Current mood:	bouncy
Current music:	Nervous Breakdown, by Black Flag

Fun club tonight felt particularly epic. This group included me, Mark, Rachel, Molly, Tony, Willie, and Peter who showed up at the last minute. The first match was me against Willie Maiden, and it was different from any other friendly fisticuffs I’d ever seen or participated in with this group. Maybe that doesn’t say much, since we’ve only been doing this for a few weeks, but this still felt pretty out there. I felt nervous about fighting him even though I’d never seen him go up against anyone before, simply because his charming craziness gave me a vague impression that he would be a wild person to scrap against. This ended up being true. We started off normally enough, exchanging a flurry of punches to the torso, and then he suddenly leaned in and scooped me off the ground. I scrabbled for purchase on his back and ended up arched around his torso clinging to his shoulders while he held onto my legs and started spinning around. There was a tree by the edge of a gravel pit and he started backing up towards it. “Is it okay if I slam you into the tree?” he asked. I assented, provided that he aimed my head away from it. We’d agreed beforehand that everything was acceptable except for blows to the face and groin, but he was very gentlemanly about asking me about various things before doing them. I suppose this was a good thing, since he was using a lot of different tactics that no one else had tried before. Anyway, Willie started to run backwards towards the tree trunk, and I felt giddy from the flying sensation and the anticipation of my impact against it. At the last moment he changed his mind though, and instead just threw me down onto the ground before quickly leaping down and pinning me. It was a strange and effective pin. Normally being pinned down consists of one person laying or sitting on top of the other while hitting them, and the person on the bottom can still get some punches in unless their wrists are being restrained. Most of the time I can even get my legs up and slam my heels down on their back. Willie did this really weird thing where he ended up sitting in front of me instead of on me, with his legs tangled up in mine and his body weight applied in such a way that I couldn’t sit up and was unable to strike back at him at a decent angle. He was very slow about his movements, often pausing for half a minute while I swung at him in an almost entirely ineffectual manner and then carefully and deliberately delivering the fiercest punches that I’ve ever experienced.
After doing this for a while I eventually managed to lever myself up, and we hugged after stopping to catch our breath. After exchanging a few more of the dancing-around-and-punching-each-other normalities, he threw me down on the ground almost immediately and this time grabbed my legs and started swinging me around so that my upper body was being scraped against the gravel. I appreciated the creativity of this strategy, but felt a bit confounded because all I could do was thrash and it was impossible to twist myself in the right way to escape while being swung at such a high speed. Being a gentleman again, Willie altered his grip and said, “I’ll drag you with this leg while you try to kick me with your other leg.” I think that was the best part of the meeting. There was something so amazing about being swiftly swung around against the ground and having my shirt start to ride up so that I could feel the loose gravel grinding against my back (but I was too high to register anything other than amazement at the sensation), and at the same time wildly kicking at his torso and never being sure if the blow was going to land because he kept changing directions and sometimes that made my foot fly off in all sorts of crazy directions. I kept whooping with delight and laughing the whole time, except for a few instances when a particularly hard impact against the ground left me unable to breathe for a few seconds.
Somehow we transitioned from that to me being pinned again, although this time I managed to wiggle myself into a position in which I could punch back. There was no first person to back down (as far as I remember. I was dizzy at the time) since I think we both suddenly slowed down and relaxed into a huddle on the ground at the same time, but there was no question about who was the victor.

I’d like to say, and I’ll try to say this without coming off as bragging, that very few other people could have a fight like that. For starters, so many guys have been conditioned against hitting girls to the point where they won’t do it even in a consensual and recreational setting. Most trained fighters like Willie have been taught to not use their abilities against other people, but he was willing to engage me after taking the precaution of asking me about certain moves first. Also, I don’t think that most girls who are as small as me would be willing to fight with someone with Willie’s size and ability. Perhaps that does sound like bragging. The thing I wanted to emphasize was that it felt special, because it seemed that he could execute certain moves against me that wouldn’t work against a different and bigger person, and I found myself having to fight back in ways that I wouldn’t need to use against anyone else. And the whole thing was so amazingly friendly.

We sat down with the others and caught our breath for a few minutes. Mark Lader was really raring to go, as he always is, and ended up cajoling Willie into immediately going against him when Peter and Tony lacked the inclination to fight at that moment. This ended up being a little unfortunate, since Willie had been drinking earlier in the evening. He was able to be perfectly coordinated and agile while fighting me, and lucid while talking to me, but the combination of drinks, getting into a second fight without much time to rest, and the fact that Mark is an extremely aggressive fighter led to him collapsing on the ground. He wasn’t injured, just suddenly feeling the effects of the alcohol far more than he was previously due to the exertion. I lifted his head up into my lap and carefully poured some water into his mouth, and then we carried him to the sitting area so that he could rest.

Pete and Tony fought next. I didn’t catch all of the details since I was keeping an eye on Willie, but they seemed pretty evenly matched and both put up an energetic fight. I was happy to see Pete having such a good time during his first appearance at one of these gatherings.

We just sat around for a while after that, since Molly had just come to watch and Rachel was feeling too sick to fight. I’d certainly been tired out and pummeled pretty thoroughly by going against Willie, but I wanted to go again just because I hadn’t gotten to exchange many good punches in the midst of his wrestling and swirling attack. I asked Pete if he would like to have a bout with me and he demurred, saying, “Maybe, but I don’t know if I could hit a girl.” I thought this was kind of funny seeing as how he’d just witnessed me happily being hurled and smashed about, but also respected his feelings and didn’t press the issue besides assuring him that in this context, hitting a girl ain’t no thang.

I eventually ended up inviting Tony to fight me, after we’d retreated to the Greens so we had to walk back. I’d thought on previous occasions that I would never want to fight him because I felt so intimidated as well as awed after watching him fight Rachel. However, I had noticed that he typically adjusts his fighting style to match whoever he’s facing, and I also felt more in the mood to challenge myself this evening. I’d been really apprehensive about having a match with Willie too, and that ended up being great, so I thought why not?

I was no longer panting from my earlier round, but I still wasn’t able to last for very long because I’d already burned up so much energy. What briefly transpired between myself and Tony was awesome though. His punches weren’t as devastating as Willie’s, but he still packed a pretty hard wallop and they came in a much more rapid succession. I was moving more slowly than before (I think he was as well but couldn’t tell for certain) but still managed to leap around and got some good hits in myself. He tried to trip me, and I ended up dragging him down so that we both crashed into the ground and started grappling there. He managed to get me in a headlock but I grabbed his other arm so although I was ostensibly in the weaker position I was able to use my free hand to punch him while he had both arms occupied.

Eventually we rolled away from each other and sprang to our feet, but I had to call for an end a minute or two after that because I was feeling completely worn out. Amusingly enough Jen walked by right before the end and stared in either bemusement or horror at the last few punches delivered along with terse grunts. I had to reassure her verbally that I was alright a few times after I sat down, because I was too exhausted to lift my head and display my beaming smile.

So much awesome. I’ve certainly gained satisfaction at past events from fighting people who I was able to exert a more dominating influence on, through sheer aggressive enthusiasm rather than any advantage in strength or reach. I found facing two people who are a great deal more skilled at fighting than I am to be a much more amazing experience though. Winning or outlasting the other person is nice, but my main focus is on the ability to shed as much restraint as possible, which I’m more capable of doing when exchanging blows with someone is more proficient at hurting me than I them. I look forward to fighting W and T again, more than anyone else. And Rachel who has possibly been my favorite person to fight, because I felt that there was this perfect balance there since she is not easily overwhelmed but also didn’t overwhelm me, so I’m more capable of having an extended match where I don’t feel at ease but also don’t get tired so quickly.

I was so exhausted and sore while walking to W.C. and chatting with Peter, but also so happy. I spent a while pondering the brief conversation I had with Rachel about the prevalence of sadism or at least sadistic tendencies in everyone, and also how relevant those tendencies are for these get-togethers. I don’t think of this as violent, since I’m engaging in these activities with people who I adore and because I’m not angry. Sometimes I use the term rage to refer to the state I get into, but that isn’t entirely accurate and I only use it because the buzz I get is similar to that of rage. What I really feel is just happy though, during and in a quieter way after. The twinges which come from moving around with bruised muscles for the next few days serves as a pleasant reminder. And I really don’t know if sadism plays a part of this for me, because although I enjoy hitting people, as far as I can tell the pleasure is somehow derived from the action itself, not from satisfied thoughts concerning the pain that I’m inflicting.

Man, how crazy and nonsensical do I sound when I talk about these things?

Funnily enough, the theme of the night continued when I reached W.C., since I spent a while standing outside with Kat, Noel, and Richard Hell practicing various ways to get out of holds, as well as various ways to painfully restrain someone. An adorable moment arose when Noel asked me to put him in a choke hold so that he could demonstrate how to get out of one, and I reached up and stood on my tiptoes while just barely managing to raise my hands to his throat and then gave up while crying out, “I can’t reach!” Everyone burst out laughing and Noel grabbed me and started tossing me up and down in the air.

Also, oh the simple pleasures of life! They include Richard Hell dirty talking in John Schroeder’s voice.

Okay, off to run naked through campus while wearing a cheerful springtime-themed strap-on and possibly get arrested!