Dungeons And Dojos Ch 01

Preface

So in order to tell my story, I'll need to spend this first chapter giving you a bit of backstory before moving forward. Also, the names of those involved has been changed in order to protect the identities involved along with locations to include cities and states as well as martial arts training facility names. However, the names of martial arts styles as well as names of techniques are accurate.

As for the reason I'm telling this story, martial arts and BDSM are two things in life that I've enjoyed dearly. But, the amount of politics and drama in the world of kink as well as martial arts are so bizarrely similar to the point that both worlds can encourage cult like behavior. On top of that, looking back on everything that's happened, the story I'm going to tell is remarkably erotic and intimate.

Chapter 1 - White Belt

Let's begin with my name, it's Max Young. I'm half Filipino as my father, who was an American sailor in the US Navy had met my mother during his time stationed in the Philippines. Much like my father, I followed his footsteps and joined the navy and was stationed down in San Diego. Although I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, just north of Los Angeles and often went back home on the weekends, I didn't have much going on for me outside of work during the week. That was until I was walking through one of the berthing compartments (crew sleeping quarters) of the ship and saw one of my shipmates folding his martial arts uniform which is known as a "gi."

Being the martial arts enthusiast as I was, I saw it and immediately asked him about it. His name is Kenneth Franklin, or "Ken" for short. He told me that he had been training at an academy called Kenpo Academy of Self Defense.

I've had some martial arts experience in the past myself doing a year of Taekwondo while in high school. When Ken told me I should check out his dojo, I didn't hesitate. I would join the Kenpo Academy of Self Defense and have my own gi by that very day.

The next year and a half brought much great memories and an amazing experience as well as something I was yearning for during my first few years in the navy. I finally had friends in San Diego. I had made it to the rank of purple belt, and Ken was a belt or two above me. I honestly don't remember. But I remember us training a lot after work and practicing on the ship when we were out at sea as well as on deployment. We'd return back to our homeport of San Diego to find our way back to the dojo.

Of course all great things comes to an end, I was up for orders to transfer. Ken's enlistment was coming near to an end. Two and a half years had passed, by then I was stationed in Camp Pendleton which in the north San Diego County in Oceanside.

Although I had always been more into traditional martial arts like karate or kung fu, I suddenly decided to give combat sports related martial arts a try. I ended up joining a Brazilian jiu jitsu gym. Now I'm going to give you a bit more context about Brazilian jiu jitsu and why this is a big deal to me.

Back in 1993, I was fourteen years old and really dedicated to my Taekwondo practice. I remember the first UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) coming out. At the time is was a grand prix style tournament which meant a single loss elimination and winner takes all.

But it wasn't the decorated black belt in Karate that won it. Nor the muscular Kenpo practitioner, or even the imposing larger than life sumo wrestler, and not even the titan of a man who was a kickboxer. Instead it was the tall but lanky and least intimidating looking fighter of all, Royce Gracie.

So here's this guy, doesn't look like he even has a mean bone in his body claiming to use a martial art that his family creating by taking judo and restructuring it and tweeking it to what we know now as Brazilian jiu jitsu. My first thought was, "Uh... yeah, okay."

Well Royce Gracie, who also happened to be the lightest weight of all the fighters competing; his first fight was against a golden gloves pro boxer. Let's just say Royce made the boxer say, "Uncle," in less than a minute and then went on to win the whole competition.

The unique thing about Brazilian jiu jitsu, it wasn't like Karate or Kung Fu that had spin kicks and the cool stuff you'd see in Van Damn movies or even Jackie Chan movies. It was designed to take your opponent to the ground and force them into submission. Royce Gracie did it again in the next UFC event and didn't matter how big or strong his opponents were, and it didn't matter what position he was in. He even choked out a wrestler using his legs while on his back.

For many years I wasn't a fan of that style of fighting. What made me change my mind? One of my buddies in the navy that I was stationed with in Camp Pendleton bugged me to give it a try. After that first day, I had a very humbling experience.

Being put in a position to where you feel helpless, smothered by someone else and no matter what you do, the person you're grappling with is already two steps ahead of you. Yeah, I needed to learn this style. So the next two years I began training in Brazilian jiu jitsu which had a direct lineage under the Gracie family.

What surprised me most about Brazilian jiu jitsu, or BJJ as we call it for short; was the training methodology. A typical class was set up like this, our coach would show us some techniques and then we'd partner up and try it. The coach and some of the more advanced belts would walk around help, but if they saw students were getting the technique down, they'd say to apply resistance so that we can practice the technique on a less cooperative partner. Then the last twenty minutes we would roll.

"Rolling" is a term we use for sparring, but in a grappling atmosphere. Sometimes we would roll hard, other times we would just flow. But we always rolled. Five minutes rolling with our partner, if one forces the other into submission which is initiated by tapping your partner, then reset and roll again. When those five mintues end, switch partners and roll again.

We would do this until the class was over. Considering that I didn't wrestle in high school and the idea of grappling and ground fighting was so foreign to me. My two years training here was overwhelming and I felt more as though I was just trying to survive rather than attacking. A totally different experience than when I was in Kenpo and was probably one of the best in sparring at the dojo along with Ken.

I remember one weekend, myself and my buddy that got me to train BJJ were hanging out and went down to San Diego. We were hanging out in the Gaslamp Quarter downtown when we ran into Ken. A pleasant surprise for sure. Ken was with one of the girls from the dojo, Nadja. She was from Germany and if I could describe her, I would say a young Gwyneth Paltrow in her 20's, as for Ken, well he and I were about the same height at 5'9". I couldn't think of a celebrity to compare him to, so I'll just recommend to use your imagination. Clean cut with brown hair and green eyes with a midwest accent.

It was a an awesome surprise to see them for sure, and we caught up. Ken had gotten out of the navy and now was an assistant instructor at the dojo, he and Nadja were dating. But they both noticed that I was more lean and had put on a bit of muscle. Not saying I was fat before, but I was definitely much more lean at this point.

I'm going to jump in time for a bit, years pass again. Since then, I've changed my job in the Navy to Master at Arms where I work as Military Police and specialize in anti-terrorism and force protection. I'm stationed in Imperial Beach working for a Mobile Security Squadron. I wont get too detailed with my military work as it's not too important for the story I'm going to tell.

Also by this time, my BJJ coach recommends I train with a friend of his down in San Diego. So now I'm training at Dreadnoughts Fight Club, or DFC for short. It was an MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) gym, and the main BJJ coach and instructor was known as Doutor, which is Portuguese for doctor. Doutor and my BJJ coach up in Oceanside were both under the Gracie lineage. With that, being it was an MMA gym, they also offered classes in kickboxing which included Western Boxing as well as Muay Thai Kickboxing and I definitely took advantage of that.

For the next seven years, the DFC became my home. However, during the first three years of those seven years would be a very busy year for me as I would deploy constantly. Luckily I had earned my blue belt before transferring down to Imperial Beach.

During those seven years, I had completed quite a bit in BJJ in grappling tournaments. I've won plenty of matches, but I've also lost many matches as well. That's okay, that's part of the journey. With that, I've also fought in a few local MMA fights, but never anything professional, and definitely not the UFC.

You're probably wondering where all the erotic parts of the stories take place. Well, after three years of working with the Mobile Security Squadrons, I was up for orders again. I remained in the San Diego area, but in Coronado working base police at Naval Air Station North Island. It was also during this time that I had just ended a long term relationship with a girl I had been with for many years. I won't get into details with this relationship because it's not important moving forward, rather it is what led me to kink.

After the breakup, I wasn't sad really. Instead I decided now that I was single again, why not enjoy the single life. So I had made it clear that I wasn't looking for anything serious or long term. I was more interested in casual dating, and if I'm being honest, I was looking to live a more promiscuous lifestyle and live out my sexual fantasies. As a guy, of course I was wanting to experience a threesome with women, have wild and dirty sex like what you'd see in hardcore porn.

But what really changed everything was when I discovered fetlife. If you're wondering what fetlife is, think of it like Facebook for kinky people. At the time, I spent a few weeks just observing posts, and reading articles, as well as going through various profiles.

First off, I do want to say that I never had my dick as my profile picture. As a matter in fact, I never had a picture of my dick posted even in the picture gallery. But after seeing endless profiles of male Dominants, or "Doms" for short hoping to get an idea how to set up my profile.

Unfortunately, all I found were a plethora cringe that left me unsure whether I wanted to laugh or pour a bucket of bleach on my eyes. With silly names like "Dom_Alpha_Sir," to even the likes of "Lord_Dragon_Cock," as few examples to some of the absurdity that I found. Then all the profile pictures of out of shape middle aged men with unkempt facial hair and poor hygiene trying too hard to look intimidating with an angry face.

But, it gets worse. Having an absurd name with profile picture that includes something to the likes of a rogue's gallery for national sex offenders, you can only imagine that their profile description would be just as cringe. Here is an example of such a paragraph:

"I'm not here to socialize, so don't waste my time. True Master/Dom seeking a bisexual slut to be my slave/sub. I expect you to be in full servitude to my fantasies and desires. I do what I want, and I go where I want to go. YOU WILL call me your MASTER. YOU WILL submit to me. YOU WILL worship me."

Yeah, that was just one paragraph. I don't think I need to add more to get the point across. Instead, I decided to let my humor design my profile. So for a name, I went with "Max_Effect."

Why?

Because despite all my MMA endeavors and fighting in a cage, I'm also big into video games. Mass Effect being one of my favorite ever. Also, "Max_Effect" just sounded really cool and unique. As for my profile pic, well, I just added a black and white picture of myself in a dapper looking suit with a smile that says, "Yeah, I know I look good."

One thing I learned about my time in uniform, especially doing Military Police work is you gotta look good, feel good, or it's no good. A simple phrase I kept with me as a mantra I took to the kink lifestyle. As for the blurb in my profile, I started it out by saying, "I'm here because I'm hoping to find my long lost love as we become star cross lovers in an endless sky of unconditional love forged by the trials of life. Alright, just kidding. I'm still exploring my kinks and fetishes and seeing what's out there."

Yeah, some humor and just pretty much kept it honest. I felt trying to act like some prestigious Dominant or Master of BDSM seemed a bit too fake to me. The less cringe worthy profiles usually consisted of people making a list of fetishes and play they were experienced with. While there's nothing wrong with that, I felt that it lacked a sense of character and personality to the person behind the profile. I wanted to meet people and explore BDSM rather than meet people and treat them like a fetish vending machine.

I had a lot of great experiences, and also much more that wasn't so great. There had been a lot of points of contention that I'll bring up later in the story, but for now I feel it's best if we wait until it pertains to the story moving forward. With that being said, the same will go for the great experiences as well.

So, I've given you a good background on my experience with martial arts and I've also given you a hint into my thoughts when first discovering BDSM. I think it's time to finally give you a starting point for this story. It's December of 2011, I had just gotten out of the navy after fourteen years. I was thirty two years old and here I was at a trucker stop and gas station in the middle of nowhere Illinois on my way to Indiana.

I just remember the time was almost 3:00 AM while I was sitting at a patio table just outside the food mart eating cup of noodles since it was cold out. I still remember hearing the sound of idle engines of semi trucks parked for the night as their drivers slept inside the cabins. The gas station PA announcing that a shower was available for a trucker with a specific ticket number. I had received a message on fetlife from a woman named "Lady_Vanilda" inviting me to a meet and greet in response to specific group on fetlife called "Ashford Island."

I had posted a message to the group specifying that I was moving to the outskirts of Ashford, Indiana and was looking to get acquainted with the local kink community. Lady_Vanilda had a sent me a link to the meet and greet event and urged me to attend. So I responded that I would attend the event.

Of course since the event shows who responded "Yes" as well as "Maybe" in the page, I took a peek. There was one profile that caught my attention. Curious2Learn was the name of the profile. Twenty seven year old female submissive, and based on her profile she was relatively new to the lifestyle. I didn't message her, instead I just thought to myself that if I saw her there then maybe I'll say something.

You might be wondering why I'm on my way to Indiana. Due to politics, the US Navy received much budget cuts and started downsizing. So, I was no longer active duty. However thanks to Facebook I was able to reconnect with Ken a few years back. Now that I was out of the Navy, and was still training in martial arts, a brown belt now in BJJ. As for Ken, he and Nadja were both 4th degree black belts in Kenpo Karate and now had owned their own dojo.

After I announced on Facebook that I was getting out of the Navy, Ken had messaged me. He asked if I would be interested in teaching BJJ along with some of the kickboxing I knew from MMA alongside with him and Nadja at their dojo. It seems they had been wanting to adapt some modern concepts to their dojo, whiling keeping much of its traditional styles, but also keeping up with the times as martial arts evolves.

I told him I would be thrilled to be a part of this. It was a sudden decision that came about and we hadn't worked out all the details. But, one thing we agreed on was this, if I teach there, I would also attend his Kenpo Karate class as a white belt and he even said he would attend my BJJ as a white belt and we both can learn together.

The journey as begun, and my story has now started.