Got Your Eyes

TigerLilly chokes out "pipsqueak" Sam.

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On Saturday night, in the protected brick-and-mortar bosom of Lacy Street Studios in Downtown L.A., a MMA training enterprise called Ultimate Female Fitness launched Beat Down Girls, a "female supremacist" wrestling studio and collective, with a four-match, mixed wrestling tournament. Cassandra Lee, the company's founder and madame of fetish clubs past, describes the Beat Down Girls as an athletic "girl gang" that champions the physical, mental and sexual superiority of women over their estrogen-challenged cohorts -- and aren't afraid to get in the ring to prove it.

Several of the fit and fiercest from various corners of the women's fighting world, including pro boxer/Penthouse centerfold Hollie "Hotstuff" Dunaway; darling of online BDSM porn emporium Kink.com, Rain DeGrey; former competitive body builder Jennifer Thomas; and buxom-legged newcomer TigerLilly were there on Saturday to spar with more-than-willing male victims.

For those out of the professional fighting loop, this event involved "mixed fighting," meaning men and lady folk in the ring, together, mixing sweat and guff and grunts. One catch is, the ladies always come out on top -- each fight is thrown to the fairer sex to propagate an illusion of impervious female strength. Literally, the champion would, in the immortal words of Mortal Kombat, "finish him" by digging a dainty foot into a helpless lad's ribs and flash her biceps for the crowd. This is prime wank material for a large subculture of fetishists who prefer women of the Amazonian variety, and the fetish hinges on a flawless victory for the ladies.

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Courtesy of Zogsports

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*Top 10 Bars With the Hottest Women in L.A.

For all those sick of the gym but who are still holding tight to their New Year's resolution to get in shape, there's Zogsports. The social sports organization that brings together young professionals in places like New York and San Francisco basketball, bowling, soccer and other recreational sports and is launching March 17 in Los Angeles.

Founded in New York by Rob Herzog after he narrowly missed the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11, Zogsports' focus is heavy on the first word in "social sports leagues". Each game ends at a bar for drinks and networking and there are organized group outings to wine tastings and river rafting, says ZogSportsLA General Manager Matt Worley. And, Worley says, Zogsports also focuses on giving back to the community.

"Charity is tied into everything," says Worley. "Each team chooses a charity to play for each season ... and the winner of your division gets a large check sent to the charity. We also have other ways to earn money for your charity with what we call Off Field Awards, so [awards for] best team name," and others.

The costs to join the Zogsports leagues depend on the specific sport's length and location.

The Los Angeles Zogsports (#6) will launch in March with co-ed touch football, the organization's most popular activity, in Culver City, and plans to expand to other areas and activities based on need. Find out more at their launch party, happening from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. tonight at Rush Street in Culver City.

But, of course, Zogsports isn't the only social sports league in Los Angeles. Here are five others to consider:

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Photo by Kaysie Ellingson/Flickr

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When it comes to yoga, L.A's reputation precedes it. Ask any east coaster, and they'll tell you that we're a bunch of Lululemon-wearing, namaste-saying hippies who have jobs that allow us to practice Iyengar at 11:30 on Tuesday mornings.

And in some cases -- like that of the freelance writer -- they're not entirely wrong. But that doesn't mean we'll drop mat at just any old class; we're selective about who we let guide us into a nice, easy downward-facing dog. Here are the top ten studios in Los Angeles that we frequent:

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Drew Barillas

Ericka Aklufi, fastest female stair runner in the west

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*10 Best Ways to Get in Shape in L.A.
*10 Best Workouts in L.A. for People Who Hate Working Out

Competitive stair-climbing, its devotees like to say, is the hardest sport that no one's ever heard of. That there is such a thing as an elite stair-climber probably comes as a surprise to anyone who's been assiduously riding elevators all these years. But even to enthusiasts, running as fast as you can up dozens of flights of stairs is an ungodly painful thing.

The sport's elites gathered in downtown Los Angeles a few weekends ago to raise funds for the Ketchum-Downtown YMCA by racing up the tallest building west of the Mississippi: the U.S. Bank Tower. At 75 stories, the skyscraper is host to one of the top three stair-climbing races in the country. The other two are the Willis (formerly Sears) Tower, at 103 floors, and the Empire State Building, at 86.

One elite climber, Mark Trahanovsky, is standing near the starting line where people -- wiry, skinny, 1 percent-body fat types with knees of steel -- are hopping up and down like caffeinated rabbits. Climbers carry their body weight up the stairs, so it helps to weigh less. Trahanovsky weighs a svelte 174 pounds but confesses that he wishes he weighed about 10 pounds less.

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These women are exercising

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*Our Best of L.A. issue and our Best of L.A. app
*Top 10 Bars With the Hottest Women in L.A.
*Top 10 Gyms in L.A.
*10 Bars Most Likely to Get You Laid in L.A.

Running is boring. Treadmills make me feel like a rat in an experiment. And tennis -- my racket is somewhere, and, do I have to sign up for a court somewhere, or...never mind, I'm tired already.

Sometimes you need to think outside the box to get motivated to get off your butt. Here are the 10 best workouts in L.A. for people who hate working out, from our Best of L.A. issue.

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Innis Casey

See also:
*Our Best of L.A. issue and our Best of L.A. app
*Top 10 Gyms in L.A.
*Top 10 Bars With the Hottest Women in L.A.

You see the flab. You want the flab gone. You want it gone now.

There's no New Year's resolution. There's no wedding dress to fit into. It's just getting in shape time. Because you just can't stand it any more.

Here are the 10 best ways to get in shape in L.A., from our Best of L.A. issue. And you can also try picking up a copy of the issue and lifting it a few times -- it's big.

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220 Fitness

If there's anything we are not lacking in Los Angeles, it's places to work out. But finding the perfect gym to tone, slim down or -- dare we even say it -- find a date is a highly subjective decision.

Then there's that old real estate rule of location, location, location; You want a gym close to you so you'll actually go to it, but also one that has the amenities that make you want to go to it. Big box chains will have more gyms in different areas, but they also can be more crowded than a cattle call casting session. Most neighborhoods will have more intimate, boutique gyms -- workout studios that can be more expensive and also render themselves useless by one job change or apartment rental.

Taking all of this into consideration, we scoured the city for 10 of the best gyms in Los Angeles.

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Flickr/ Bayasaa

New Year's is upon us soon, and with that, the angsty debate about what to do in order to make it the most epic night of both the last and the new year begins (no pressure attached, of course).

In order to take some of the stress out of planning the big party, here are LA Weekly's picks for L.A.'s top ten New Year's Eve events.

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Ted Soqui

Injured veterans practice adaptive rowing.

He was walking through the combat zone when he slipped and fell. Sgt. 1st Class Rorey Nichols landed hard on his lower back. He lay there for a while. He was alone, which was bad. But it was daytime, and he thanked God for that. Slipping sounds stupid. Slipping on your way to the chow hole while carrying 75 to 100 pounds of gear, on a so-called road in Afghanistan that's nothing but rocks and sand, sounds stupid and dangerous. He pulled himself up.

Nichols was no stranger to peril. He'd served in Iraq from 2005 to 2006 and learned that you could be sitting on the toilet when a stray bullet whizzes through the wall and kills you. Or lying in bed -- in which case not even a tattoo of the Archangel Michael can protect you. (Nichols got his on his right forearm when he first enlisted.) A decade and a half in the Army inures you to fear. But when he found out he'd broken his spine, for the first time in his life he was scared. Really scared.

Two years, three ruptured spinal discs and one fractured vertebra later, Nichols is standing barefoot on the dock at Peter Archer Rowing Center in Long Beach. He watches a group of injured soldiers gingerly pick their way onto a long, slim boat. They are learning how to row.

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Samantha Stratton

Go Grease Cycling!

The song "96,000" from the musical In The Heights blasts over a loud speaker. Twenty or so eager performers face the instructor, Graham LaBass, who encourages us from his head mic, "It's musical theater guys: just because the tempo slows down, doesn't mean we do!"

We pick up the pace, all gazing intently at our reflections in the mirror, trying our best to keep up with the chorus line. This might be a scene from Fame until LaBass exclaims, "Alright guys, back in the saddle!" Suddenly my lofty Broadway fantasy is brought back to the warmly lit cycling room at Up Dog Yoga and Cycling in West Hollywood.

Show Tune Cycle is the unique collaboration between Up Dog cycling teacher Graham LaBass and his fiancée, entertainer and host Ryan O'Connor. O'Connor, who expertly crafts a distinct playlist for every class in addition to hosting "Musical Mondays," a weekly musical nightclub act, assures me that Show Tune Cycle is just the tip of the iceberg, "We are kind of building a little musical theater army here in Los Angeles."

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