So relax, get comfy, and enjoy!
DANI REARDON: DREAM GIRL
I DREAM OF DANI...
True story. So, I'm in bed early last Saturday morning and I start dreaming about Dani. Now, you might have a lot of dreams involving muscle women, you might not. I almost never have them - the last I actually remember involved Gayle Moher in her Awefilms red dress and was about probably about seven or eight years ago. I guess it's because I spend so much of my waking life with female muscle on the brain that my subconscious gives the old grey matter a bit of a break while I'm asleep!
Anyway, I'd been rabidly sourcing all the pics for this post and many many more the day before. As many as I could find in fact. Pics of Dani from contest photo sites, pics from Dani's Instagram and elsewhere. Dani before, Dani during, and Dani after the show. Anything I could lay my cursor on really. Last count I have over 200 in the folder, of which only a small percentage will make the final cut for the post. And I knew I didn't need so many, but I was insatiable. I just kept searching and searching...
So it was with a head full of Dani that I lay down and cuddled up to the wife on Friday night. And as I slumbered and Friday night turned to Saturday morning, one image of Dani in her Olympia posing suit began to take over my thoughts. This one.
In my dream Dani was every bit as chiselled, and she was wearing only slightly more than this. She was weaing a pair of ridiculously small shorts - they barely covered her glutes and were so tight you could basically see the muscle anyway - instead of the bottom half of the posing suit, though they had an identical design. The posing top was the same but she was also wearing a small jacket. And I mean small. Like a matador's jacket if you know what I mean, it barely came down much further than her posing top. Her bronzed, hard abs, every striation in her quads, her pec line - a little sweaty as I recall - basically everything you could have seen of Dani on stage at the Olympia bar her shoulders, arms and upper back was on display. And I was right there with her.
Me and Dani were in some kind of bar or restaurant. It being my dream and all I was obviously being as charming as Bond and she was all enamoured. And then we were somewhere a lot more private. Now at this point you are probably expecting me to start feeling up that bronzed hard body of hers, and that's exactly what I would be expecting if I were reading this. Sorry to disappoint, because quite the opposite happened. Off came her little jacket, and then suddenly she was touching me.
At this point in the dream I became aware of two things. #1, that I was dreaming. And #2, that it wasn't actually Dani who was touching me so very expertly, but my wife.
Now what happened next I shall not go into in very much detail, but I will say that it was all over pretty damn fast! I managed, somehow, and I've never managed to do this before, to stay at least partially in the dream while also being at least partially awake. I was conscious of what was really happening, but at the same time (by force of will?) I kind of tricked my brain into believing what I wanted it to believe for a few crucial seconds, with, as the wife would confirm, a most copious and satisfying result.
DREAMS COME TRUE...
...when your fight is stronger than your fear, says Dani. She seems to be in the business of conquering those fears because since we first met her here on FMS back in 2013, dream after dream has been ticked off her list. Pro card - check. First pro appearance - check. First win as a pro - check. And now her first appearance at the Olympia - check. And all of this done and dusted at such a precocious age. Next on the list? The Ms Physique Olympia title, of course. And given her record so far, you wouldn't bet against her, would you? This is what I was born to do, she says.
Like many of the WPD class of 2015, particularly the debs, Dani seems to have had an absolute ball in Las Vegas, loving every minute of the experience. She was barely able - or actually unable truth be told - to contain her excitement from the moment she touched down at the airport (above) to the moment she came off stage after the finals, officially (well, sort of officially) the 4th best Physique competitor in the world.
She was mobbed, respectfully, but mobbed nonetheless, by admirers of all ages, shapes and sizes as she walked through the Expo - you'll want to watch the whole thing I'm sure, but watch from about the two-minute mark of the Friday section of Dani's own Olympia video diary and you will see what I mean. The same fans were eagerly sending their pictures of Dani to her within minutes and you can see a selection of her faves on her Instagram too. And it was the same story on the Saturday after the awards. Everybody loves Dani, and, high as the proverbial kite and "having the time of my freakin' life" as she was, she felt the love. The fact that you all want to take pictures with me and tell me you are rooting for me means the absolute world, she said.
Most of all though, the dream that came true wouldn't have been so sweet for Dani - despite all the adoration and even if her placing had been the same - if she hadn't been satisfied with the package she had taken onto that stage. But she was. She really really was. And even if she hadn't been saying how pleased she was with the way she looked for the show, you'd still be able to tell from the contest photos, don't you think?
DANI'S XTC
What I'm looking at is a woman in absolutely the best condition she can be in, but whether I think she is perfect or not is besides the point. What is important is what Dani thought, and especially what Dani was feeling on that stage in Las Vegas. These images, for me, show Dani has fully realised what Tanya Bunsell calls 'the latent image in her mind’s eye', the vision she has of her body at its most perfect.
The exact same paragraph, with "Karen" for "Dani", and "1995" for "Las Vegas" appeared right here in April 2014 in a post entitled Karen's XTC, part of an exploration of the joys of the female bodybuilder in peak condition. Funnily enough, Dani also appeared that week on the blog, getting what she called "the chills" as she posed on stage in her hometown show in Orlando. Perhaps on closer inspection these (excellent) shots of Dani doing her compulsory poses and routine don't quite match that iconic image of Karen Smith at her most ecstatic, but one or two of them certainly come close enough to suggest that Dani was feeling those "chills" again in Las Vegas in 2015.
Dani has never looked better, and she knew it, and she felt it. If the IFBB are going to be looking for a less muscular look in 2016, then Dani's going to have to rethink her prep because her package here was all about the muscle. Her legs were - to quote Corinne Ingman - "truly, disgustingly peeled". Her abs - always one of her strongest bodyparts - swoonworthy as f***, insanely defined obliques and all. Her back - every fibre of every muscle full and visible - never better, and the same could be said for any of the other muscles on her gorgeous, bronzed body you might want to examine. She was, as her many many Facebook and Instagram admirers (male and female) and (pretty much male) female muscle lovin' forum posters are always saying, "perfect".
I wonder, says one of those male forum posters, if sometimes she stops doing whatever she's doing to think, just for a few moments, "My God. I am perfection."
This says more about the fan (and anyone else who has ever wondered the same thing - be honest!) than it does about Dani herself, but it's impossible - especially after her Olympia experience - that she doesn't know that she is so admired by women and lusted over by men (and probably most of the women who admire her too). I wonder how it feels to know that you are so admired by so many, or to know you are an object of female muscle desire, and in Dani's case arguably the object of female muscle desire right now. I wonder how it feels to have sponsors falling over themselves to sign you up, to be the brightest star in your sport. And I wonder how it feels to have all your years of hard work and sacrifice pay off and to hone your physique to its absolute peak right at the moment when you are about to step into the brightest spotlight of all...
Enjoy!
I've been in love with her for a few years now...
ReplyDeleteWhat a dream girl indeed...