One man's introduction to submission style mixed wrestling
Man, was I nervous! What had I gotten myself into now? I'd obviously made a wrong turn coming out of the San Francisco airport. Had I made all the arrangements to set up the session, get in early, rent a car - only to wind up lost? I'd waited over thirty years to wrestle a woman.
Oh there were a few times messing around as a teenager and tickle fighting with my wife. But never a real contest, never with the chance that I could be beaten, that I could be forced to admit that even with my best effort I had been beaten. Yes, I had lost tennis matches to women and occasionally played pick up ball with college basketball players who burned me, even one who out muscled me for rebounds. But then I'm 5'9", 145 and she was 5'11" and more than 145. Besides, in other sports it doesn't come down to body against body. Wrestling is the purest form of domination and I wanted to know what it felt like to lose. Josephine was supposed to be really good but since I was a little taller and a little heavier I thought I could make it tough for her.
Ahhh. There's 14th. Take a right. Now it should be easy. But God I'll never make it. Better change in the car as I drive. Sweating like a pig. Lose the shirt and open the windows. Out of these jeans, into sweats and tennies. There's the library she said to call from. Slip this t-shirt on and I'm out of here. Lucky nobody's at the telephone booth.
The soft, friendly voice. "Hello."
"Uh, hi, uh, this is Zeke." Man, I sound like a dork.
"Zeke. You're late. I thought you were going to stand me up." Was she watching me out a window or something? Why set up the call if she couldn't see what I looked like? "Sorry, I just got lost a little."
"Well, from here it's real easy. Three blocks take a left, go a block and a half and you'll see a light brown house with a brick walkway. Don't park in front, please. There are some places a little farther down the street." "Got it" I repeated the directions to prove I had.
"OK Zeke. Look forward to meeting you."
In two minutes I was ringing the bell and then she was there - smaller than I expected with a narrow face, welcoming blue eyes, shoulder length blond hair and what many would consider a knockout look.
"What the hell is this," I thought. "Black dress, high heels, eye shadow, lipstick?" I felt like Jimmy Stewart in Destry Rides Again telling Marlene Dietrich he was sure there was a beautiful face under all that makeup. Except at my size I'll have to settle for Audie Murphey in the remake, and I was too shy to ask her to wash it off.
"Zeke?"
I nodded.
"Come in. I'm Josephine." The voice was still inviting, a little teasing, a little supportive. The eyes took me in, sized me up, and concluded this was going to be an easy couple hundred. Why did people always think that when they saw me?
"So you wanted to wrestle?"
"Uh, huh." Quite the conversationalist I am.
"First time?" As if she had any doubt. "I'm a dominatrix but I also love to wrestle. Haven't had a chance in the last few days. Still, If you find after we start you want to try something else, let me know. A little spanking, maybe?"
"No, just wrestling."
We were now sitting on a couch in room with mats covering the floor. No chains or locks or whips or other stuff around, for which I was grateful. But I couldn't get over the dress, heels, eye shadow and lipstick. We chatted about what experience I had with wrestling, what I did, how much I travelled, the types of things she did other than wrestle. Nice but my time was already short and I wasn't looking for verbal bonding. I didn't know the protocol for pushing the action. She did.
"So are we going to wrestle or what?" I'd been wasting my own time - got to learn to express myself.
"How do you want to do this"
"I don't know. I mean, you're the one who's experienced so you tell me what you think will work best."
"Well, why don't we just try some wrestling. I'll go as hard as you go. But I've got to warn you I'm very competitive. The harder you wrestle, the harder I'll wrestle. I hate to lose." All this in such a friendly tone - but clearly meant to be taken seriously. "Let me do a quick change and we'll get started."
I took off the sweats, shoes, socks, and shirt - down to my jock, support biker shorts, and looser outer shorts. Wanted to make sure there was plenty to keep things in their proper places. She was back as I pulled off my last sock. Modest black two piece designed to stay in place during the action. She didn't look small anymore, nor did she look pumped or cut - just strong and hard. If there was any body fat on her, it was hiding.
"You look pretty fit. I may be in trouble here." I took the first part was an honest compliment, but the mischievous twinkle in her eyes made it clear - no way did she believe she might be in trouble. "Now remember if either or us says 'Submit' or taps the other twice or taps the mat, we stop immediately."
I walked towards her trying to brim with confidence.
"You want to start standing or on knees."
"I think I'd like to be on knees."
"Good. I like that better. My room isn't really big enough for throwing people around." The smile made it clear who she felt could throw who around.
We knelt together and locked hands - and eyes.
Is it the cobra or the mongoose that mesmerizes it's victim before striking? Regardless, Josephine was the cobra and if I was the mongoose I was one who'd been sent out to battle too soon. We pushed against each other not so much in a test of strength as a probing for an opening. She was probing; I was countering. Or maybe she was just granting me a little ego boosting time before putting me away.
"You've got a lot of upper body strength."
Strange to have a woman, the gender with strength from the hips on down, complimenting a man on his comparative upper body strength. But there was no sense of concern in her voice or her smile.
Then I was thrust into a tornado. The woman was everywhere. Her right arm had me pressed to her side in a headlock that I never saw coming. I struggled to stay on my knees, continually moving just fast enough in the direction she wanted me to go to avoid going down. She leaned forward, pulling me more horizontal while whipping her right leg up trying to put me in a body scissors but I again kept moving and pushing her leg away with my arm. She rolled on her back, releasing the headlock and using both arms to pull my head into her chest while whipping her legs around me. Success. She had me in a body scissors but with legs on my sides rather than stomach and back. I forced myself to my knees freeing my head from her grasp, stood and walked her backwards until she had to release the hold.
"You men seem to like that move to get out of a scissors," she observed. I didn't know whether that was a compliment, a casual observation, or a suggestion that it was cheating since we were supposed to be on our knees. Whatever. I'd survived the first onslaught and we called a break. I think it was mutual, but I needed one whether it was or not. I now understood why my friends who wrestled in college looked so exhausted a couple of minutes into the match. We'd been at it five minutes and there had been no stalling going on.
"You're pretty feisty," more ego building. "Excuse me for a minute. I'll be right back." She returned quickly with a towel and a couple of glasses of water.
"So she's taking me more seriously," I thought. Why was I so pleased? I had paid money to wrestle a woman and was pleased that I was able to avoid her pulling me into the kind of tight, dominating embrace that so excited me in videos and pictures. But I wanted the domination to be real and I guess I also wanted to discover that I wouldn't be a cupcake for a smaller woman to handle. I was working way too hard and the action was way too fast for me to feel even a hint of the sensual or erotic, but it was great. My own competitive nature was enjoying the physical test. Strange creatures we are.
"Ready." Josephine wasn't stalling. She may have been surprised at her inability to put me away quickly, but that just made her more eager to get to the task. The lockup was the same. In fact it was always the same. She even commented on how I always started the same. What did I know?
Again I looked into her eyes, seeing in them more excitement than before, as if to say "This is going to be fun - more of a challenge - more or a conquest - more satisfaction when I get him." And then I was in a headlock again. This time instead of turning and pulling me into her side where I was able to avoid most danger by staying close enough to give her little leverage, she hopped forward and over dropping her left armpit on the back of my head and tightening her arm around my neck. Raising her butt up and pushing forward and down she drove my face into the mat. I tried to grab the back of her thigh but she kept it out of reach and then started turning me in circles on the mat. It was embarrassing to again find myself unable to create even the slightest threat; responding instinctively to stay out of worse danger was the best I could do. Then there was the running commentary.
"You like your face pushed into my breast there, do you?" It was not the sensual experience I normally associated with such a position, but it was a bit of compensation. Not that I was about to admit it.
"You wiry, tough guys are the worst, but in the end you'll give up. You know that already, don't you Zeke." It was not a question. I powered up to my hands and knees, thinking I might be able to roll her over and loosen her grip. We rolled but nothing happened.
"A lot of energy used up for nothing there."
I pulled hard on her arm but the only way I was going to be able to pull loose was to leave my head behind. "Too strong for you?"
Again I powered up.
"Big mistake." Before her words registered I started to push forward, instead of resisting she pulled me towards her, dropping on her back and swinging her legs around me again. "Now you're in big trouble." She'd adjusted the headlock to allow her to lock the scissors around my stomach, forcing my upper body to twist towards her. I didn't feel in any danger of submitting, but I sure couldn't figure out how I was going to get out of there. So I asked for some assistance.
"What the hell can I do to get out of here?"
"Give up."
I tried relaxing and then exploding with a push against her shoulders. Nothing happened.
"You certainly have a lot of energy."
We were sweating heavily enough now so that I thought it might be getting tough for her to maintain the hold. I again started to push against her shoulders then quickly shifted to swing my left arm around her head figuring I could distract her by pulling her neck sideways. Before my arm got half way there, my head was free but her legs were perpendicular to my body and my left arm was pulled straight out towards her. Ignorant as I was, I had no idea what was coming.
"Really big mistake." She let out a satisfied gasp as she slipped her right arm over my left, her left arm under it a little more towards my forearm, grabbed her right bicep with her left hand and rotated her weight so her upper body started pushing down on my arm and pulling up on her left, pressuring my arm to bend in a direction arms don't bend.
It took a lot longer to describe than for her to do. I had been introduced to the arm bar and it was very clear we were not going to be friends.
"This hold causes a lot of pain and eventually breaks things." She said with considerably more enthusiasm that I thought the situation called for. "You don't have any way out, trust me." What I desperately needed was to trust that she wouldn't actually break my arm, but nice as she was it was clear Josephine really liked having me in this position. And there was an air about her similar to the child who has no malicious intent but is curious to discover what the limits are. She started to put on a little more pressure.
"O.K. O.K. I quit. I quit." I also slapped the mat, tapped her shoulder and probably screamed a couple of times. It was important I get my message across. She released the arm bar immediately but lay next to me with her legs still around me but not locked. Sort of lounging as she smiled at me. I turned over onto my back as she pulled her left leg out still leaving her right across me. I let out all the breath I had left and rested my hands on the side of her leg. It was rock hard. And she was relaxing.
"You're a tough little guy. I misjudged you."
"Not tough enough, I'm afraid."
For the remainder of the session we played variations on a theme. The theme was for Josephine to dominate me on the mat mixing compliments with playful taunts as she did so. My role was to fight her off as long as I could, counting each thwarted move and each drop of sweat forced from her as victories.
She really liked arm bars, picking on my right arm next so that I would have equal amounts of soreness in each for the following weeks. Then she trapped the left again in a sort of arm scissors with her legs tight against my side, feet past my head, and arms forcing my already aching limb in whatever direction she wanted it to go with no discernable effort on her part.
"I just love this position," she sighed, sounding like someone lounging in front of the fire place. "It's my favourite part of wrestling, having someone helpless in my control, knowing that anytime I want I can either force them to submit or break their arm. You know I could really hurt you badly with this hold."
Not a hint of a threat in the voice. Just a statement of fact. She didn't put any real pressure on the hold for a time, just savoured the sense of power, paying no serious attention to my attempts to get at her with my legs, roll into her to pull my arm out, or loosen her legs with my free arm.
"I guess that's enough now."
The pressure increased and I gave immediately. After that I requested no more arm bars. She consented with a bit of a pout - used in a way that emphasized my inferiority in having to limit her options rather than suggesting any real unhappiness on her part. Then she promptly switched over to a couple of scissors submissions and one to a headlock.
She was able to get me into body scissors and various headlocks with ease but I was able to resist submitting to them for far longer than with arm bars. When I gave up it was more because it was clear I was never going to escape from the hold than from acknowledgement that she could really hurt me with the hold she had me in.
Not to say that I didn't have my moments. I forced three submissions from her - in my dreams. Just thought I'd throw that in so that I can imagine her reaction reading it. And be at a safe distance when she does. Actually I only gained one offensive hold, catching her by surprise in a quick front bearhug right off the start after one of my many submissions.
"Good move, Zeke!" I cinched it in trying to put explosive power into my squeezes. "You really have a strong upper body."
It sounded like an honest compliment. Unfortunately she wasn't wheezing, gasping or showing any other sign of discomfort while she said it. Because my head was buried in her shoulder (actually forced tightly against her shoulder; there was no soft place on Josephine to bury my head - even her breasts felt hard when she pressured you into them).
I couldn't see her expression. I hoped maybe it was a grimace from the effort of withstanding the pressure I was putting on her, but I had no expectation it would be a look of concern. Still I had her under control for a time. Then I tried to straighten her up a bit to improve my leverage. Immediately she flipped her legs forward locking them around my waist. "Zeke, your arms are strong. Too bad for you they're not as strong as my legs." I responded by making a second mistake as I realized my bearhug was not going to get the job done. I reached down to pry her legs loose, an act doomed to failure anyway, and immediately she bent me into a front headlock as well. As usual once she had me helpless, she was content to enjoy the power as I made my hapless attempts to extricate myself. At one point I grabbed her butt and pulled hard trying to roll us over in hopes that the movement might loosen one of the holds. "Trying to cop a feel there, Zeke?"
"Just trying to find a way out of here." She probably couldn't hear a word I said as it was pretty much spoken into the side of her ribs.
"What's the matter Zeke? Embarrassed that a weak, little girl is beating you up?" I really wasn't the least bit embarrassed. I knew from playing against women in other sports that while the top male will always beat the top female, the top females will beat lots of other males. Josephine obviously knew a lot more about wrestling than I did, especially submission wrestling where she also had the advantage in that I really could never bring myself to try to hurt someone in a sport - male or female. I'd quit any game if it came to that. I think she was also stronger than I was - even in her upper body, despite her constant compliments. Again that didn't surprise me, as I've never seriously hit the weights. Sit ups, push ups, things like that had always been sufficient for my needs.
But I was surprised that she was quicker than I was - quick reflexes were my greatest asset. Maybe her knowledge gave her an edge in anticipation that made it seem like she was quicker - as my instincts from years of tennis, baseball, and basketball give me advantages in anticipating where any kind of ball is going to go. Maybe I'm getting old. Maybe even if I were her age, she'd still be quicker. It really didn't matter. She was a splendid athlete and I was definitely experiencing genuine physical domination.
I think she got bored before I would submit and shifted the hold to a tight body scissors, positioning herself perfectly perpendicular to me with her arms around my lower rib cage.
"You should know that I can, and have, broken ribs with my scissors. I love to hear them snap." In order to avoid panic, I assumed she was engaging in verbal intimidation rather than making an actual threat. She loved dominating, but I had confidence she wouldn't violate the spirit of our agreement. Still since I was never going to get out of this hold, I tapped out again.
By now it was clear that I was never going to challenge her in submission style wrestling so I requested we switch over to wrestling for pins. This would eliminate most of the holds she counted on for submissions. She reacted as if she had never done it and wasn't sure what the rules would be, then jumped me before we were actually ready to start and gave me an extremely quick five count, laughing the whole time.
"OK. So that was maybe a little unfair. I'll do it right next time." It surprised me that I didn't actually do much better wrestling for pins than I had in submissions. We each tried to hold the other in a schoolboy pin. Neither succeeded, but both times as we continued wrestling after the school boy pin was broken, she found another way to pin me. The last was with a neat reverse pin with my head flattened under her belly - yes that was hard too - and her arms around my waist. Never done this before - yeah, right.
"I do think you're pinned again Zeke. My, my. Why is it you wind up underneath me every time?"
Then she jumped up, clasped her hands over her head, and danced around me as I lay on my back. "The winner!!! I won! I won! I just love it when I win!!!" There was nothing faked about her enthusiasm. I think she may actually have thought I might be able to pin her.
She stepped on my chest, dropped her but down on my stomach facing away from me and bounced a couple of times - not hard enough to hurt but enough to force out gasps of air. All the time she continued to bask in her conquest. Then she rolled off me and returned to her supportive friend mode.
We talked for awhile. She pumped me up some, telling me how good I could be with a couple of lessons, comparing me to a guy with a similar build who was a great wrestler and how much he liked it when she was able to beat him. She said he was in his sixties, but if I can accept the reality that there are women who can kick my butt I can accept the reality that there are older men who can too. We talked a bit about other things. She seemed in no hurry to get rid of me, though I noticed she hadn't given me the time I lost by coming late. Why should she? You have an appointment, you come on time. She gave me a very nice hug as I left and my first wrestling experience was history.
Was it worth it? Absolutely. Was it as good as it could have been? Of course not, but that wasn't Josephine's fault. She's pretty, superbly conditioned, a great wrestler, smart, friendly, and very clear about what she does and doesn't do. She genuinely enjoys what she does - without that it would be no fun for me. I also liked knowing that anything I got, I earned. It may not have been much, but it was real. And then there's that slight uncertainty she leaves about whether she will be able to resist the temptation to put a real hurt on you. I trusted her too much to be concerned but still...
She did as well as anyone could with a first timer who refused to give much guidance and left her to try figure out the reactions of someone who tends not to show reactions. I don't think she was ever quite sure about what I liked and what I didn't. At one of our breaks lying on the mat after she'd released whichever hold she'd finished me off with, she asked if I wanted to be head scissored, a favourite fantasy of mine. I said no. I lied.
"It's common," she said. "I don't know exactly why."
Because I don't enjoy pain, I couldn't explain that part of people's enjoyment. And with her rock hard legs, there could be a lot of pain. But to be held there unable to break the hold, helpless but not in pain, looking at your conqueror as she whimsically plays head games with you... It may be the greatest thrill available in wrestling unless it's to be the one holding your opponent helpless. Still a head scissors held tight by the crotch or face sitting, while great fantasies for me, are too sensual to try with anyone but my wife - a nonwrestler but a great wife.
Most importantly, would I wrestle Josephine again? Absolutely. But for long pins only. And I'll win some. And when I do, she'll hear about it and I'll be the one dancing. And we'll still smile and hug and leave as friends. I can dream, can't I?