time, so I'll actually start remembering more than one of the six techniques I learn in a class at a time. Yesterday, one of my sparring partners and I came up with the brilliant idea of meeting to drill in the park. Today, we accordingly ordered some protective outdoor kneepads, and I'm going to appoint some of my old workout clothes as OK for grass stains. I'm looking forward to this -- now refer back to Part One of this entry, re: how much the weather needs to leave off sucking.

And finally, though this is very belated, a report of last week's Grapple Den Party. It was a great one. Things started off very mellow with the early crowd settling in, the spectators claiming their seats, and a few warm-up matches alternating on the mats. And then, wham, a flood! A ton of wrestlers suddenly showed up, and the mats were packed the rest of the night. Later in the night, we started running multiple matches at a time to give everyone the fighting time they wanted. Some people wrestled so much they did their socializing during their bouts -- you could see someone holding guard and looking up to chat with folks on the ring-side sofas. It was great!

Highlights of the night for me personally included the return of my dear friend Mentee Fresh, back to grappling at last after recovery from knee surgery; a match with very skilled newcomer who said she used to train long ago (she hasn't forgotten much!); my classic rematch/continuing grudge match against Big Vince (who says he now wants to do a video match with me, which is great since he'll have to stop lying about winning once I have hard evidence of his defeat one film); and my not-so-classic team-up with Kim against Vince -- that was hilarious, and even more of a spectacle since the two of us look like twins. Also, my favorite match that I wasn't fighting was Miss Juliette's face-off with SnakeEyez -- he's 250 pounds of muscle; she's probably 130 physical pounds, but armed with 300 pounds of sass. Watching her move in on him was a sight!

The next Grapple Den Party will be May 20, and suggestions for themes are welcome!

  April 15, 2009, 3:57 p.m. -- I'm having a busy couple of days here as grappling goes. Last night I shot a scissors wrestling video with Amazon Annie, and tonight is the April Grapple Den Party!

First, a report on the match with Annie -- fun and challenging! I have a much harder time in a fight when you take away my jiu-jitsu techniques and put me against an opponent who equals almost two of me. I held my own, though. It's a good thing we made it a pure scissors fight -- if it had been scissors and smothering, I'd have been done for! And I must say that Annie is a pleasure to fight, even if her glee in "crushing people" is rather alarming. The video should be out on Friday!

And tonight, the Grapple Den Tax Day Party. Personally, I cannot think of a better reason to celebrate. My taxes are done, and my refund is pending, all lined up through direct deposit. Also, yay for e-filing. I did not have to fill out any horrid paperwork. Now I sound like a tax nerd. But the point is it's all done! Now I go party! And kick ass!

Also a bit of looking forward here. I may potentially have a private video shoot this Saturday evening, but I've remembered it's a UFC night. Damn. Must try to move the shoot earlier. And also to note, I've been getting an oddly high number of video requests lately. What is in the air? I just confirmed something for May 15, with other discussions in progress. Exciting.

  April 6, 2009, 1:43 p.m. -- My weekend -- Well, I did NOT go to the tournament in New Jersey this weekend, and on the one hand that's sad because apparently it was a huge, successful tournament with 80 competitors in the womens' divisions and I'm told some people were actually asking for me and wondering where I was.

On the other hand, I didn't feel like I'd had enough training time between Atlanta and Jersey to really improve my game, I'd been desperately needing a couple days at home to get about 20 things done, and I am so goddamn intensely sore after just training and lifting at the gym this weekend that I think my body needed recovery time more than it needed a tournament.

So overall I'm pretty pleased with my quiet weekend. My no-gi academy class on Saturday was fantastic. I've been irritated lately with a lot of the instructors' emphasis on sparring and endurance training almost to the exclusion of teaching techniques. And the same instructors have very "figure it out yourselves" or "skip it entirely" attitudes toward takedowns, which I don't find helpful at all.

So I was thrilled to find we have a new guy teaching who, wonder of wonders, balances technical drilling and live sparring, has some kind of method to his takedown instruction, and is furthermore very pleasant and detailed in his teaching style. Definitely going back to the same class next Saturday.

As for the 20 things I needed to do, I only got done about three of them, but it wasn't for lack of working. And at least those things are done. You can see them, actually; they are new photo galleries for this website -- The Boxing Gallery, The MMA Gallery, and The Fashion/Portraits Gallery. These came from my questionable black-eye photoshoot, but nonetheless, there are some lovely images, and I'm proud of both the photos and the gallery construction!

A few other tidbits about the weekend -- Good Things: Went out to two lovely dinners in Manhattan, which included trying two new restaurants and exploring one new neighborhood (during one of the warmer rain showers of April so far); enjoyed a long and thorough lift for legs and biceps on Sunday; finally got confirmation that my sessions/tournament trip to Chicago and Milwaukee in May is a go (yay!); and had a great time taking my bike out in the first nice biking weather of the year.

Bad Thing: The bike got stolen. Fucking NYC bike thieves. I'd be more pissed off about it if the rest of the weekend hadn't been so nice. But apparently, since I have no proof of ownership, I can't even file a token police report. Actually, it IS pretty annoying.

  March 24, 2009, 5:00 p.m. -- This post really should have gone up yesterday, but I was extremely exhausted and for very good reason. But the story of my Atlanta trip must be told, so here it is a day late.

Let me first note, though, that I have gotten the pictures back from my photo shoot with Pich. He was amazingly good about turnaround time, and gave me A LOT of pictures to work with. So many that what with my busy weekend of travel, I haven't quite gotten to look at them all yet. But now I'm back, and a new photo gallery is on it's way...

On to the travel tales! It began last Wednesday with my waking up early for my a.m. academy grappling class and hauling a lot of extra luggage along with me. After training, the luggage came to work with me, and after that it came to the gym with me and waited in the locker room while I did a lift for legs. Next, I dragged it along to my evening training session with Grapple Den. And after that, then and only then did that bloody luggage and I pile into a massive van along with Veronica, Kim, Damien, and Tony to begin our 15-hour drive to Atlanta. We left at 9:30 p.m. and arrived at our hotel at 12:30 p.m. the next day. Very efficient all-night driving. I was lucky enough to get the morning shift. That was beautiful; I love morning driving.

We ended up with time to shower and have lunch (thank God) before heading over to 1763 to set up for Atlanta's first Grapple Den Party. It was a small party being on a funny night in new territory, but some excellent people showed up. We met a very pleasant and talented local white belt (seriously, very talented for a white belt; in my estimation he's due a promotion), who gave me a great fight that night, kindly served as Veronica's drilling dummy for some pre-tournament technical review, and was good enough to to turn up at the tournament Saturday and cheer us all on.

It was also great to meet our awesome Atlanta party sponsor Dominique Danger. She is a lovely and powerful lady, and I would say that the greatest spectacle of the night was watching her take on her powerlifting partner in a wrestling match. You don't often see that much size and muscle moving that damn fast; it was very impressive. Of course, it was also impressive when she threw her very petite lady wrestler friend onto the mats with the big guy -- enormous props to that girl for taking him on and for blazing through that match like a fireball. Come to think of it, the classic me versus Vincent battles probably look similar, or would if Vincent were mad built.

Friday was a very welcome day of rest, combined with wrestling sessions at the hotel, and an evening weigh-in for the tournament. I tipped the scale at 119.5 this time, which brought me down from the lightweight division to the top of flyweight for the first time. Which would have been great if there'd BEEN a flyweight division, but no one else entered at my size and skill level, so I got bumped back up again to be the smallest lightweight. C'est la vie. As I joked to Damien, weighing in lighter doesn't mean I won't fight bigger people, just that now no one is small enough to escape me!

And on Saturday, the tournament itself. It was quite a good day. We had a huge fan section ringside made up of the guy from the party, some of Veronica's friends from outside Atlanta, another competitor who simply decided we seemed nice, and even some fans of another girl who saw one of my matches and decided they wanted to stay and cheer for me. It was great to have that much energy and support behind me -- and that many extra hands to mind the video camera during matches!

There were three girls total in my advanced no-gi division -- in my first match I ended up very evenly matched with my opponent. I got the takedown with a leg sweep, but it ended in a scramble, and she pulled me into her guard. Quite simply, this girl had an amazing guard. I tried everything to pass it and then tried everything again. Finally, I managed a reversal, but she ended in my guard, so no dominant position points for either of us. I kept very active, attempting sweeps and submissions, but the clock ran out with her still in my guard (she didn't pass mine either!) and with her just ahead in points. This was a hotly contested match -- the spectators were on my side, and reviewing the video, Damien commented that one of submission attempts didn't look strong enough to be awarded the full two points it got, but I feel we both did well, and I don't begrudge her the win.

I fought again in no-gi for second or third, and this time my opponent was a 15-year-old female high school wrestler. She was incredibly powerful and rather wild -- definitely more of a wrestler than a grappler, which ended up working ro my advantage. She bulldozed me on the takedown, actually lifted and ran with me into the next ring, and after they reset us, she double-legged me such that the ref warned her very severely against slamming. I also took a couple "incidental" blows to my face and belly during this fight, but for all that she was ferocious, I had the technical edge on this girl. She got side mount on me at one point, and I was easily able to replace guard. I pulled off a cross-over sweep to half-guard, and fought to pass that for a little while. When I finally pulled free to mount, time was nearly out, so I hung on while she bucked like crazy (like a freestyle wrestler with her back on the ground, actually) to maintain position and win on points.

There were four of us in the blue belt gi division -- me, my two no-gi opponents, and a fourth girl. In my first match I fought the new girl for a refreshingly quick and easy win. I took her down with a messy hip throw; she landed in my guard; and I got a beautiful gi choke on her such as you hardly see outside of the illustrations in books. Guard girl fought wrestler girl and took the win, so I faced guard girl again for first or second. The only thing I regret about the whole tournament is the takedown in that last fight. I decided to try for a jumping triangle attack, asked myself what position I needed to do it, and realized I was ALREADY THERE at the moment the other girl jumped guard on me. That was just a very frustrating instance of being a second too slow. From there our match played out just like our no-gi one. Again, that girl's guard -- holy shit. I nearly congratulated her on it during the match, but I was occupied by recovering from a sweep attempt. Again, I finally pulled a reversal to put her in my guard, and again the clock ran out with her holding a slight point advantage.

I was quite pleased with my performance at this tournament. I was never submitted, and I took silver in both my divisions after four very respectable fights. Definitely an improvement over my last two tournaments, and I think it shows a steady improvement since I was dropped into the advanced division last November like a hamster into the ocean. In November, I was devastatingly crushed; in February I had two good fights but no wins; and in March, I went two and two with all fights being ones I feel good about. It's a slow climb, but I'm working that comeback.

Veronica and Kim had good showings as well, but I'm running on too long, so ask them how they did if you're curious!

Saturday night included a very pleasant and well-deserved dinner out in Atlanta. A lovely warm Southern evening, mojitos, Mexican, and ridiculously rich chocolate. This was actually all I saw of Atlanta proper since all the grappling kept me too busy for sight-seeing!

Sunday I hung out at the kids tournament, which was great entertainment. Some of the kids are truly impressive, and some are either so tiny or so new that they're incredibly funny. Afterwards when we were ready to leave, there was a half hour of terror as we waited for Kim, who was new to American driving and was late getting back from a shopping trip she'd taken with our giant van. But she did get back safely in the end, and we hit the road for another all-nighter. I was on a tight time-limit to return since I had a morning wrestling session scheduled before I had to be into work at 9.

I just made it -- grabbed an espresso, had a truly lovely session, and got to work a whole minute early. I wasn't that awake at work, granted, and I didn't muster the energy to write this blog until today, but the trip was a total success. And after a very early night last night, I'm now much recovered! Which is good since Grapple Den New York is tomorrow night...

  March 13, 2009, 10:42 a.m. -- Yesterday's plans were not really the BEST laid, so I am not, after all, surprised they went awry. What happened, almost immediately after I posted my last blog entry with such reckless optimism, was that Miss Juliette called in sick.

Now, this was the ONLY night for the next three weeks that all the interested parties could match up our schedules to meet. It looked like the whole thing was going to fall through, but we decided to at least try to replace Juliette. It was short notice to find someone to take an actually very unappealing fight ("No, it won't be fun, or fake, or easy...no, not exactly wrestling....striking, yes, a lot of strikes to the face...yes, for real"), but it actually worked out fantastically.

Kim stepped up to do it, and we unleashed some of our tension over our seriously overlapping wrestling niches here in NYC. Granted this isn't the smallest pool, but how many lightweight, short & messy-haired, bubbly blue belts does the city need? Don't know and can't trademark that, but occasionally you can go to war with the competition. And, Jesus, did we go to war -- that girl does NOT like to be hit; I had a moment of thinking she'd actually gone berserker on me. Actually, I think she DID.

We fought for an hour without even a water break -- at most a pause for breath. In the end, I relied on my policy that a strike is a painful annoyance and distraction, but not a fight-clincher (this works when you're sticking to slapping) to dive through the flurries and squeeze ahead in the submission tally.

Tragically, with all the last minute switch-around stuff, we weren't able to preserve/renegotiate the video taping, so this was a great fight lost to the ages. The audience, though, witnessed something that was absolutely sick.

Glory and adrenaline aside, I did not come out of this unscathed. I was hoping, but it was a foolish hope. I ended up with a black eye and a half...and so last night I sadly called the photographer for today's shoot. "I have a stupid story to tell..." I began.

And let me tell you, photographers are a quirky bunch. "Is it an interesting black eye?" he responded. He seemed very happy. So the shoot is on, and we should be getting some quite unusual things out of it. Pich expressed interest in shooting both vintage fashion and boxing photos. I'm intrigued.

Come to think of it, this is the SECOND time a photographer has been in favor of my being bruised up for a shoot. Granted, the first time the project was a promotion for an S&M fashion show, so there ya go.

The adventure continues later today...

  March 12, 2009, 1:08 p.m. -- It never rains... Starting tonight and driving on through this weekend, I am going to have a full and crazy time. And the beginning of this week was crazy getting everything set up for these long-weekend projects.

So, I have a photo shoot scheduled with Pich Blaaknes of SweetMuscle.com for this Friday. No problem there, that's been set up for a while, and I'm looking very forward to it. We're going to do a range of photos -- fitness shots for SweetMuscle and more fitness, artistic, and vintage material for both our portfolios. In and of themselves photo shoots are a lot of fun, and I also can't wait to see what comes out and get the best of it up on this site.

What HAS been nuts -- I spent all day Tuesday getting everything in line for not one but two video shoots, one Wednesday night and one Sunday. What with all the back-and-forth, multi-directional emailing, phoning, and texting I was feeling like an entertainment mini-mogul and very revved-up and accomplished by the end of the day. THEN I spent all day Wednesday troubleshooting for the Wed. night shoot, trying to save it from falling through, and finally rescheduling it for tonight. So, ultimately, success! But I began to get a little crazy, and I'm glad these are going to be fight videos so I can vent some frustrations in them.

So tonight, a catfight with Miss Juliette. I mentioned this to one video fan, and he asked "Will this be an intense catfight or a fluffy catfight?" Answer: Not Fluffy. The fight was commissioned on the criteria "not friendly" and "heavy face-slapping." Also, Juliette and I both have HIGH bitch capacities. And like I said, frustrations to burn, so I expect this to be a nasty slap-down brawl.

Then on Sunday I've got a rematch video to shoot with Diablo. That's going to be pure high-energy, high-endurance competitive, technical fighting. Anyone who's seen our first match will know it ended in a draw, so to keep that from happening again -- and to keep things new -- we're going to be trying another format in this one: first half of the match wearing traditional BJJ gis and second half no-gi (meaning for me my signature "fighting thong...") Changing attire really changes the style of the fight, so I expect switching half-way through will be an interesting variable.

Now, you may have noticed that I have Saturday off here. So what am I talking about? Busy? How can I say that? Well, all I can say is "Thank God for Saturday." I expect these two fights to be exhausting ones, and Friday to be a late night. And just in case I'm not tired on Saturday, I could always go to my super-heated, intense and sweaty no-gi academy class. That might, however, be madness...

  March 8, 2009, 10:52 p.m. -- I had an excellent and productive day today. After a good, long sleep-in (I had reason; I could go into the trials I had last night with rerouted and out-of-service trains and how late I got home, but that would be another post.), I headed to the gym. I did a standard lift for chest -- I'm back on a 10-12 rep hypertrophy/endurance program since my shoulder sprain rudely derailed my strength regimen. Then after doing a normal amount of work and pumping up a little, I went on to shoot a biceps lifting video.

I must say, my gym is not exactly used to people videotaping their lifts (and some of the crazy things people do there should never be immortalized on film). I was prepared to explain it as an art project, but despite a lot of curious attention, no one said a thing. I'll also add that shooting multiple takes to acquire the correct angles and lighting balances can lead to a lot more reps than an ordinary lift would call for. That was an exhausting video shoot! It also turned out some footage that I like a lot. The video will be edited and available soon, and I'm very excited over the idea of doing a whole gym series with vids for all the major muscle groups.

After that, I met with a good training partner of mine to do some very specific gi-based takedown drilling in preparation for the grappling tournament I'll be fighting in on my Atlanta trip. I'm focusing on my gi game especially going into this one, and takedowns are both the most nerve wracking part of a match for me and the least-emphasized element at my academy. Yes, those two things are definitely related. It was great to get in some focused work. I feel much better about my jumping triangle attack.

  Feb. 24, 2009, 10:52 p.m. -- This was my first day back back on the attack since my shoulder injury last weekend - that is to say, my first day back and properly training.

I sat in on an academy class last Wednesday, which made me rather wistful. Also, that same day, my favorite instructor announced he's leaving the school and moving, literally, to the other side of the world. Geez, bummer. But at least I didn't miss that day, since it was his last class.

Anyway, I've been really pushing limits with this recovery -- I kept lifting all through last week, first therapeutically and then bringing in full routines for biceps, legs, and chest. I've had to put the heavy strength program on hold, but, damn, I still worked. And I also rolled at an open mat on Sunday didn't take it as easy as I probably should have. Quick recovery? I'm insisting on it!

Still, though, I haven't been completely reckless. I saved participating in an academy class until today, when I was feeling up to it. Went all right -- the technique we drilled was a method to break an opponent's grip on your lapels, trap his arm, and apply a gi choke from the bottom of guard.

I'm still sore enough that I need to be cautious and allow for some limited mobility on the right side, but on the other hand, that makes for an interesting training exercise, and I feel as long as I don't do anything stupid, working the shoulder's much better for its healing than letting it sit and stiffen up.

Soooo... A few other fun notes -- The cut I got to go along with that sprain hasn't been nearly so much trouble. It's closed right up and lined up rather aesthetically with my eyebrow. I took the stitch out myself on Thursday -- with nail clippers, which were actually beautifully effective. Note 2: Grapple Den Party tomorrow night! And Note 3: I suddenly have many fun and intriguing prospects for photo projects brewing, so hopefully, I'll have more to report on that soon.

  Feb. 15, 2009, 9:37 a.m. -- This morning there is good news and bad news. In a long-awaited and eagerly anticipated move for me, I am finally officially launching this website today! I've futzed around with a few things for what seems like forever trying to make them perfect, and while they're not perfect yet, I've got them to a presentable stage (I think), and perfecting can happen gradually as we go forward. If I'm wrong, and I've missed any glaring, horrible errors, people will have to write in and let me know.

So anyway, I will send out the announcement as soon as I've posted this blog. FEBRUARY 15TH, 2009, VEVELANE.COM GOES LIVE!!!

The second thing I have to report on is my tournament yesterday -- that was a combination of good and bad, but definitely made for an interesting day. I checked in and waited a LOOOONG time for my division to come up (That's just what you do at these events unless you're lucky enough to be a five-year-old child, whose division goes first.) only to find that there was only one other competitor at my skill level and she was way out of my weight class. OK, no problem; I'll give it a try. So we got to fighting, me at 122 lbs. and my opponent at 148 lbs., in the women's expert no-gi division.

It was quite a good match. I shot at her to score a nice inside sweep take-down. Going down she caught me in a guillotine from the bottom of half-guard. I defended and passed her half-guard, we rolled and then I had the guillotine from the bottom of guard. It was a nice, tight hold, but she still managed to escape. We went back and forth some more, and I started to feel like I had some leeway in the match. The other girl was heavier and when she moved, she had a lot of momentum to bring against me, but her holds weren't tight in a way that felt threatening. And that was my mistake -- I thought I could allow her to set up a kimura attack and then escape, but I was overconfident, and she managed to get the lock.

After that, I did end up getting a second match, and that's where the craziness of the day began. The winner of the lightweight intermediate division was asked to fight up so we could make a lw. advanced division. This turned match turned into a good indication of how arbitrary tournament divisions can be. This girl was quite good; she could have been fighting in advanced to begin with. She had some techniques I didn't know (I got vaulted to advanced early on, actually, through good instinct; I have some technical catch-up to do against some of the fighters with longer careers), but I coped, assessed her game, and gave back to her.

It was a great looking fight -- people came up to me afterwards and gave compliments about how impressed they were watching it. A lot of scrambling, speed, and escapes both ways; both of us moving ahead and back in points. And then our heads crashed together, I glanced to the side, and saw blood on mats. I yelled to ref, and we had to stop the fight. My brow had split open, and they brought the medics out to try to close it up. They declared it a very deep cut, and I assumed they were going to call off the fight, but after they staunched the blood, they gave me the option to continue, and my opponent and I both agreed we'd go for it.

That turned out to be an unlucky choice because, though we went for another good two minutes, almost running out the clock, and I further impressed the spectators with my gameness, in the very last seconds she caught me in a standard armbar from guard that went strangely awry, and I felt something pop in my shoulder. I tapped for that.

So it was an unsuccessful day as far as winning medals went, but I did have two good fights, and both my opponents were fantastic people to fight and meet. The middleweight girl asked if she could come train with me in the future, and the lightweight said she'd seen my at previous tournaments and had wanted to fight me for a long time. She also invited me to a rematch after my cut had healed. (I didn't let on about the shoulder until I got off the mat -- it would have been a bit much.)

So I ended up missing my gi division and driving myself to the ER to get my head stitched and glued and my shoulder injury diagnosed as a sprain. And I reflected that I was pretty happy with the day actually; it had given me a good new perspective on the tournament thing. I spent a long time in the beginner brackets when I started out, winning some and losing some, until I hit a phenomenal winning streak, shot through intermediate and landed in advanced. I had originally hope I could just keep shooting upwards, but what I've realized is that getting to the advanced level is actually becoming a beginner again. I'm just beginning at that level, and through luck I missed putting in some of the ground work I would otherwise have put in as an intermediate fighter. It looks like tournaments are going to be a learning experience for me for a while, until I can acclimate and hit that good stride I had again. I definitely improved between last November's contest and this one, so I'm going to focus on positives like that, have fun, enjoy and learn from my fights, and shrug off as much pain as I can.

On that note, though, the bad news is that I'm out of training for at least a week on doctor's orders, and the sprain will take much longer to recover fully. Blech.

And just for an added kick, that's how I spent my Valentine's Day!

  Feb. 2, 2009, 7:24 p.m. -- Yesterday I started a new weightlifting program at the gym. I've been excited to get going on this one; it's a three-month program in three parts -- one month for strength, one for muscle mass, and one for leaning out. I worked all the various lifts into my calendar and took my measurements so I can monitor my progress far more scientifically than I normally do, and I got to work.

And I must say this program, or the current strength portion of it anyway, is rather crazy. Just massively time-consuming. Like five sets of nine different exercises and long rest intervals. I spent two hours on legs yesterday, and this morning with my gym opening at 7:30 and my work day starting at 9, I couldn't finish chest and shoulders.

However, I feel this is pretty awesome. For one thing, I am not nearly as sore in the legs today as I expected to be. And for another, I went back to the gym and finished up today's lift over my lunch hour. So this is going to be more of a challenge than I anticipated. But I am so all for forging ahead and seeing what I can get out of it. Two lifts a day? It'll be something to try. Grrr! I feel very justified in growling at this time.

  Jan. 29, 2009, 5:01 p.m. -- I've got to report on the excellent Grapple Den party I attended last night, first of all. I must say, I was a little wary of attending since I was just getting over a cold, and I was planning to take it easy. When does that ever happen, right? Nonetheless, I was feeling up to decking myself out in hippy gear in honor of the Flower Power theme, and I have a duty as the Grapple Den DJ, after all. (I served my duty as a hippy party DJ by playing far too much Rolling Stones under the excuse that they're period appropriate if not always mood appropriate, but no one seemed to mind.)

So the party got rolling, and it so happened that a large group of friends all from the same martial arts school (I never found out which one, but their style incorporated a lot of freestyle type movement with submission grappling objectives) got a series of back-and-forth matches going between them. Now these guys were fun to watch and brimming with energy, but I couldn't let things continue with no representation from the lady wrestlers. So I stripped off my love beads and plunged in. Had a very fun match with Liz, faced several people ridiculously bigger than me in the Royal Rumble, invented a new and irreplicable omoplata to arm bar transition in a mini session, and was mad impressed by the ability of a new girl, Desiree. She's only been training three DAYS she said; damn, I would love to see her in a few months then.

Also, this Gapple Den had an amazing representation of guest wrestlers -- Sarah Tiger, Jasmine Flower, and Helen Von Mott. I didn't get a chance to roll with Jasmine, and Sarah and I are saving up for our video catfight tomorrow, but I did face Helen in the Royal Rumble, and also got to work with her a little on the auxiliary mat, where she showed me a nice omoplata technique of hers. Very cool to have all these ladies come out. They were a big hit, and I believe Helen quite impressed the martial arts school contingent.

So, the next Grapple Den is Feb. 25th with a Cops and Robbers theme. And the one other thing I had to mention besides the party is that this is a crazy video week for me. Not only do I have my catfight shoot with Sarah Tiger tomorrow, but on Saturday, I'm doing a spandex domination match. Spandex domination. It's even fun to say. Just try it.

  Jan. 25, 2009, 11:22 a.m. -- So, here I am making my first blog entry on this site, and what do I have to report? Basically, that I have been doing a lot of web design just lately. A lot, a lot. On the one hand, this is very exciting. I'm delighted with how this place is shaping up. Kudos to my webmaster for giving me such a good structure to work with, and kudos to me for tweaking it to my liking.

There's also the fact that for me to be doing a lot of web design means that I have also been learning a lot of web design. Again, exciting. I could go on about how awesome it is that I've figured out how to change the color of the borders around my pictures, and any actually internet-savvy readers I may have would scoff and chuckle.

On the other hand, this is slightly ridiculous. It's putting me in mind of all-nighters from the college days, and I do not truly have a deadline here. Well, not other than the fact that having the apartment mostly to myself this weekend has given me wonderfully focused working time, and that will come to an end tomorrow. But, seriously, I must get out into the open air. All this typing and hunching and squinting seems rather inglorious for a lady with her own wrestling website. (Irony, paradox, a glimpse behind the scenes -- call it what you will.)