ChrisWrestling's blog

Hi and welcome to what may end up being my most controversial blog post ever but it has been something that has been on my mind for well over a decade and I really haven't spoken about it. Before I get into it let me clarify that consent is very important to me so I will respect you if you're not comfortable being out. I don't record or take photos without explicit consent... so how to talk about this without being a dick?

There are understandable layers to discretion like you don't want photos or pics or if there is going to be filming or photos you want to wear a mask etc but I think there needs to be some perspective on the discretion to the level of paranoia that I encounter all the time. I'm talking about the ambiguous, oh my gawd what do you think I'm going to do, discretion hounds. No, I'm not going to show up to your house in the middle of the night in a hoodie and sunglasses to wrestle, that's not necessary. No, no one has actually asked me to do that but so many guys are so scared that if I don't promise something ridiculous they won't meet up.

I will acknowledge that idiots exist. Some guys might see you sitting at a restaurant with others and approach you and start talking kink shit but they are a minority.

I have encountered guys in Seattle who won't meet for coffee to build rapport unless it's in Federal Way where they don't know anyone. Come on, dude, I've already offered to come to you to a convenient spot in your area and the odds of someone seeing you are low, the odds of someone you know hearing the scandalous stuff we're talking about (it's wrestling guys, kids do this) is even lower, and if someone does see us tell them I'm a friend from kindergarden or some other b/s.

Most of the matches I do film don't have sexual contact and we're in singlets. Again, some kids start wrestling in elementary school, adults do BJJ, there are adult wrestling clubs (rare but they do exist). Some of you guys act like wrestling is scandalous as you filming your own version of two girls one cup! Yeah yeah yeah your job, whatever. I get that Trump is demolishing LGBTQ protections and these are dark times but is your boss really going to fire you for loving a sport? That's lawsuit worthy if they do.

So, no, I'm not walking up to your door in just a singlet or speedo or thong or even a gi. I will be just a guy coming over to visit or you can come to my place, it's a little messy but I have mats and I keep them very clean. If you can't trust enough that no one is going to out you then how can you trust someone to roll with you? People get injured, they get choked out, there are very real vulnerabilities to this sport so if you can't have a little faith then you have no business meeting anyone.

Those are just my two cents.

This kind of comes from several interactions I have had leading up to my trip to Brazil as well as conversations I've had here. Now, keep in mind, this is my first real trip abroad where I have been a real minority who is vulnerable for not speaking the language, knowing the culture, or knowing how to stay safe. The US has a tendency to fearmonger about Brazil more than I feel is actually deserved but that doesn't mean that extra precautions shouldn't be taken. The quality of living standards here are notably lower than Seattle which leaves the place a little unkempt and sketchier looking. That being said, I had a lovely stroll tonight to a restaurant by myself and back to my hotel and it was kind of the first time where I felt that the place was actually pretty nifty.

To prepare for being a foreigner I reached out to several guys, two of them were happy to have me stay with them and the first one so far were great hosts (Brat Tamer and his boyfriend). I mostly knew what I was getting into with them and while in some ways my expectations weren't perfectly met they were truly fantastic hosts and we spent most of the time together laughing (not to mention that they are an adorable couple who are obviously head over heels for one another, so cute). As we got closer to actually meeting we moved to WhatsApp as MF has a tendency to go down. They were also forthcoming with where I was going.

This is part of why I'm writing this post as I'm sitting here in my last minute hotel after GOL (the airline) bumped me from my flight to one early tomorrow morning. This was partly my fault as I was supposed to fly to Sao Paulo tonight and stay in Osasco to meet someone else tomorrow. I chose not to because Osasco is not a nice place I was eager to stay in and it was really starting to look like my opponent tomorrow was going to flake on me.

You see, the first impressions people have of you are when they either see your watchfighters channel or read your profile and too many people just say fuck it with their profiles. The person in question was good on both those fronts which is why I wanted to meet him. He also has a significant number of supposedly happy past opponents. As much as I like the past opponents feature of this site it is far too easy to flag someone and then get flagged in return with no real moderation of flagging so as much as having 50+ recommendations on your profile is... it doesn't mean you can phone in the rest.

Flakes have a tendency to withhold information like specific locations, external communication requests, and the person in question was dodging those questions. I've seen it plenty of times and one would hope it wouldn't happen when you've flown 18+ hours to be somewhere to meet someone and you aren't confident in the safety of the location. It also didn't help that the people I stayed with and several of the people I'm meeting in this trip voiced that the person in question had a big ego, wasn't comfortable with their sexuality, and has a bad attitude if they don't win. Yikes!

So I asked him again for the critical info and he didn't respond leading me to tell him that I had decided to change my itinerary and that I would be skipping Sao Paulo and going straight to Rio to which he responded toxically.

The lesson I hope people take from this is that your profile/watchfighters is nothing more than a resume, your conversations are an interview to determine if you are a fit. In these conversations is does no one any good to misrepresent yourself in any way. No one is expecting a perfect fit but honesty and authenticity go a very long way... as does enthusiasm. I say that last bit because no one wants to roll with someone who isn't enthusiastic about meeting you. Logistics, especially with out of towners is not something you can dodge or ignore. As I said before, people are not motivated to flag bad actors unless something is really off so as great as it is to have a lot of reviews (which often supplement what you say about yourself in your profile), they don't tell the whole story so it is up to you to tell your story, control your narrative. You can be picky with who you play with and one should never be upset when someone isn't interested in you as turning you down is not nearly as bad as meeting up and having a play-date go south. Yes, get your needs met, if you've done your homework you will meet someone who wants to do that and in kind you should be focusing on meeting the needs of your play partner.

If I'm honest, only about 1% of people on here really understand this and that's really too bad. Shine your brightest most authentic self, it's ok, someone is looking for someone just like you so help them find you.

I did a couple videos on my youtube channel on choking that unfortunately had to be redone into a single video with so much walking on eggshells to shut down the comment section mafia that I felt the whole purpose was undermined. People felt I was being permissive but likely didn't hear me out to actually understand what I was saying so I will address it here.

I will start by stating plainly that choking people to any extent is never without risk of sudden death. Here are the ways that can happen:

1) Causing a blood clot to form or break free leading to a stroke
2) Rupturing an artery in the neck (more on this in a bit)
3) Triggering cardiac arrest
4) Triggering respiratory arrest
5) Causing an aneurysm
6) Rupturing an aneurysm
7) Vagus nerve stimulation can trigger a drop in BP

It's important to contextualize where people are coming from when they claim choking is safe. The BJJ and Judo communities tend to say that they get choked all the time without incident but this is unreliable anecdotal evidence (the lowest form on the hierarchy of evidence) and their comments misrepresent how much they actually get choked. When learning and drilling a choke we may put the pressure on for a couple seconds to ensure the technique is right but people are not repeatedly choking each other out or even getting anywhere close to that. In rolling we tap once we know a choke is good, same thing in a tournament. It's actually pretty rare that people go out in class or in competition. One of the few available studies was conducted on an online BJJ message board which is the worst way to conduct a study but that didn't stop BJJ publications to report on the findings as if they were fact rather than the random opinions of a comment section.

The kink community may be a better representation because choking for effect is more commonly the goal but most sources on the subject don't simply imply chokes are 100% safe, they outright say it and ignore the above mentioned risks.

On the flip side, however, it has been my impression that, particularly on artery ruptures, the medical community's views on the subject are based on instances of domestic violence rather than careful application of good technique. In fact there are very few studies available to fully understand the consequences of chokes which is largely due to the ethics surrounding doing such a study. Some research does suggest that choking does lead to brain injuries which can lead to cognitive impairment, anxiety, and depression. One study looking at college girls who reported being choked during sex showed minor signs of lowered mental acuity.

There is an ongoing mindset in our community that you can choke someone as much as you want as long as they don't go out, I disagree with this. When you hold a choke at a lighter level you inhibit the blood vessels leaving the brain but not the ones supplying blood. Anyone who has been choked will tell you that one of the symptoms of being choked is that the pressure in your head gets really high which can be one of the most intense parts of being choked. The strain on your veins and arteries can cause them to balloon leading to an aneurysm, meanwhile the blood trapped in your head becomes less and less oxygenated causing damage and your brain will tell your heart and lungs to work harder which can lead to cardiac fibrillation (meaning the heart freaks out and goes into a faulty rhythm which stops it from pumping effectively). This is called cardiac arrest and requires a defibrillator to stop. Most people don't just have one lying around.

Risk can be reduced. Dissection of the artery seems to be more of an issue of rubbing under tension from a hand on throat grip. Some BJJ influencers suggest turning the corner with your elbow in an RNC and while this may make it tighter on one side it can possibly increase the risk of arterial damage not to mention damage to the thyroid and trachea. The experience of passing out doesn't really change for the person going out so there's no reason to hold after they passout, this just increases the risk of complications. Likewise, the more someone is choked, especially in a single scene, the higher the risk.

So, for the prudes out there, no, I'm not going to say just don't do it as that won't convince everyone. I have stated the risks and those playing with choking may make a more informed decision about whether or not it's worth the risks to them. I will also say that the jobber is not the only one taking risk, there are legal ramifications if someone you were choking dies. Hopefully anyone doing this is CPR trained and would have no hesitation calling 911 if there is an emergency but you don't always know the quality of someone's character til they are faced with a medical emergency that can have legal repercussions for them.

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.