I turned up at the DWW (Danube Women's Wrestling Club) last Monday evening and changed into my blue wrestling singlet with black Asics shoes and red-striped white socks. Hana wore a green one-piece bathing suit but was barefoot. I was 74 kg, Hana 57. We initially agreed to an amateur/submission style with long pins; i.e. basic amateur rules with extra holds like scissors and hammerlocks with a losing opponent submitting to a hold or giving up to a pinfall (there would be no short 2 or 3 second count resulting in a pin). I agreed to both rules, although in the end they worked to my disadvantage. I had a pretty strict amateur background while Hana was more able to use submission/pro style holds. Also, during the matches I lost a couple of falls in the end when I had pinned Hana for short periods during the match.
The owner, Gunter, watched and timed the matches. He interpreted for Hana, often rather slowly translating when I was submitting a match.
After stretching and warming up, Hana and I faced off against each other and shook hands to start the contest. I then noticed her physique. Despite her light weight, her shoulders were very broad, her bathing suit stretched tightly across them. Her arms and legs were also thickish and the muscles quite well-defined, especially in the thighs. Lastly her handshake was firm and convincing. Nevertheless she smiled in a friendly fashion and seemed to be eager to begin the match.
The first match was pretty typical. We clinched and dragged each other to the mat, I eventually got in control and first applied a good double-armbar pin by trapping both of her arms behind her and by pivoting, turned her over onto her back for a couple of seconds. Hana pulled herself free but I maintained some control and switched to a grapevine hold. I wrapped my legs around hers and stretched her out underneath me, but I didn't quite control her arms to complete the move. Hana was very strong and was able to arch and pivot right out of it. We squared off again and she got me in a good half nelson and put me on the mat, rolling me over till my shoulders were straddling the mat. I was able to struggle and keep my shoulders off the mat, but Hana eventually switched to a grapevine herself and flattened me, spread-eagling my legs far apart while stretching out both of my arms to the side. My shoulders were pressed hard to the mat and I couldn't lift them off. She herself counted out 10 before I gave up the fall. Hana's first fall was won in 4:30.
The next two falls I won. In the first of them I got Hana in a good single leg takedown, dropped her to the mat and controlled the match. Eventually I pinned her with a good arm drag and body scissor; it was a long match, almost 8 minutes and left us both tired at the end and gasping for breath in short involuntary breaks throughout the match before we would resume. In the second, Hana took me down with a clean single leg takedown and immediately controlled me on the mat. For the first time, I experienced the power of her legs wrapped around me; first in a head scissor that seemed to snap my neck in two, and, as I struggled out of it, a later body scissor. With great effort I eventually pried her legs apart as they were wrapped around my abdomen and as we struggled on the mat, I again got Hana in a grapevine. This time, she attempted another arch out of the hold, but hurt her right shoulder doing so because she fell back in serious pain. She immediately submitted the fall and I got up off her at 6:20, up 2 falls to 1.
Hana rested and stretched until her right shoulder was better and we resumed. For the rest of the matches I didn't work her right shoulder and I suppose that was a bit of a disadvantage for me. Anyway, from this point Hana was pretty dominant. In Match #4, she swept me to the mat with a great single leg takedown and trip and almost immediately swung her legs around to apply a tight head scissor across my throat. This was pressured vigorously and I had only a few seconds of trying to pry myself loose from it before the pain proved too great and I submitted the fall. From initial stance to final agonized submission took only :55.
The next three falls, she won by alternating between her gruelling headscissor or grapevine combinations. The first two, Hana started the matches by taking me to the mat. As an aside, she could take me to the mat by grabbing and controlling either or both of my legs, or by clinching and forcing me to the mat. My arms were not as strong as hers and I had to evade her attempts to clinch and went for her legs instead.
In the first of these falls, after taking me down, she was able to plant me on the mat in a classic schoolboy pin with her knees straddling my shoulders and holding them down. I arched, keeping one or the other of my shoulders off the mat, but she was still very much in control. Finally, Hana slid her legs down and wrapped them around mine, breaking my arch and flattening me again in her grapevine. Combined with my arms which were also flattened out on the mat, I was completely pinned, but I actually submitted because the thrusting of her legs around mine proved too painful to bear. Like the previous fall, the match was pretty short, only 2:20.
The second bout she started by taking me again to the mat, but I quickly responded and dominated a lot of the early action, trying a number of my amateur pinning moves. Again Hana arched away and cleanly escaped. She retaliated by wrapping her legs again around my waist and thrusting hard. I finally pried her legs apart but was so tired that Hana was easily able to apply a head scissor instead. I broke her head scissor and, for the first time, applied a body scissor of my own. Hana pulled herself up off the mat, my legs still wrapped around her and she tried pinning me while I kept on scissoring her. She eventually leaned forward, breaking my scissor and essentially jack-knifing me backwards until I was twisted over onto my stomach (my neck hurt for the rest of the match). Hana dove on me, rolling me over onto my back and pinned me with a cross body press, stretching out my right arm on the mat. I was dead tired by this point but somehow struggled out of this move only to have her again wrap her legs around my neck in a scissors. This first scissors I also worked out of, but I just flopped back to the mat and Hana re-applied the hold, hard, and pulled me back towards her. A few seconds more and I submitted the fall. Hana's victory took 7:45 of hard wrestling. It was probably the decisive moment since I lost again, despite some aggressive moves on my part, and thereafter fatigue began to play a growing part in my ability to resist her moves.
After a short rest break we started again and, in the third of these bouts, I got Hana in a pretty good double leg takedown and lowered her to the mat. In a strictly amateur contest I would have had her at some disadvantage, but now I was above Hana, pinning her to the mat, but, as a consequence of my double leg takedown, she easily wrapped her legs around my waist in a body scissor. We were locked together like this for several seconds: me pinning Hana, she scissoring me. Finally, a couple of really hard thrusts and Hana rolled me over to the side. I was just gasping for air at this point lying on the mat while Hana held me tightly between her legs. Finally abandoning the scissor, she moved quickly on top of me, flattening me with a cross-body pin and stretching out my right arm and holding it to the mat. I resisted, keeping my left shoulder off the mat and Hana finished me off by again stretching out my legs in a grapevine. With that move, she forced my submission at 4:00.
At the end of that match, #7, she was ahead 5 falls to 2 and I agreed to move towards more pro-style holds. Bad idea. The next fall, I had again taken Hana to the mat with a good double leg takedown, and again Hana worked away at my waist with a body scissors while I was trying to pin her, and, at the same time, prying behind me with a free hand, (in order to break her legs as they were locked behind me). This time I broke her scissors hold and forced myself right on top of her, pinning her to the mat. She resisted and broke partially free, but I instead managed to wrap my legs around her head in a figure four head scissors. In turn, Hana flipped back and forth before rolling me over onto my stomach, all the while I continued to hold on to her with my figure four. I could feel her breaking out of the hold and as her head slipped free, I could feel a thud as she moved on top of me and began controlling my legs. My left leg was folded back and then I felt a sudden surge of pain as she pulled back on it in a kind of single leg crab. I was trapped on the mat and wasn't mobile enough to escape as she continued to bend my leg backwards in the crab. As she stretched back, prying at my leg, I could feel and see her hair drop to my eye level (my face was flat on the mat by this point); at this stage the pain began to really build and I shouted out my submission, this time at 4:30.
She took me out pretty quickly in the next match. I started well and got her down and even applied a body scissor. But the pattern was now established that I would die halfway during a fall and adopt a defensive approach to conserve energy. Hana broke free and dove on top, tying me up by twisting my right arm behind my back in a tight hammerlock, while stretching out the other and pressing it to the mat. Hana then used her body to pin me by straddling her legs over my right shoulder, her left leg pressed right up against the side of my head. I couldn't do anything more than twist about with my legs and at any second Hana could have really finished me off by swinging her legs an inch or two more and capturing my head in another of her head scissors. Anyway, she didn't need to. She held me pinned for over 30 seconds with me unable to move either of my shoulders off the mat. With some impatience, she then started counting, one...two...three...four...five! and I gave up. Hana won the fall in 3:45, but much of that was consumed in the long, long, final pinning sequence.
The final fall in our amateur/submission segment was one that I controlled for most of the match. Hana actually took me down with a flying mare, flipping me to the mat and then diving on me for control. I reversed smartly and actually got Hana in a cradle. Seeing her head and right leg converge at one stage, I locked both hands around and trapped them together. I fell back, pinning her and leaving her right leg dangling in the air. I completed the move by eventually trapping her free left leg with mine and began calling out to her to submit to my pin. Hana worked away with both hands and stretched her right leg hard, trying to break my handlock around her neck and leg. I held on desperately, and had her pinned for well over a minute. One final stretch as her hands pried at mine and her leg broke free. I briefly locked my hands together again but Hana kicked out with her right leg and broke my hands apart for good. Paralyzed, I shouted "No fair!" at Gunter but Hana swung around me as I was a bit disordered. In the same movement, she wrapped her legs around my neck and snapped me to the mat with her first thrust. Hana locked the scissor hard, maintaining her first thrust without relaxation and cutting off my breathing. I barely remember her trapping my right leg with her arms as I moaned out my submission a few seconds later. This fall was 80% dominated by me, with the exception of the first 20 seconds and, decisively, the last 10.
After a short rest period, we had a final match, based on a strictly pro-style approach in which Hana broke me with a series of submission hold and piled up 7 submissions in a row over 3 short minutes.
The first 10 bouts passed vigorously, with me getting an early 2-1 lead before Hana poured on the pressure and won 7 straight falls, some lasting 7-8 minutes, in others she ground out a submission in less than a minute. By the 10th fall, a crushing head scissor submission, I was fading, tired, stiff and sore, especially my stomach (from several body scissors), my right leg (from a single leg crab) and neck (many many scissors and a body flip).
I had a short discussion on possible pro holds that was ably translated for Hana by Gunter, the Club Manager. She was perplexed only by my reference to figure four leglocks which I slowly and somewhat stiffly demonstrated.
We faced off for the last fall. I tried to clinch but Hana grabbed my right leg and dropped me to the mat with a fast single leg takedown. I was really stiffening at this point and tried pulling myself up to grab at Hana as she planted her left leg and pivoted around. My stomach muscles had already been so worked over that I had hardly lurched up to a semi-sitting position before Hana finished locking her legs around my trapped right and was falling back, bringing her right leg down on my exposed right ankle. Figure four leglocks are serious submission holds and Hana's first thrust flung me to the mat, my arms instinctively wrapped around my head with my face a grimace of pain. Just a couple more, mixed with tossing me back and forth on the mat and I gave up. The whole sequence didn't take more than 20 seconds or so.
Hana released me from the hold and I just lay there, rubbing my right leg. Instead of waiting for me to get up again, Hana decided to try her full repertoire of pro-holds. Moving around behind me, she quickly grabbed both my arms, pulling them back straight behind me. She locked her arms around them, squeezing both arms back right at the elbow. I was sitting up with both arms now trapped behind me and was pretty helpless. Again, I took about 20 seconds of punishment before I shouted out another submission.
My arms were released and Hana just pushed my head forward to force me to the mat on my stomach. I was bending my left arm back to get up as Hana herself grabbed it, twisting it behind me in a hammerlock. Grabbing my other arm, she completed a classic double hammerlock while planted on my back. By this point, my arms were pretty well shot and only a couple of thrusts convinced me to submit.
Hana had one last arm hold to try (also a new one for me). She pulled me up and grabbed me in an ordinary headlock, forcing me right back to the mat while lying on top of my right arm. She wrapped her legs around my left arm while maintaining the headlock. Again, she was able to lock her legs so that my arm was being bent backwards at the elbow. Her legs were really strong and after a quick thrust I gave up again.
By this point Hana was pretty well in control and rolling me swiftly from one hold to another. Turning her attention from my arms to my legs, she planted herself on my back and grabbed my right leg, folding it back at the knee, trapping my foot underneath her left arm while pulling back on it with her hands. This was the same single leg crab that forced my submission in fall #8 so my leg was already softened up. Not more than 10 seconds and I shouted out a submission. Hana kept applying the hold for several seconds longer as Gunter rather slowly translated my submission. Hana didn' t let go of my leg but stopped applying direct pressure. Instead, she took my left leg, doubling it up at the knee and trapped it under her right arm. Locking her hands together around both, she pulled back in a classic boston crab. As with match #8, she pulled back far enough so that her rather long hair fell on my face as it was pressed flat on the mat. The sight of strands of her hair was the last thing I saw before I gave up to this hold as well.
Hana now came to her last hold and simply moved around to face forwards while continuing to sit on my back. Pulling back on both my arms, she slipped forward, trapping them behind her knees. Even that, combined with her body pressuring my back was enough to cause considerable pain. She finally grabbed my chin with both hands and began thrusting backwards, sending electric shots running down my spine unique to the application of the infamous camel clutch. I tried to hold manfully out as long as I could but by the third thrust back and forth I hoarsely shouted out "I GIVE!!!!", again, all too slowly translated by Gunter for Hana.
She finally dropped my arms back to the mat and got up. Seconds later I got up too, swooning a bit with rubbery legs. Finally I lurched over to Hana, shook her hand and, facing Gunter, raised it in victory, much to Hana's gratification. Hana had won 8 falls to my 2 in the amateur/submission portion on the match, and added 7 straight in this lop-sided pro-style fall. I was certainly the biggest loser, but was going to be the best sport.