Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Paige, Wrestler.


#1 in the Empire @ 154 lbs



You’re always nervous before a wrestling match. On the day of my very first wrestling match, I was nervous. The minutes before my match against a girl who exclaimed, “Oh @#$%! I’m wrestling her?” when we got our bout sheet, I was nervous. Today, in my fifth year of wrestling, I’m nervous. There are several symptoms that confirm this fact: my stomach is growling with hunger, but I feel sick if I eat anything; there is some joint- the wrist, the neck, the ankle- that I can’t stop rolling; a montage of me doing stand-ups, cross facing guys to their backs, and pinning girls after throwing a head and arm is constantly running in my head. The latter is a measure to convince myself that I can win.
But I don‘t feel so bad about being nervous, because Nathan Tubbs is nervous too, and he‘s a senior. After a short conversation we agree that everyone gets nervous before their matches because wrestling is the closest anyone can get to a fighting without actually doing so. Our bodies simply respond accordingly. I must be honest, nervousness isn’t the center of my attention all day. It subsides for long periods of time until I start thinking about my own matches again. During the time between, which is often several hours, I’m completely engulfed in the wrestling around me. Our team’s tendency to sit in the top corner of the gym bleachers gives me a near bird’s-eye-view of the mats below.
When I’m watching the matches, there is a level of focus as if I’m at school learning, but the way I take it in is different. Rather than saving each fact like a picture, I seem to absorb everything that I see. Nothing that I see in a match is a definitive truth, it just adds to my understanding of wrestling. My picture is still unsatisfactorily clear, but I spend a lot of time learning, especially at tournaments.
There is always an overwhelming amount of noise. There is the chatter, of course, which is inherent in any heavily populated space. There are the whistles from the officials and the announcements from staging. There are the screams of coaches, which vary in intensity. The coaches always say the same things: stand up! Drive! Squeeze! But some coaches never stop screaming. The pounding of bodies being slammed into the mats can be felt and heard. Here in the large gym, you can feel the collision with the mat after a throw, but in the smaller gym you can feel everything: the shots, the break downs, the fakes. I can easily be engulfed by this world. At most tournaments, I do nothing else during the hours between my matches.
As usual, weigh-ins are at 7:30 this morning. The boys are already weighed in for the second day of the Lou Bronzan tournament, leaving me in culture shock for the girls’ weigh-ins. I’m so used to make-shift weigh-ins for three or four girls in the snack-shack or janitor’s closet that a locker room full of girls in singlets is strange. The amiability I’d developed for my fellow female wrestlers while at Novice and Healdsburg has vanished in the presence of these potential enemies. I scan the crowd for people in my weight class but everyone I see looks either bigger or smaller than me.
After weighing in I head back to the bleachers to eat something but the first symptom has already kicked in. I spread cream cheese on a bagel, take two bites, and admit that my stomach wont accept the food. The other guys on my team, who never seem to have this eating problem, return from breakfast and Coach begins his attempts at getting us to warm up. He offers the idea that all he needs from us is ten solid minutes of a good work-out. Aware that we’ll listen to him, he sends Ian Bailey and me to the mats to start running. Reluctantly, the others put on their shoes and follow.
Nathan Tubbs ends up being my partner for the warm up and any confidence I’d gained from my success at the last two tournaments is lost as soon as we start. The only take downs I can think of are shots and I know those won’t work in a match, not for me anyway. My break downs are pathetic and only produce results once Nathan decides I’ve worked long enough at it. I’ve accepted the fact that if I want to get my opponent on their stomach I’ll have to get them there from their feet. My escapes are decent but I only know one- the stand up.
The guys start wrestling on time but two or three hours pass before the girls brackets are even posted. There are six girls in my bracket, leaving me with a bye for the first round. This means even more waiting. Enough waiting, in fact, for me to fall asleep on a bleacher in the small gym. Thankfully, my body keeps some level of alertness, because I wake up when they call 155 girls to staging. Although I’m impressed by the fact that I actually got some sleep, I also regret the extra weariness that has come with the nap. Finally, my weight class and gender is called and I head to staging. “Steeding?” the man questions himself as he calls for me.
“Here,” I reply, raising my hand slightly.
He hands me the bout sheet, “You two are on mat 8.” I nod at my opponent to acknowledge her and walk towards the mat just in front of where I was sleeping ten minutes ago. I hand the table our bout sheet and they slide it under two others. As I put on my head gear my mom comes up to me and asks, “Do you want me to get your Coach?”
I nod at her, “Yes please. But Mom, hurry up, there are only two matches before mine.” I watch her speed walk across the gym for a moment before I start warming up. Suddenly, my head is in twenty different places- will I have a coach, will Mom make it back in time, will I have enough time to warm-up, will I lose? My gut is tight again and my mind reverts to the wrestling montage. Andrew Collins comes running in through the gym doors and comes over to me. “Hey,” I say to him.
“Hey. You up next?” He asks.
“No, one more and I’m on deck.” He nods and gives me space to warm up. Next, Coach and Mom enter the gym.
“Are you up next?” Coach asks. I reply the same way I did to Andrew. After a minute or so of warming up I start yawning. It happens before every match now, whether I‘ve just slept or not. For some reason I have decided that the best way to respond to this is to change my mouth shape to make it look more like I’m baring my teeth and less like I’m about to fall asleep on the mat. Coach has talked about how different wrestlers do something ritually before their matches: Vinny looks like he is slapping himself in the face, David prays and slaps his thighs, I look like a mute lion. I have two primary goals for warming-up before a match: to get my muscles warm and to get sweaty enough to be slippery. I’ve found that when on bottom, it never hurts to be able to slip out of every arm lock they try to put you in. When the match right before mine ends I have accomplished these two tasks, but my mind is still searching for the right place.
I yank my shirt off over my head gear, toss it on the ground, and head for the score table. “Steeding?” The referee asks. I nod. “You’re green.” I nod and walk to the center circle and put my ankle strap on. My body is ready and I try to convince my mind to be ready too. My opponent has her ankle strap on too, and the referee approaches us. As soon as it is appropriate, and before my opponent does, I get into stance. The stance makes me feel muscular, intimidating, solid, and ultimately carries me that last step into the wrestling mind set. It’s time. “Shake hands.” Whistle. Go.
Immediately I push forward with one hand on her bicep and the other in a collar tie. Surprised, she is quickly pushed out of the circle. Whistle. “Reset.” Whistle. This time, she pushes me and using her momentum I throw her onto her back, but we’re quickly out of bounds. She stands up and, after searching fruitlessly for an opening, I use her own mistake to take her down. This time, I manage to keep her there for a while. My position gets sloppy though, and she reverses me. We’re out of bounds with four seconds on the clock. Coach and Andrew urge me to get up, and although I’m quite certain that I wont be able to, I decide to give it my best. I actually got up.
The first period is over and the referee approaches the table to fix the score. I’m breathing really heavy, but it’s not because I’m wrestling, it’s because none of the air I’m taking in is getting to my lungs. I look at Coach, but he’s blurry. He’s saying something, so I nod. “You’re overreacting,” I tell myself, “just wrestle.” She defers so Coach chooses bottom for me. Once the ref blows the whistle, I manage to get to my feet but she keeps hold of me and throws me to the ground. After a few earnest attempts at reversals and escapes, what energy that remained is gone. Now, I can muster only enough energy to keep my base. Once I do this, my body refuses anything more. Screw this. She’s a b$%^#*. She’s getting tired. She gets too high and I stand up.
Well I’m up, but I can’t move. My head is so light. My focus is simply to stay upright, so when she pushes into me, I stumble out of the ring. Should I stop the match? I should, but the referee already blew the whistle. I could have fallen down without any help, but she throws me. My mind mutters the message which is usually a scream, “Don’t get pinned.” Time. Everything is blurry, I’m gasping for air, and at first, I can’t get up. My opponent can tell, but no one else does. Coach looks towards me and I point at my eyes then away from them. This gesture always seems insufficient, but when I feel like I do now, my only goal is to be able to tell someone what’s going on, and Coach knows what it means. “Time, time, time,” Coach says, and tells the ref that I’ve had a concussion. Coach asks if I’m okay, but I can’t say anything. I’m gulping in air, but when the referee tells me that my injury time is up, I barely feel better. Coach looks at me, I nod, and I return to the center of the mat.
I’m doing okay, and she keeps reaching up, so Coach yells to go for the duck-under. I do, but crumble onto myself and she ends up on top. The referee calls out of bounds and she places her hand on my back then uses it to push herself up. B#$%^&! It’s decided: I’m getting out. And in about ten seconds, I have. After pushing each other around, she does a sloppy hip throw, and as we both land on our sides, I wrap my leg around her body, pull myself up, and get the take down. The score is tied.
This means overtime. This means I have to make it through another two minutes. This means I could still win. We reset at neutral. The referee says, “First points win.” As soon as he whistles, my opponent literally charges. She has her head in my stomach and I hook my right arm around it. We’re immediately out of bounds and we land with a thud on my left shoulder. Having landed on me, she is fine and gets up. My shoulder, on the other hand, has accommodated both her weight and mine and is less keen to helping me get up. Now, just that much more pissed at this girl, I push myself onto my feet with my right arm. I get into stance, ready to end this. Whistle. She goes for the same plan as before but this time I know what she‘s doing. My right arm is instinctually in place, I lower my center or gravity, and with the extension of my legs I punch her across my chest. She’s on her back and I’m squeezing her head. She‘s pinned.
At that instant, I’m insanely happy. I release her head but by the time I sit up, I don’t have my usual smile of accomplishment. My head is somewhere, but I don’t know where. Everything’s blurry and I feel wobbly. I make my way to my line, but my anklet’s gone. “Shake hands.” I do, but my anklet is gone. The ref raises my hand but all I’m doing is taking in the deepest breath possible. That doesn’t help. As I walk to shake hands with her coach, I seriously consider if I‘ll be able to make it. I think I’m going to faint. Coach and Andrew tell me how to take someone down when I’m stuck halfway into a duck under. I try not to cry. Coach and Andrew are gone. Some guys congratulate me and walk by. Mom is saying something and I respond. I pick up my shirt and try to put it on but my hand are shaking and my shirt gets caught on everything- my elbows, my shoulders, my singlet. After great effort my shirt is on, but I look down and realize that I’ve put it on inside out.
Once I get all my clothes on properly I walk over to Nathan’s match and sit between the other guys. I can see Nathan and his opponent clearly but my whole body is shaking and my head is void of thought and weight. I can’t breath. “Awesome match Paige,” Ian says. Now, a thousand thoughts of being considered weak, of failing, of dying, rush through my brain. I stumble to a different location, burst into tears, and begin to hyperventilate. I don’t know it now, but this is a panic attack.
Later, my mom finds me, and under Coach’s orders I am given a Gatorade and a Smuckers sandwich. My hands are so shaky that I need both of them to drink the Gatorade. I make my way back to the bleachers and fall asleep. I’ve never slept this much at a tournament before. When it comes time to wrestle again, which is actually for first place since there are so few girls in my weight class, neither my body nor my mind are ready to go again. Coach tells me that it doesn’t matter if I win or lose my next match, it only matters that I learned something today. Did I learn anything today? “Yeah, I did,” I tell him.
Part of me feels that he knows I’m about to lose, but the other part says that I’m going to prove him wrong, begins to silently trash-talking my opponent, and restarts my mental victory montage. But I don’t have any fight left in me. And so, Anastasia Lobsinger pinned me. She’s the only person, male or female, to pin me this season. I’m still so angry about it, but I didn’t have any fight left. Of course I learned numerous technical skills from the Brittany David Tournament, but perhaps this is the most important lesson: the importance of that inner fight. I wrestled people better than Anastasia Lobsinger this year, but they didn’t pin me, because when I wrestled them, I had the energy and determination to keep going. Whether I have the power to influence my energy on days like that or not, I am continually getting closer to always having that determination and the skills to back it up.


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