There is no feeling like it. It churns in your stomach like butter. It’s not necessarily a bad feeling, but it’s a feeling that most people don’t experience. I’m talking about the feeling you get when you step on that wrestling mat and go toe to toe with your adversary.At this moment, the crowd may be chanting and banging on the bleachers like a stampide of animals, but all you hear is scilence. From the outside, everyone sees two men playing a sport, however; it’s more than that. when you step on the mat, everything fades to black in your mind and all of your thoughts swirl through the sink of your mind. But this moment was not spontaneous. Before you even think about stepping on that mat, you first must endure a week of agony and joy. After …show more content…
a long day of school and work, your mind forces your worn, tired body to saunter to the wrestling room. Of course the first thing you do is weigh yourself. As the red lights flash calculating your weight, you fill yourself with denial. You know the number will be higher than you had hoped, but you try to trick your mind by telling it lies. “I didn’t eat that much last night,” and, “ I probably lost a during my last workout” are common phrases that dance in your mind, These thoughts gallop joyfully through your thoughts until your body lights up red. You notice the red light streaming on your body light the sunlight from a calm, serene morning. You glance down only to have your hopes crushed and your mind go blank. The number that appears on the scale is higher than you previously thought which means practice will be harder than you thought. Most people can look from the outside and wonder why this number means so much to a wrestler. But it’s not just a number, it’s a goal. When you step toe to toe with your foe, you do everything you can to beat him. However, weight is not the only hardship you must endure. Your practice is one of the hardest things you must go through both mentally and physically.
You walk into the room and feel a warm gust of air greet you at the door. The smell of cleaner fills your nose as your shoes squeak along the freshly mopped mats. The clock strikes 3:30 and the coach blows his whistle that seems to penetrate your ears with a piercing screech. Your body aches and your mind tells you to leave and quit. On the other hand, your heart tells you to go on. Through all the pain, your heart always seems to whisper to you, “This will make you great. This extra day of pain will make the difference.” Even though practice makes your bones ache, your joints grind, your skin bleed, and your body swell; there is a greater hardship to come. This hardship is not physical or predicted. It sneaks up on you like a tiger sneaking up on his prey. This of course is all the mental pain that comes with the fine sport of wrestling. Unlike other sports, your match is not determined by your teammates or coaches, it is determined by you. Whether you win or lose, It’s all on you. This gives the mental demons leverage to put on you. “you’ll never be good enough” and “your opponent is obviously better” are thoughts that commonly fill your mind. All you can do is brush these off and keep grinding. Day and night, you have to grind until that fateful day. Meet
day. The crowd is still chanting your name, your stomach is still churning, and your mind goes numb. This is the day you’ve been training for and fighting for. The whistle blows and you’re off like a racehorse jetting out of its stall. Every split second counts and you can’t hesitate. You begin to battle this rival and throw all of your strength at him. They say the first period is won by technique and the second is won by strength. Although you have been putting your soul into each practice and each day of wrestling, you’re evenly matched in both strength and technique. This means you have to wrestle another 2 minutes. before the period starts, you glance into your adversary’s eyes. You can sense that he’s tired and wants to give up, but you can’t show him that you’re tired. Don’t forget, this is not one of your comrades but your opponent. Any sign of weakness will allow him the chance to win. Finally, you tie up and wrestle for the last two minutes. All of your mind, body, sweat, tears, and blood goes into these minutes. Luckily, you wrap around, pick him up, and slam him to his back. But it’s not over. You slide your arm between his head and arm and begin to crank on his body like a crowbar. Then you hear it! the sound of the crowd standing up and cheering and the referee’s hand hitting the mat. It’s over, you won. As your hand is being raised by the referee, you glance to the crowd. The sight of fans screaming in excitement fills your eyes, but you don’t hear them. Your ears block out all the sound around you and your mouth fills with the taste of victory. It’s not a sweet taste, but savory. Because the first period may be won with technique and the second with strength, but the third is won by the wrestler with the biggest heart.
I had always had an odd passion for working out, even before I became a weightlifter. I endured years of volleyball conditions, all of which left me sprawled across the floor, drenched in sweat; however, I never complained. My muscles quivered, my heart raced, my lungs pressed against my ribs, and my body collapsed; but my mind was determined. However, I found myself alone in this sentiment.
When completing an exercise a person is expecting results that day, during or post workout. Training is a long-term process that creates noticeable and physical results over a span of weeks, even months and years. Training involves planning with preparation for the training duration and progress towards a goal. The desire to win and be better than the competition is essentially important for professional and collegiate athletes. These athletes take training and preparation for a competition to a new level of determination and commitment. For the last two years, I have been working with the University of Oklahoma’s softball team as their student athletic trainer. I attend every practice, workout, and all of their games. As the student athletic trainer, I help with assessing their injuries, with treatment and rehabilitation of their injuries as well as injury prevention. I have watched these women go through some strenuous workouts and have seen their improvements. Some of the girls have asked about taking CrossFit classes or other workout programs during winter and summer breaks. Our strength coach advised against taking the CrossFit classes that he has not specifically approved. He
When we first arrived I’d thought we’d taken a wrong turn and went to a traveling gypsy convention by mistake. The whole field outside the school was filled with tents of various sizes and colors. 200 wrestlers, about thirty of which were girls, filtered about the area. As my soon-to-be teammates and I headed to the first practice, anxiety gnawed at my stomach like a dog with a bone (FL). I wanted to impress everybody, and prove that I could make it in this sport. Before we started, the coach patted me on the shoulder. “I’ve got your back all right.” he told me. I smiled and nodded. At least one person was looking out for me.
It then started to get harder and each day was a different workout to help me and my teammates improve. I was at a point where all I could do was attend school, go to practice and go home. Each day I was beyond tired. At a point of time I felt like giving up and going back to my regular life, and regular schedule. As the coach started to notice how I felt, he pulled me to the side and started to question what was going on. I explained, but everything I said was not a good enough reason. My coach told me, “If this is what you really want you won’t give up, no matter how hard it may get you will overcome it.” That day I learned a valuable lesson, to never give up.
Wrestling is more than just a sport; it is a way of life. And for those who enjoy its opportunities, it is something that takes the mind off of all of life’s troubling times, and puts one man against another to get their hand raised. Competition makes everything evolve, and there is no other sport that epitomizes what competition truly is. Wrestling spans the entire globe, and although it incorporates several different styles and many National and World events, remains overlooked by most.
Although therapy deemed very challenging, I’m thoroughly engrossed in watching the inner workings of the trainer building me to be strong again. During the rebuilding process I’m able to absorb several factors of how the human body works as well as notice the psychology required to strengthen a patient. Hard to admit, but during the recovery time the onset of struggling to maintain a positive attitude can become prevalent. Being sidelined from sports weighed on my psyche and negatively affected my grades as well as daily demeanor. This is where the mind strengthening from the trainer and having a strong faith truly came into
In 2014 I was determined to make the high school soccer team. Every day at 8 am at the beginning of a dreadfully hot August morning, I would get to the turf fields for 4 hours and participate in “hell week”. After a long week, I made the JV team. I was never put into the game and felt like my hard work was put to no use. My sophomore year rolled around and I tried extra hard to impress the coaches. Anything and everything was a competition to make it to the top. By the end of the week, we all gathered around the paper that had names of the players who made it. I didn’t make the team. After tears and telling myself to move on, I went to the field hockey tryouts. I knew nothing about the sport and was terrified that soccer wasn’t my go-to
I joined my school’s cross country team in the summer. At the beginning we performed pre-season workouts. The training was tough, but my proud personality and the very thought of what I had to gain kept me motivated and helped me push through the pain. Every time I felt like giving up or quitting, I would say to myself, “This pain is only temporary; remember that the reward will be permanent, and it will be worth the pain that I endure today.” I was able to push through the
CLAP, CLAP, CLAP, CLAP, echoes through my head as I walk to the middle of the mat. "At 160lbs Aidan Conner of La Junta vs. Rodney Jones of Hotchkiss." All I can think of is every bead of sweat, every drip of blood, every mile, every push up, every tear. Why? All of this: just to be victorious. All in preparation for one match, six minutes. For some these six minutes may only be a glimpse, and then again for some it may be the biggest six minutes of their life. Many get the chance to experience it more than once. Some may work harder and want it more than others, but they may never get the chance. All they get is a moral victory. Every kid, every man comes into the tournament with a goal. For some is to win, for some is to place, others are just happy to qualify. These six minutes come on a cold frigid night in February at a place called the Pepsi Center. Once a year this gathering takes place when the small and the large, the best of the best, come to compete in front thousands of people. I am at the Colorado State Wrestling Championships.
Then, three years ago, I broke through those walls. My conscious urged me against it, ran through all the “what ifs” of the situation, as usual, but this time I couldn’t help it. How can one ever truly test his abilities if one is too afraid to even take any initial risk? So, one cloudy, brisk Saturday morning, and joined the football team. Immediately after the first practice, the option of quitting crept its way into my mind. But how could I ever reach my goals if I couldn’t take on a high school sport? There will be thousands of students in college competing with me, professors looking to make scholars, not dropouts. If I couldn’t face this, I couldn’t face them. So, I endured practice after practice, game after game. Every day, I had to rebuild the courage I had to walk out on the field that first day to step out on the field. I was weaker, smaller, and less apt at the game than man of the guys on that team, but I the constant threat of fear couldn’t hold me back anymore.
The start of the 2002 track season found me concerned with how I would perform. After a disastrous bout with mononucleosis ended my freshmen track season, the fear of failure weighed heavily on my mind. I set a goal for myself in order to maintain focus and to push myself like nothing else would. My goal for my sophomore track season was to become a state champion in the 100 meter hurdles. I worked hard everyday at practice and went the extra mile, like running every Sunday, to be just that much closer to reaching my goal. The thought of standing highest on the podium in the center of the field, surrounded by hundreds of spectators, overcame my thoughts of complaining every time we had a hard workout. When I closed my eyes, I pictured myself waiting in anticipation as other competitors names were called out, one by one, until finally, the booming voice announced over the loudspeaker, "...and in first place, your 2002 100 meter hurdle champion, from Hotchkiss, Connie Dawson." It was visions like these that drove me to work harder everyday.
Wrestling, one the world’s oldest sport, is the newest sport to the athletic program. Head Coach Danny Nolan, with the help of his father, Coach Kevin Nolan, and his brother Coach Mike Nolan instruct four seniors, three juniors, five sophomores, and five freshman in the sport of wrestling.
The topic that Interest me and captivates most of my time is wrestling. Whether it is watching Olympic level matches down to competing and practicing; I love letting it consume all my time. I watch daily matches in my free time and if anyone ever wants to wrestle and practice I am there. The reason I love wrestling and spend most of my time involved with some form of it is because I think that wrestling, as a sport, is amazing and very beautiful. I think it is an art form that many people do not recognize. Wrestling has many little aspects that make it entertaining that some may not find interesting but I find it exciting and wondrous. Wrestling has taught me many lessons in life. The sport has helped me learn to be more creative and think
When a person walks into a building to see a live wrestling event they do not know what to expect. They wonder who will be wrestling. They wonder where their seats are. All of the suspense gets them ready for the show. The suspense gets them pumped and ready to for the show to start.
To reach my goals, I’ve faced many challenges and have learned to be mentally tough. It’s one of the fastest and most physically demanding sports with extraordinary fitness and strength requirements. I learned to overcome pain, illness, injury, frustration and fatigue to put the game and the team before myself. I left home at an early age, living with host families, to pursue my goals and play high level hockey. Hamlet said, “We know what we are, but not what we may be”. Leaving home, I knew I could handle it but I never knew then that what challenged me would give me strength. I didn’t know then that living without my family, feeling alone at times and struggling to become self-reliant would help me become who I am