Move over MMA, the PILLOW FIGHT LEAGUE is coming

by: Lufguy 1 year, 10 months, 19 hours, 26 minutes ago 5

By ANNA M. TINSLEY via Houston Chronicle

Don’t pull hair, try to gouge anyone’s eyes or be rude.

And never, ever hide a brick inside a pillow.

Just fight like a girl.

Those are the rules of the expanding Pillow Fight League, a new Canadian born “sport” that founders hope is on its way around the United States.

"It’s real women having fights with pillows, having fun,” said Stacey P. Case, the 39-year-old Canadian drummer who created the league. “Anything goes."

This is not your traditional slumber-party pillow fight.

These women train every week, learning to take each other down using chokeholds and leg drops, with pillows, of course.

"It’s kind of vicious,” he said. “You can hit them, you can trip them anything goes as long as there is a pillow at the point of contact."

Case dreamed up the idea years ago while on tour with his band, Tijuana Bibles. Wanting to see if anyone was interested, he put an ad in the paper.

"The PFL wants you!” “Women 19-35, smart, cute, athletic with a mean streak"

Thirty women answered; five showed up.

The league now boasts 25 members, Canadian women who hold down jobs as secretaries, accountants and writers and who pillow fight on the side.

They have characters, costumes and stage names.

There’s the apron wearing Betty Clock’er, the beer drinking Boozy Suzy, the aggressive waitress Polly Esther, even the pillow fight world champion, Champain.

During a match, they step on the mat, grab a standard double-stuffed queen size pillow (no feather pillows allowed) and have five minutes to win or lose.

The fighters are monitored by referees, and they can do anything, chokeholds, leg drops, clotheslines, pinning opponents to the mat as long as the pillow is used at the point of contact.

The PFL, formed in March 2006, has put on half a dozen shows in Canada.

Now PFL organizers hope to bring their show to Austin in March, during the South by Southwest film and music festival.

But they’re still trying to find a place to perform, Case said.

"Imagine calling someone, saying you’re the commissioner of the Pillow Fight League in Canada and you want to put a fight on there in Austin,” Case said. “People on the other end of the phone usually laugh at me."

"Now, because of (the New York shows), people are taking us seriously.

If the show doesn’t make it to Austin, Case said he’ll reschedule a visit for later in the year. He said he’d like chapters in Fort Worth, Houston and around the world.

But some Texans say they won’t be disappointed if the league never makes it to Texas.

Beth Anne Shelton said the league plays to men’s fantasies, with some of the women fighting in fishnet stockings and short shorts.

“You think you’ve heard everything,” said Shelton, a sociology professor and director of women’s studies at the University of Texas at Arlington. “But this is truly ridiculous.

"There are ways to have fun that don’t set back women’s efforts to be taken seriously,” she said. “I would hope it dies a quiet death."

• Length of a fight: Five minutes
• Average fights per live event: 10
• Size of all pillows: Double-stuffed queen size (no feathers)
• Slogan: “Fight like a girl”
• Age, weight and height requirements: None. (They tend not to take fighters over 40, although they could someday create a seniors league.)
• How to win: Pin your opponent. If you don’t, the decision goes to three judges who look at style, stamina and “eye of the tiger,” said Stacey P. Case, commissioner of the league. “ ‘Eye of the tiger’ is a combination of aggressiveness, the will to win and passion”

SOME OF THE OTHER FIGHTERS: Sally Spitfire, Sarah Bellum, Digit Jones, Sister Resistor…

• For more information: http://www.beer.com/pfl