ChrisWrestling's blog

While I predict that this blog will be met with heavy criticism I think this is important to say.

In the era of Grindr and Sniffies the gay world seems to have become obsessed with the sharing of photos of dicks and buttholes as if those really are the only things that matter anymore. While I get it to a point on those platforms meetfighters and globalfight and whatever other platforms are out there for fighters, the people who are on these sites are generally looking for niche play. I, for one, am a legit grappler and rarely incorporate sexual play in my meetups because wrestling is about wrestling for me. I just spent a week in SF wrestling nearly every day and I would finish rough sessions high and satisfied and my depression has been nearly non-existent in the days following those matches. One of them did have crotch smothering and was semi-sexual but I never even saw the other guy's dick or butthole. I can't be alone on this but really, on this platform, those photos are irrelevant to me. As a spandex fetishist I would much rather see a bulge than a naked cock 9 times out of 10.

The second point I want to make on this, which is arguably more important, is that there is the issue of consent here as well. You don't go up to random people and flash your junk at them in the mall, so why do it here? Would it be so difficult to ask someone IF they want to see your bits before you send them? I'm not a prude by any stretch, I actually may be kinkier than most of y'all, but in the kink community consent is highly emphasized. For me, if I want that kind of play with you I will let you know, there will be enthusiastic consent which is what you want to look for. This is not an old school sentiment, the dialogue on consent has come more into focus in the Me Too era. Flashing your junk at anyone and everyone you might be a little interested in speaks to how little you value your other traits which I am far more interested in. It's disrespectful to those you send your nudes and it can be seen as sexual harassment. If you want to know who is the conservative dinosaur with the dated sensitivities, it's those who don't understand or respect other's ability to say no, I don't want to see that yet.

I've been around for 20 years and that alone blows my mind. On top of that my experiences as a grappler are no where near what I want them to be. I didn't wrestle in school and I didn't start training BJJ till about 10 years ago and part of me is ashamed that in that time I've only achieved the rank of blue belt. Hell, at the time of this writing I only have 34 confirmed past opponents from here and that number is probably pretty close to the real number as far as people I've met online. It isn't so low by choice but more situation. I'm also shocked how few people in my area are actually active on here. For me, wrestling is very much so tied into my sense of well being. Training BJJ often times helped me fight off my depression and anxiety even when my body was creating limitations on how much I could roll.

This spring my knee was injured and I have, for the first time in my life, had to turn down people who were visiting despite how much I really wanted to roll with them. I've come to hate my job because at the end of a shift my knee is swollen and very stiff and I don't have a way of leaving for something which would allow me to heal. It's been two years since I've trained BJJ and almost as long since my last matches, or so it feels like. I'm, frankly not ok. At 39 I feel 40 coming on fast and I really want to go back and be 16 again so I can try out for my highschool wrestling team, I want to start BJJ in my freshman year of college, I want to build a positive relationship with cardiovascular and strength training. I want the wrestler's body and skill.

This ties in a lot with my last post where I discussed why I started my youtube channel and my frustrations with people on here. I want to be pushed and challenged by the wrestlers around me and it isn't the same rolling with straights in BJJ. It's not that I want to fuck everyone I roll with, I've only once had sex after rolling and as hot as it was, wrestling alone is the journey for me. Win or lose it's about that journey, the challenge, the oxytocin, and without it I fall apart. If I could make a living wrestling, I would.

This is why my depression has been deeper as of late than it ever has been. I am unable to do what I love for an indefinite time and this crushes my sense of identity. I want a good physique but I'm not motivated to exercise when all I can get is vanity points. I want to be in a big room with other wrestlers training in our singlets. I want the support of my team. I want to compete and actually win at tournaments. I want to get past my anxieties and eat consistently (yeah, not eating meals has become a huge problem for me) and I want to earn cauliflower ear.

So, that's where I am and why you haven't been hearing much from me lately.

This is one of those topics that maybe I will one day cover on my channel but I have to be careful there because I don't want to come across as kink shaming or telling people they are wrong for liking something. If it weren't for PWP, BGEast, LtsWrestle, etc I might not have become interested in wrestling as I am today. If you have seen me around then you probably know I love bodyscissors, bearhugs, chokes, etc and other than chokes the others aren't exactly used for submissions in legit submission wrestling as they take too much energy/strength or are low percentage... or too dangerous at times. All I'm saying here is that if it weren't for the pro/porn influence I probably wouldn't be here for better or worse. These things have their place but I do take issue over how they influence the people who make up this wrestling community.

The youtube wrestling class project I did over Covid was intended to help those who wanted help, change the perspective of those who are active wrestlers, and to answer questions for those who were seeking answers. I suppose I may never know if I made a meaningful difference for anyone and I have fallen off being active for many reasons, some injuries, a lot of work after buying my first house, kidney stones, and it wasn't a reciprocal process. I simply don't do well talking to a camera over a long period of time and the need to continue making content was becoming taxing. What I do feel I accomplished was being one of the only influencers who actually covered the basics. Fancy shit makes for much better click bait but that wasn't my goal. I wanted to give people everything they needed to be better than 99% of the people on this site. I think I did that but you can lead a horse to water, can't make them drink it. Getting good takes drilling, rolling, dedication, hard work and the longer I put myself in that position the more I saw that no one was actually going to follow the program in an effective way which would get them where I wanted them to be.

Then came the questions I got in emails, on here, etc and most of them were pointed back to something they saw on Naked Combat or WWE or some random porn company and I was left somewhat speechless. A lot of my answers ended up being that that would never work in a real match where you have a resisting partner. Open a new tab and go to your favorite porn wrestling video or WWE match and ask yourself, is this happening because the jobber is letting it happen? Most of the time the answer is very much so no. This is also why the word "promission" bothers me because the idea is that you actually submit using pro techniques BUT if the techniques weren't bullshit they would be adopted into submission already. BJJ and Submission Wrestling are living martial arts, people add to them all the time at a rate that makes effective training difficult. It won't be long before there is some kind of inverted buggy choke from north south and a top grappler will get caught off guard by it and lose his undefeated status. You can't prepare against something you have never seen before. Yes, a camel clutch is hard to get out of when you're cranking it on but good luck getting it on a BJJ blue belt, or even a white belt with one stripe.

But, people are just having fun, right? There's no harm, right?

Well, about a decade ago I rolled with a local guy who mostly did pro "and" submission. We met for coffee and got along fine and agreed to wrestle. We had agreed on rolling real submission, I made sure he knew to tap early and tap often but when we rolled he never tapped. Instead he "sold" the submissions as a pro wrestler would. I imagine you can see where this is going. We ended a little early and I woke up to the first and only bad review I have ever had on here. He was a different person altogether. Our reviews became a back and forth till the moderators on here blocked us from each other and removed the reviews. He has since deleted his profile and started a new one but I have no desire to give that another go. The point of all that was that in that case the influence of pro wrestling had lead to injury and hurt feelings.

You know, if it gets you off then it gets you off and it's not my place to say that's wrong but at times I think a reality check is needed. That being said my biggest issue with fake wrestling is that it over-saturates as people's primary influence. Look, wrestling is a tough sport and gay wrestling organizations don't really tend to last. San Francisco is losing their club I think this year, we lost ours in Seattle the year before I moved here and I don't know anyone with the drive, experience and willingness to start a new one. My husband wants to be trained like a soldier in boot camp, I want to be trained like a wrestler in college. I want that speed, strength, physique, skill but real wrestling isn't actually sexual when you're doing it and from what I've seen gay men mostly want their wrestling to be sexy, even when they are saying they don't want sex.

This disconnect between what wrestling is and the fantasy of wrestling keeps people from discovering why athletes love the sport. 80% of or society is overweight or obese and most of us, myself included, are not nearly as active as we should be. We should be taking an interest in real wrestling because we are a marginalized community who is viewed as weak by the straights. We have anxiety and depression, we don't eat well, we often don't connect with the people around us. We should be seriously training because it gives us goals, it challenges us, we meet new people, it humbles us, we get to accomplish great things, and if we want to be dominated we know who can do that for real.

If you get nothing else from this blog get this: real wrestling is a fantastic thing and if all you know is what was made to be jerk off material or entertainment for rednecks, branch out, give BJJ a try, start a club, join a club. The community can't be built by one guy with a camera, it starts with you becoming the best possible version of yourself and then bringing a friend along for the ride.

Thank you for reading,
humbly yours,
Chris

Admittedly, I don't get to play as much as I'd like to especially in terms of scissor play top or bottom. If life were a little more perfect I'd have a friend for scissoring, and one for scissoring me, or, better yet, someone like me who both gives and takes. That being said, there's kind of a vacuum when it comes to the subject of scissors and what is left is a free for all where everyone kind of does what they do and the results are mixed.

I titled this as "Scissors as BDSM" because I wanted to take this out of the wrestling context a bit and address scissors as their own kind of play because I think the way you apply them should be vastly different depending on the context.

I was very fortuitous to be able to take a break last week and travel to the east coast to suffer in someone's legs and it struck me that some discussion the structuring of a scissor scene was as needed as discussions on muscle development for scissors and scissor technique. I am in no way saying that the scene that I was involved in was bad, hell I had a scene which I topped in a week before which needed some fine tuning, and the guy I played with had a lot of what I look for in a good scissor top. What I want to touch on really comes down to the controversial subject of what makes for good BDSM. Heaven forbid anyone ever comment on what can make a scene better and what kills a scene. Within the leather community I've known many who have been publicly shamed for such efforts but, frankly, y'all need to shut up and listen for a second, put your egos aside, and hopefully you will learn something.

Most BDSM is a journey in which to top and the bottom partake of together. Over the years I've improperly communicated that what I personally seek is a top more preoccupied with what they are doing than my personal enjoyment but in hindsight that's kind of a misrepresentation, if not an overcompensation from what happens with the non-scissor fetishist trying to indulge me. I still don't need to be told that this is hot while barely being touched and this isn't foreplay for sex to me, this is BDSM and I am bottoming to the scene you are creating.

When creating a scene in BDSM the sub should communicate their wants at the beginning, their NEEDS (such as an adjustment to pace, a loosening of rope if circulation is an issue, etc) during, and feedback after. The top however is responsible with understanding the wants and needs of the sub, controlling headspace of the sub, and pushing the sub without crossing the line. This is a delicate balance for both, honestly. Look, being a sub is hard work, arguably harder than the Dom's role, however a good Dom/Top is charged with the hardest task of all which is READING THE SUB. A good sub communicates usually when it's too late to make a meaningful change to the pace of the scene, a good Dom reads the needs of the sub well before the sub gets to the point of saying out loud what is needed. This takes experience.... the experience which is lacking due to the rare nature of a scissor kink.

So, although it is disingenuous of me to say what does and what does not make for a great scissor scene, everyone is looking for something different after all, a few points which have come up in debate with myself and ribcrusher7 should be mentioned here:

1) You're not rolling, you do not have to prove you can tap your partner, you don't have to aim for the tightest squeeze possible.

2) A scissor scene is an endurance race, not a sprint. If you're meeting up with someone and this is all that is on your docket, you need to pace yourself. Utilizing knee ride, scorpion crush technique (not even to get to a moderate crush but just to conserve energy), using your body weight can keep your partner suffering while keeping gas in your own tank,

3) Certain positions will wear your partner out faster and not in a good way. If we're talking head scissors, pay attention to where the hard parts of your legs are hitting. You don't want to crush the trachea but the muscles on the back of the neck can also get worn out quickly. For bodyscissors, scissors from the guard and backmount are very strenuous on the ribs and pose the greatest risk for cartilage damage. Even without injury the ribs can get sore fast and your sub will be tapping to rib strain more than anything else which really may not be what you're after. Body triangles can create similar pressure. Honestly, I think you need to take some strong scissors to really understand what you're doing to your bottom.

4) For the body scissors, at least for me, there is a no-go position which is direct pressure right on the stomach organ, right where the ribs and the abdomen meet. This and the traditional scorpion crush position can induce vomiting. Yeah, for breath control it kinda is the best place to put your pressure but it can kill the scene fast.

5) Speaking of breath control, it's a lot more intense when pressure is applied to the body. Anticipate that your sub will need more time to recover and will panic faster.

6) Again, with breath control, hand over nose and mouth can be fun but you don't have to be aggressive and you don't have to smash your partner's cartilage. I shouldn't have to say that but apparently I do.

7) If you are trying to choke your partner, keep in mind that you should never try to do a wind choke as this can damage the trachea and other structures in the neck. You cannot choke the back of the neck. Never crank someone's neck for any reason. No, really, if you are successful they will become paralyzed, don't do it. If you want to know how to choke someone effectively and with the lowest chance of injury watch one of my many videos on chokes. Use a technique you actually know. Not all neck squeezes are good, many are very very bad.

8) Sadism is not about creating whatever stress floats your boat, that's abuse. Again, this is a conversation or journey you are taking with a partner. You want them to suffer, they want to suffer, but you are the director of that suffering. Understand that if your sub is in subspace verbal communication with be challenging for them and they will want to be polite to you and let you do their thing. Don't take that for granted. It is a responsibility you carry. Rather than trying to test them with maximum pressure alone, try finding the point where their hand gets ready to tap and hold that edge as long as you can. If they do tap see what happens if you just release a little rather than all the way. If they allow you to hold them there do and then slowly ramp up and see if you can push them a little further than you could before.

A big point I want to drive home is that odds are, you're strong enough to get a tap, especially if you use the scorpion crush technique, but that doesn't necessarily make for a good scene. Instead see if you can play based on the headspace you're trying to create in your sub. Make them panic just to say that you can but then back off a little to keep them on edge. Let them be afraid about what you're going to do next but don't wear them out by going 100% all the time. Mix up your positions. Maybe you focus on using your legs for breath control, maybe they are a tool of fear, maybe you want them in pain from time to time. It is totally a bdsm thing so don't think about it as a submission wrestling thing where you're trying to win a match because odds are, no one signed up for that.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this and I hope it at the vary least gives a little perspective.

Chris

1) See the opening position as a puzzle to solve. Different things your opponent does will create different circumstances that should be treated, well.... different. If you're both on your knees notice his base, if his knees are close together he's going to be easier to knock over so get your high grips and turn the corner (don't go straight to one side or straight back). If he sits on his butt, don't try to climb on top of him, he's probably going to use his hooks to prevent that and you'll just get swept. Don't try to circle around without any kind of control either, he's able to move faster than you because his butt is the center of the circle. The answer to someone sitting on their butt is to shut down their hook game, control their hips, and treat it like an open guard (if you don't know what that is, look it up).

2) Only extend your arms if you have a reason to. If you're in a 50/50 situation (meaning neither of you have an advantage) it's reasonably safe to extend your arms. If you are on top in mount, it's ok. Likewise for guard, on top in side mount, on top in knee ride, when you're on top in side control. Notice a theme? If you're on the offensive it's generally ok to extend your arms, otherwise keep them glued to your chest, protecting your neck, building a conservative frame, or when you have a specific, well calculated, task that requires your amrs.

3) Both wrestlers start off with a full tank of gas. Often with evenly matched wrestlers the one with more gas in the tank at the end of the match is the one who wins. Pace yourself accordingly.

4) Speed and muscle don't make up for bad technique, they just increase the chances that someone is going to get hurt. Remember #1, see each situation as a puzzle to solve, there is a technical answer, rarely does that answer involve going fast and using muscle.

5) New wrestlers tend to be grabby. The grips game is in a lot of ways the most hard thing about wrestling. Especially in a no gi situation when there is a lot of sweat, hands and wrists are almost impossible to hold (btw, never grab fingers unless you don't give two shits about the safety of your partner), instead go for the back of the neck, the shoulders, elbows, learn to use your feet and legs as hooks and levers. Likewise, if you are under someone in any position besides guard, don't hold them to you. For one, that's how I get most of my Americanas on people. Secondly, You're using a lot of energy (#3) and not facilitating any kind of escape from that position.

6) Wrestle with your legs as much as you do with your arms. The people who advance the quickest learn this early on. Use butterfly and spider-guard, even no gi, learn a scissor sweep, reverse scissor sweep, and hook sweep. These are my most common sweeps.

7) Learn your basic positions. Side control, scarf, north south (calm down pervs :-P), switch base, knee ride (knee on belly), low mount, midrange mount, S mount, side mount, back mount, guard (start with the simple ones), top 4 quarter. Learn how to maintain these positions and make that your goal in your rolls for a while. Screw submissions, just get to these positions and learn to maintain them. Then focus on transitioning to these positions successfully. If someone is starting to escape, sometimes the answer isn't to keep that position but to transition to something which allows you to maintain control.

8) When learning your basic positions pay attention to how you're maintaining them. Most positions rely on pressure (where your single point of pressure is on your opponent), connection (how are you held to them), and how you are rooted in the ground (how are you preventing yourself from getting rolled or swept). Now, deconstruct those positions and ask yourself, how can I get the pressure off of me enough that I can move, how can I weaken my opponent's connection, and how can I unroot my partner from the ground. In most instances you only need to take away one of these elements in order to escape.

9) When you start doing submissions pay attention to technique. No technique requires a lot of muscle, if you're using a lot to finish then you're not executing the technique right. Unlike pro wrestling, you cannot hold a good submission for a long time, you can't crank it on. Submissions are designed to either break your opponent or knock them out. This is why I always establish my position and control and then attack. When I attack it is always slow because I'm confident that my opponent can't get away or defend so I can take my time and finish in a safe, controlled manner.

10) This is my coaches #1 priority for everything: DON'T LOSE! New wrestlers often are so caught up in being strong, grabby, neck cranky, or even so focused on just getting out of a bad situation that they get caught in submissions. Look, if someone has mounted you, your first priority is NOT to escape mount because mount is an attack position. If you're trying to push someone off of you, you are opening yourself up to submissions. Protect against submissions and then focus on their pressure, connection, and how they are rooted into the ground. From there you can start to break down their control and transition to something better. I'm going to take this a little further than my coach does and say that this applies to dominant positions as well. Yeah, the risk of getting submitted is low, but a good wrestler is going to start to pick apart your game and if you're not careful you're going to lose that position you worked so hard to get in the first place. So respect every thing your partner does, especially if they train BJJ because nothing they do will be random, spazzy, uncontrolled, or unplanned.

Summary:
1) have an opening strategy, recognize your opponents opening strategy, and move strategically
2) Protect your arms
3) Conserve your energy
4) Rely on technique, not speed or muscle
5) Go for easier to obtain and maintain grips
6) Use your damn legs
7) Learn your positions and how to maintain them
8) Deconstruct #7 to lean how to escape those positions
9) Good submissions depend on technique, not strength or speed. Maintain your position and apply slowly to avoid injuring your partner.
10) Don't lose. Don't get submitted, don't lose your position. This is always your #1 priority.