My
first couple of days in wrestling were confusing because everyone
else had done this kind of stuff for years and when the coaches would
call out some drills to do they all knew what to do and I would try
and catch on without having to be told. My biggest problem was that
in my weight class there was only one kid who was actually trying and
three who were just there to fulfill some kind of parental mandate.
Some dads were convinced that wrestling would toughen up, build
character and otherwise salvage their slacker sons so they made
various life enhancing privileges contingent on their participation.
The first time I was supposed to drill some basic take-downs I did
what I thought they wanted me to do but my partner just went limp and
fell down as dead weight. I thought I must have done something wrong
because he was not fighting back at all and on his turn he was just
barley moving. I finally asked him if I was doing something wrong and
he said no he just didn't want to wrestle so he was trying to do as
little as possible. I was there to learn how to wrestle so I could
compete and win and I felt weird going hard with two guys who didn't
want to be there. To find someone to practice with who wanted to
practice I moved up one and then two weight classes above my natural
size of 138 pounds to 152. If you are at all familiar with wrestling
you may know that it is much more typical to try and loose weight to
have a size advantage over your opponent and I was heading the other
way. I figured I couldn't be that hard because I could beat the guy
at 152 and I disliked him anyway so when we were practicing we were
both going hard. When I went to my first duel meet I realized my
mistake when I went to the mat and the guy was easily 30lbs bigger
than me having cut weight to get to 152. It didn't go well. I didn't
get pinned but the outcome was never in question from the opening
whistle to the end of three two minute rounds I was outsized and
outclassed but not out fought. My coach came up to me after the meet
and told me he had never seen anyone fight harder in a loosing effort
and that if I kept working and trying I would do just fine. He was
wrong.
