the manly art of wrestling

"Control your body, then control the body of someone else your size." "wrestling is dancing" After just a few minutes of instruction, both these statements make sense. Jake, my instructor, who in high school was ranked #2 in the nation in his weight class, was perfectly able to put me on the floor with a few quick movements . So, i don't mean to look like an arrogant jerk, but I'm pretty confident in my abilities to defend myself. i played offensive and defensive line on the varsity football team in high school. I'm in better shape than i look and years of weight lifting (off and on) make me feel like I'd stand a pretty good chance against pretty much anybody in class. (except ted) so getting thrown around like a little girl was definitely humiliating.

to start with, i know a bit about athletics from football, so we discussed the differences between a football stance and a wrestling stance. once i have the stance down, we did a basic leg attack. this was followed by a "high crotch" (it's not as awkward as it sounds) which allows you to gain control of your opponent's leg. finally, the slide by. this is a move where you use your opponent's stance against him. in a standard grappling position, you grab the back of their neck and hit their arm up with your other elbow. you then pull them towards you and pivot on the balls of your feet, pulling them down by their neck, twisting them to their back as they fall.

the knowledge that wrestlers have isn't a memorized list of moves to use against their opposition. it is an integral understanding of how the body works. the point of wrestling, as explained to me by Jake, is to take the way your opponent moves and use it against him. the way i could go from feeling perfectly balanced, stable and in control to on the floor in a second was excruciatingly unsettling.

the history of wrestling is so old that the style Jake practiced was grecco - or the Greek style of wrestling. it is one of the oldest folk knowledges around that is still in the same form it was thousands of years ago.