wrestling

Intro to Wrestling with Tenacious-G and Trevasive

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment

I spent last evening at a takedown tournament, watching Gabe, Trevor, and the rest of the multitude of boys in St. Michael-Albertville’s Youth Wrestling Program this year. With scores of young wrestlers — some rookies, like my sons; some crusty veterans of numerous club seasons — I guess they figured a takedown tourney would be the easier way to be sure everyone got some experience.

It ran like this: the boys were divided into eight squads, and the squads were paired off. Wrestlers were matched with opponents as close as possible to their same size and weight, and given one minute to score as many takedowns against each other as possible. A referee (members of the high-school JV team) would signal each takedown and quickly stand the boys up again and restart them. The team received one point for every takedown scored by their wrestler.

Trevor was fortunate enough to have wrestled an actual match a few weeks back, against a friend of his. He lost that match by pin, but had a good time, so I was excited to see him in action. Gabe has yet to wrestle a match. He has done plenty of  live wrestling in practice, but never with a timer or someone keeping score — so he was disappointed with the format. He’s built like me in both size and temperament (or rather, like I was back then: an easygoing melon on matchsticks), so I figured a takedown tourney, with an emphasis on speed and aggression, was going to be a big test.

In the end, Gabe won against his first opponent — a boy about his size but, he was guessing, a couple years younger, and frightfully passive — then lost against his second and third opponents, who were his age, 20-plus pounds heavier, and had their own singlets. Following his first match, Gabe was somber: he knew the boy had been scared and barely resisted, and took no pleasure in knocking him over repeatedly. The second kid let Gabe grab his leg, then dropped on him and scrambled behind again and again; Gabe was aggressive and persistent, but couldn’t do anything from beneath. Afterward, Gabe’s coach showed him how to slip sideways, then try to snatch an ankle without getting beneath a larger opponent. In his final match, Gabe was aggressive, persistent, and much better on his feet; he was simply overpowered by a bigger, stronger boy. His coach said, “You were tenacious — I like to see that!”

So does his dad.

Trevor dropped all three of his matches, and did his best to keep his opponent away from him with outstretched arms and quick feet. He has long disliked loud noises, and was worried about the buzzer that would sound at the end of the match — he kept stealing glances at the clock, and with a few seconds left, actually stopped moving and covered his ears! In his last match, he made a few grabs for his opponent’s legs, but when his opponent grabbed him back, he turned to the mat and fell — almost like they were taking turns, except he never got a turn. Even so, he was all smiles; win or lose, he enjoyed hanging with the other boys and rolling around on the mats.

A friend’s dad smiled and said, “Trevor’s pretty evasive out there!”

On the way home, I asked Tenacious-G and Trevasive if they wanted to join Brendan for the extended wrestling season — a series of extra practices over the next few weeks. Trevor had already said several times that he had a great time, while Gabe had told us weeks ago that he didn’t think he would wrestle again next year. “I want to do DI (Destination Imagination),” he said, “and I like soccer and want to try track and cross-country. I think I prefer leg sports…”

“So what about the extended season?” I asked.

“I don’t want to,” Trevor said. “I think I’m just ready to be done.”

“I want to,” said Gabe — explaining that he’s not planning to do it next year, so he wants to get as much out of wrestling this year as he can…and he wants to be sure he gets to wrestle a real match.

I guess we’d better find him a real tournament. Meanwhile, Trevor’s talking baseball: keeping score and three strikes this year. So proud of these boys!

The Second Third, Week 39: No Sympathy for Sympathy Weight

/ J. Thorp / 3 Comments
I’ve heard these hardheaded Russian devils eat fat. In my Second Third, I hope to feed it well.
My senior year of high school, I stood about six feet, two inches. During football season that fall, I weighed around 175 pounds; I started wrestling season alternating between 171 and 189 — wherever the team needed me — and by midseason I was a lean, mean 152 pounds, wrestling 160, 171, and 189, plugging holes in the lineup to keep us from forfeiting. I could make weight with my gear on most days, was well-fed, had good energy — and wrestled my best season (which was only a little above .500, but still…).

A year later I entered an intramural wrestling tournament at Yale, weighing in at around 185. All-you-can-eat dining halls and student lethargy were taking their toll; was exhausted even wrestling short periods, and threw up in a snowbank after my first.

I was still hovering under 200 when Jodi and I met in Wall. We married, settled in a bit, started having kids…and I have always joked that I put on sympathy weight with each child, only unlike Jodi, I’ve never taken it back off. This explains why, 15 years after we married, I’ve gained 40 plus pounds. Ten per child, see?

I’m told by friends that there’s no way I weigh 240 these days; when I insist, they say I carry it well. Perhaps so (and thanks!) — but what had long been a joke seems less funny this summer. After seven years, we’re expecting again, and I feel as though I’ve been busier and more active than I’ve been in a long time — except that the scale today is pushing 250.

Two hundred and fifty pounds? An eighth of a ton?!

I’m 36. I don’t have the energy to pack that extra weight around for no reason. Plus my 13-year-old is getting bigger, faster, and stronger by the minute. Thus far I still intimidate him. I need to keep it that way — but more Chewbacca, and less Jabba the Hutt.

So. My training komrade is a 35-pound cannon ball with a handle. It’s simple, compact, and I’m told it will kill me or cure me. I say cure, since I plan to live to 105. Wish me luck.

The Second Third, Week 1: Pulling My Own Weight

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment

Somewhere around ninth or tenth grade, I took my required high-school health class. Early that first semester, we were asked to set a fitness goal for ourselves. I was one of the small guys on the football team, and a mediocre wrestler, at best, with a large head, skinny build, and little natural athletic talent — so there was plenty of room for physical improvement.

I thought about speed and strength-related goals, like many of my male classmates, but ultimately settled on this: “I want to be able to bike or walk anyplace I want to go, even when I’m in my 70s.”

Or something like that; you get the gist. To be completely honest, I had visions of a family bike trip across the country. Our teacher was also a coach on his way to assistant principal, but even he took notice. This goal was not like a lot of the others. It was extremely long-term, and seemed modest, but as a man of a certain age, he knew this was no small thing.

As a senior, I played varsity football as second-string noseguard. I was about 6-2 and 175 pounds at the end of season, so when wrestling started, I told my coach I was going 189. (Dad told me in 7th grade, when I said I wanted to wrestle, that I always had to wrestle up a weight class — I was forbidden to cut weight, or he would pull me from the team.)

By the mid-point of the season, I weighed 152 pounds, and wrestled 160, 171, and 189, as needed. I was skinny, sure, but had never been in better shape, and had my best (albeit still mediocre) season.

Freshman year at Yale, after several months away from organized sports, I entered an intramural wrestling tournament. I wrestled three shortened periods, won my first match, and went outside to puke in the snow.

The second match was the next day. This time, my opponent had put at least modest effort into his cardio since high school, and it showed. For me, it’s been downhill since.

Today? 6-3 and 235 (on a good day). My bike hung in the garage all spring and summer this year. I road the stationary bike indoors after dark fairly regularly for a few months — but as far as biking anywhere I want to go…well, I can still ride, but we aren’t gonna make time. Especially on the hills.

What’s more: it has begun to bother me that I cannot move my own weight with just my arms. I can do solid pushups, but no pull-ups. From a survival standpoint, this seems like a bad thing. Not that I expect to be in a fight-or-flight situation this week, but then, that’s the point: you never know…

In some ways I was wise as a kid; in some ways, just way less busy and as invincible as only a teenage boy can be. But here in my Second Third, I should be self-sufficient — and that means physically, too. I’ve got work to do.