Ring Training

Yesterday I got it into my head I wanted to learn more in the ring.

The insulting comments on a previous blog post got me to thinking about what I did and didn't know about being in the ring. While the douche who wrote the comment remains an arrogant, self-righteous insulting troll, doesn't mean what it said can't serve a purpose. Looking past the blather, there was the fact that I'm sure there's a lot to be learned about being in the ring and after last night, I understand this fact with greater clarity.

I messaged with Sarge (his ring persona) in the day and last night I was in the ring with him. He ran through a lot of things with me, from tying up to escapes to reversals to properly landing bumps. I marveled at how second nature everything was to him. I'd love to have that level of physical knowledge and prowess. I know we only scratched the surface of all there is to know and I am so very grateful to him for sharing as much as he has with me.

The highlights of the night was getting suplexed twice in a row (the second one I didn't land right, heels should NEVER hit the mat first) then monkey flipped. I could have kept going for hours but it was Thursday night and we both had to work today.

He also mentioned he knew of another local wrestling couple who had contacted him and were looking to learn more about wrestling as well. A real possibility for wrestling another couple who both wanted to be there? He showed me a picture of them and the lady looked good. The fellow was in good shape too, the thought of whether Frenchie would like to try wrestling him crossed my mind. She and Frenchie together would make a hot match and the thought flitted through my mind of enjoying a match with her myself. Very exciting prospects, however much just wishful thinking at the moment.

Once I returned home and showered, Frenchie reaped the spoils of a man who felt very much alive, something she was looking for for the past two nights. Lately I've felt very sluggish and uninterested, yet all I did was wrestle in the ring, not even with her, and I was so wired and alive she got a two-rounder pounding which she loved.

The sad part is I know nights like this are the exception rather than the rule, which is really a painful realization for me. I like being active, I like doing something unusual, I like learning new things, I like being able to give my wife what she desires.

So that was that and I'd like to think the future holds promise of more fun but only if I make it happen...

Photoset for a fan

 Back at the beginning of April I received a brief email from a fan asking if we'd be interested in doing a 100 pic photoset for him and at what cost. I asked Frenchie what she thought of this and her response was "Yeah let's do it!" So I responded we would do it and after giving him the price, he inquired about upping the ante to 200 pics. 200? Seemed like a lot but heck yeah we can do it!

So after nailing down some more details, we set about doing the shoot. It took several nights to get the first set of 100 done. The realization of just how many pics it really was dawned on us in this time. If we had had a photographer helping, I suspect it would have been faster but we don't know anyone local who could and would be willing to do it for us. Just getting us on the mats in good energy and time was hard enough, never mind trying to schedule in someone else's time late at night.

We sent those first photos off, he was pleased and we started into the rest. Somewhere in the midst of this he went away on vacation so it was a little while before we heard back again.

While we were waiting to hear from him, we had spent time doing new shots and I realized that we had forgotten to include an important piece of attire! D'Oh! So, we had to start the second set again.

 With our family life being what it is, it took us a while to find the energy and time to get it done. Lucky for us, he was very patient and forgiving for us to get it done as soon as we could.

So as of last night, I finished cropping and resizing the last pics and sent them along in email.

Lessons learned in this:
1) Wrestling with your spouse and getting paid for it is as great as it sounds.
2) 200 photos is a LOT of photos.
3) It takes a LOT of time to process 200 photos, even if it is just a simple crop/resize/save. Having a photographer there to compose every shot perfectly would eliminate this but would also introduce many complications to our activity.
3) We don't have the time and energy to make a business of doing custom shoots of this nature on any kind of regular basis. We could never keep up with any demanding customers nor do we want to. We want to keep our wrestling fun so our business model would be to produce as much as we can when we can and put that up for sale, aside from just doing things as we have for years. That is, sharing a lot of what we do for free because I know how much I would have loved finding a website like ours when I first went looking that said to me and my girlfriend, "Yes, wrestling is fun to do together and you're not alone".

The shots I've sprinkled in this blog are some of the ones we had to put aside for lacking the requested attire so they are just our pics now. There are many more which I am saving for use in the new edition of the Mixed Wrestling Holds Gallery that I'm currently working on. If things go according to plan, it will be launched on June 1st.