Top Tip #2

Get a good camera. And a good long lens.

And that's pretty much it.

Chances are, if you're a Brit like C. Moore, you've had your fun trying to sneak a pic or two at a Bodybuilding event. Hope you had better luck than me. Would be quicker to tell you the federations that will still let me into the venue than those that won't. It's made C. Moore become a master of disguise, but that's a story for another day.

So, where you going to go to get your female muscle fix?

Sporting events is where.



C. Moore told all about his early athletics fascination the other day. And I still reserve most of my rare forays into the outside world for track meets (as you Americans like to call them). I'm mobile, schedule in hand. End of the back straight for the start of the 200m, right behind the start of the long jump/triple jump run, as close to the pole vault as I can get etc. - wherever the best chance of a glootage filled frame is.



It don't have to be track & field (we call it athletics, you know). Pick your sport, and take your camera. Gymnastics, tennis, beach volleyball (I know that's a popular and gloot-filled one), we have Crossfit events now, swimming used to be good (those body suits are the devil's work) but diving is still a winner... Check your local listings.







Sure, you are probably not going to see any of these top names, but consider this - once upon a time at local track & field events the Papoutsaki bum was on display; once upon a time Chelsea Coleman was on the floor at a state gymnastics competition; once upon a time Heather Watson was grunting at a county level tennis match.

But it doesn't end there.



Soon you realise you've got to take it everywhere. In these increasingly female-muscle-filled times you might pass potential memories every day. Summer and temptation may be around every corner. Winter perhaps not so much, but you won't forgive yourself if you're at the mall and spot some definition and don't have your equipment. Get used to lugging it around. The more it becomes part of you, the more like a real photographer you will feel, and the more genuine you'll seem to others.



And take it to the beach.

Take all the necessary precautions to make sure you don't fug it up by getting sand everywhere by finding a spot just off and putting that long lens to work. Seriously, it's a day out like no other, even if you don't see any great female beef, the prospect that you might will keep you going. And once in a while my friends, once in a while...



And then maybe once in a lifetime...



C. Moore recommends the Sigma 150-600mm Sport.

Though if Aleesha's hubby had invested, we might all be blind by now.

FMS@RP2017: The Comeback

After the Omaha Pro and the resulting fallout (see FMS passim), and the threat we'd never see her on stage again. After the Facebook slanging match with her "iron sisters" (see also FMS passim), Aleesha Young's retirement came to a thankfully premature end right here. And didn't she do well - Top 6 plus the "Most Muscular" award.



#toobigfortheifbb no more!



She had promised her fans she wouldn't let up on the training during her time away, and she was as good as her word, so when the "special invite" came, she was already looking trouser-threateningly good. The package she brought to the stage was (I think) her best ever, and it got her the same 6th place she'd taken at the 2015 Rising Phoenix.



I want to thank all of my fans and supporters of Female Bodybuilding, she said afterwards. You guys near and far motivate me more than you'll ever know and I truly appreciate the words of encouragement and support, especially through this contest prep as it certainly proved to be my most difficult to date. I'm forever grateful to all of you, and any role you have played in getting me on stage. Thank you again.



Can you feel the love?

It flowed right back, and not just from the likes of me and you ("Nobody had legs like you, or glutes, or upper body mass... nobody! I would have placed you way higher, top three for sure! Congratulations for this tremendous showing!!!"), but also from her peers, Isabelle Turell ("so powerful") and Anne Sheehan ("so proud of you").



And also there was love from the new Queen herself - Proud of you, Helle, having recovered from her celebrations, wrote on Aleesha's Instagram. Great look you came with and it paid off. I 100% knew the Most Muscular Award belonged to you.



Praise indeed! And I'm very happy she's back. The Rising Phoenix can't afford to lose class acts like Aleesha, wrote one forum poster after the Omaha judging debacle.

I reckon she proved him right.

Wings of Strength Goes Wild

2017 has been, all things considered, a bit of an up and down year for the Wings of Strength led pro Female Bodybuilding circus. In the first few shows of the season, the line-ups were a bit thin on quality, but Maria Mikola made a welcome return from the Physique division. Then there was the whole Aleesha debacle in Omaha before Brittney O'Veal's winning pro debut and Elena Oana Hreapca's victory in the first ever Ms Wings International made Chicago memorable, and the Norfolk Pro saw fan favourite Theresa Ivancik make her pro debut. Finally, at the beginning of the month, Tampa provided us with a "proper" line-up and a contest to match, ensuring at least that the qualification series for the Rising Phoenix ended on a high.



That high didn't last long. As soon as the list of women qualified and invited for the Rising Phoenix was published on August 9th, the proverbial shit hit the proverbial fan, and the unlikely source of the shit was Wings of Strength co-owner herself, Kristal Wood. I am absolutely disgusted with the Wings of Strength list for the Rising Phoenix!!! she wrote (in a since deleted post) on her Facebook page. What the HELL!



Kristal's issue was that those women who had received the so-called "special invites" (Jay Fuchs and Aleesha were mentioned by name, the other two - Janeen Lankowski and Cristina Franzoso not) were less deserving of their place at the show than those, Angela Rayburn was cited as deserving woman #1, for example, who had finished just outside of the qualifying places in the points list.

But why was Kristal, 50% of Wings of Strength, having a pop at her own organisation?



We are getting divorced.

Oh.



As FBBs such as Sharon Mould, Melody Spetko, Noelle Rockwell, Olivia Terry and Michelle Brent weighed in, it became apparent that there wasn't very much sympathy for Aleesha among some members of the so-called "iron sisterhood".

Quite the opposite in fact.

Michelle Brent: So Aleesha cry baby's [sic] and disrespects and then gets invited?

Sharon Mould: I think I need to message you [Michelle] private as there's so much more to all this than you can possibly imagine.

Aleesha: Message away dear and keep talking shit. I'll just keep training and being the best version of myself that I can... I'm really feeling the love from this supposed iron sisterhood that you often speak of. Have a great day y'all.

(At that point some random called "Fritz Talon" gets stuck into Aleesha on a personal level. Kristal and Noelle Rockwell leap to her defence and put the cretin in his place. Sharon Mould, however, hasn't finished.)

Sharon: Wtf is your problem, not everything is about you. Feeling a little paranoid? Get over it. And if there's a sisterhood lacking well that's because you obviously like it that way, no one is talking about you [er, yes, you were] as we have better things to focus on. Have a great day.

Noelle Rockwell: Feel like I'm watching an episode of "Wings of Strength Gone Wild"...



Where to begin?!

Well, on the plus side Aleesha at the Rising Phoenix has got to be something most of us can get behind. After Omaha and before her "special invite" she was never going to compete again. Right now she's on a mission, and Michelle and Sharon have fuelled her fire nicely. Thank you, ladies. Shame about Kristal and Jake. This can't be good for Wings of Strength and therefore can't be good for pro Female Bodybuilding, though at the same time I can't help feeling there are probably some chaps, maybe even FMS readers, out there, less married chaps than I, who are thinking to themselves that the prospect of Kristal being a single woman again isn't necessarily bad news!



With Margie and Alina not competing, and Sheila Bleck qualifying twice (from her finish at last year's RP and as the Tampa 2017 winner), three of the five pre-qualified places were already redundant. It would have been good if it had been announced what was going to happen to those places before a list was put out there. Since that first, apparently controversial, list was published, another, revised one has been put out which includes Kim McGuire, Virginia Sanchez, Tischa Thomas and Angela Rayburn - all with 3 points and the next best qualifiers. That seems fair.



Sadly, Brittney O'Veal has decided not to take up her place. So what - if anything - is going to happen to the list now Jake alone knows. Will the next woman or women in the points qualifying get to go? Will there be one more "special invite"? Sharon Mould perhaps?! Jake could sell tickets for the Aleesha-Sharon backstage showdown...



The "special invite" thing has one major flaw. If you are going to hand them out after Tampa then you are giving a Female Bodybuilder, who perhaps has been in her off-season for some time, well under two months to prepare for the biggest female muscle show on Earth. Not ideal. However, a "special invite" is given at the discretion of Wings of Strength - like them or not, this much at least has been clear right from the very first Rising Phoenix. So there doesn't need to be any rhyme or reason to them. They are, now him and Kristal are going their separate ways, Jake's toy to play with.

And much as I find the idea of Kristal's (actual) dirty laundry appealing, she shouldn't have aired it (the proverbial) in public, and the fact that the Facebook post has since been removed would, I guess, demonstrate that she realises as much.



Wings of Strength Gone Wild - Tuesdays, 9.00pm EST on CBS.

21 Reasons (#9)

Due to some work commitments and Mr and Mrs Swell's now annual sojourn to the South of France (not the bit that was recently on fire, thankfully), the FMS offices are going to be closed this week, next week and the week after. Nevertheless, as always, we don't want to leave you totally FMS-less, so we've lined up 21 Reasons, one daily picture (or two or three), plus one reason why we love doing what we do, as if we were explaining it to one not so convinced of the glory of the muscular female.

Enjoy!

#9
THE GREATEST LIE EVER TOLD ABOUT FBBs...



... is that they lack femininity, that they lack "curves".



Well, I've spent some quality time with these recent pics of Aleesha, and I have to admit I'm struggling to find a single straight line. Far from lacking curves, FBBs (and OK, Aleesha is an extreme example, but why wouldn't I bring out the biggest gun available to blow this ridiculous myth out of the water once and for all?) are simply the most curvaceous women of all because they have muscles all over. Aleesha, and all her iron sisters, have curves in places where other women don't even have places.



Fact.

#toobigfortheifbb

The Aleesha Young controversy rumbles on.




The Story So Far

Aleesha places 7th (out of 8) at the Omaha Pro. Much incredulity. Surely, the almost unanimous reaction goes, she should have won. The judges' feedback suggests she should "lose 20lbs of muscle" if she wants to improve her placing next time. "Not gonna happen", announces Aleesha, adding that "I'm going to step away from the stage".



Aleesha & Dave

Aleesha is interviewed by Dave Palumbo for his RxMuscle channel. Now, Palumbo has form when it comes to talking nonsense about Wings of Strength - last year his take on the "Iris Kyle not at the Rising Phoenix" controversy was, to put it bluntly, bollocks. However, in the interview Aleesha reveals that the first judge she approached for feedback refused to give her any comment about her placing, which is "super weird". I was directed to the Head Judge, she adds. Nobody else could give me an opinion.



Watch the entire interview below. Dave keeps banging on about Iris Kyle, and Aleesha tries to sidestep his attempts to get her onto the subject and connect the Iris story with her own. Aleesha does succumb eventually and tell Dave like it is, ie. Iris didn't fight for us, so don't ask me to fight for her. However, there are other revelations, about the show in Omaha, and Aleesha herself that come out, especially in the first part.



Tim Gardener

Head Judge was Tim Gardener. Also the promoter of the show, and, with Jake and Kristal Wood, one of the three people most responsible for the mini-resurrection of pro Female Bodybuilding over the last couple of years or so. It's Gardener who has, at his IFBB-sanctioned shows, given Wings of Strength the platform, the stage to put the big girls on. Without him, the Woods would have to self-promote, and that would be a whole different set of challenges meaning (at the very least) there would have been fewer competitive opportunities for the pro Female Bodybuilders since 2015.



Wings of Strength

After the Palumbo interview, Jake Wood released a statement:

Aleesha, you were great in this interview. Dave is right and so are you. You should have placed higher. Tim is a friend of mine and a good man, but he didn't place you where I would have. You and a good many other women are the future of what we at Wings of Strength are pushing for. I hope to get you on a stage again one day.



Sadly, it now seems that some sort of rift has occurred between Tim Gardener and Wings of Strength. In 2015 and 2016 placings had been unusually uncontroversial, lulling us fans into a false sense of security, a false sense that now everybody trying to save Female Bodybuilding was singing from the same hymn sheet, as it were. That sense is suddenly no longer there. We're expecting more Aleesha-like injustices.

Aleesha



I didn't lose 20lbs of muscle on hospital bed rest during my pregnancy and eight months of breast feeding, Aleesha tells Dave. Genetically, I'm not going to lose 20lbs of muscle. And that's the part that makes me so sad and so frustrated. As a little girl I hated having muscle, so I felt I'd found something that would embrace what I'm good at genetically, and they've said, just like the rest of society, "You're too muscular".

Seems she really is serious about not competing again. "Tim Gardener promotes all their shows," she reminds Dave in the interview. She obviously feels she won't do better than she did in Omaha while he's in the picture, and it's not hard to see why.

#toobigfortheifbb

Aleesha's new hashtag.



And tragic as it is that one of the most (if not the most) popular Female Bodybuilders on the planet as far as fans are concerned will no longer compete, the real tragedy here is the message Head Judge Gardener sent to all FBBs with his stand in Omaha.

Imagine FIFA telling female football pros they have to tackle 20% less hard. Imagine the AIBA telling female boxers they should punch 20% less hard, and if they continue to go full power, they won't be able to qualify for the Olympics. Imagine the ICC telling female fast bowlers they are introducing a new maximum speed for deliveries and any delivery over that speed will be called a no-ball. Imagine the IAAF introducing a maximum weight for female (but not male) shot putters. F***ing ridiculous, isn't it?



In any other sport, the governing body would immediately face accusations of discrimination, and if necessary would be challenged in a court of law. At the very least they would lose all credibility. In any other sport, female athletes are - like their male oounterparts - encouraged to excel, to be absolutely the best they can be. In any other sport, those with a natural gift for excellence are embraced, lauded, and take their place at the very top. But not Female Bodybuilders in the IFBB. Not in this sport.