Monday, February 11, 2008

Force


Always the Middle
Originally uploaded by steakbellie.
This is my middle son. He's 11 now and wrestles at 105lbs.

I'm always amazed at how differently the three of them wrestle. Ch@arlie's matches always remind of a clubbing. He plan is usually to scare the crap out of the kid with strength and shoot in on them deep when they are retreating. He's had some success with it this year.

Here, he's about to snap his opponents head down.

3 comments:

Chris the Hippie said...

Man, I wrestled 105 in high school. (I eventually worked my way up to 112...)

Odd story. When I joined the Army National Guard I was still in high school. I had a wrestling meet Thursday, and had to be at 105 for the team. I had to get UP to 118 by Friday night to meet the Army's minimum requirements. Then I had to get back down to 112 by Saturday morning in time for a tournament. It doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're swinging eight percent of your body mass around like that in a three day period, it hurts.

I won the match, got into the Army, and got third in the tournament.

I'm glad your boys are wrestling. It's hellishly good for your character -- you need to deal with all sorts of things, weight discipline, stamina, physically difficult workouts, split-second decisions... And at the end it's just you and another guy out there, putting it all on the line.

steakbellie said...

THATS an awesome story! Did you just drink a bunch of water before the exam?

Chris the Hippie said...

Yup, I drank as much water as I could hold... Had to pee like you wouldn't believe! But when I got on the scale I was still two pounds light. I didn't want to actually EAT anything as I had to be back down to weight the next morning... The doctor who weighed me didn't know I was already saturated -- he told me to go drink water and get back in line. I was about to burst I had to pee so bad... I simply got back in line again, not really knowing what to do, and explained my plight to the guy in front of me. Word spread up the line that I needed to find weight, fast.

When I weighed in the second time, my clenched hands held five or six sets of keys, and some lead fishing weights some guy had in his pocket. I was still half a pound light. I told the doctor that I was on the varsity wrestling team, yadda yadda, and that I had to weigh 112 at 6:30 the next morning. He very slowly put his toe on the scale as I stood there, and said, "Oops, looks like you just gained a pound. I must have read it wrong the first time."

I just about got rejected several more times during the physical -- one guy was concerned that the bones in my back were poking out so much, but the nurse said, "Oh for God's sake, he's just skinny. Let the kid join. You can see he's in shape..." But I did make it through the physical.

Six months later I was finishing up Basic Training... I was the only one out of our 250-man company who maxed out both the end-of-cycle test AND the physical test. The Drill Instructors were surprised. "This is our top guy? THIS kid? He can't weigh 125 pounds, tops. THIS sorry-looking bastard got the top score? He ain't even 18 yet. Lemme see his score... Holy sh*t! You did HOW many push ups?"

It was kinda funny.