My day at the NYS High School Wrestling Championship
If a team of crack psychologists was working together to create an environment designed to force suppressed memories to the surface and create a negative physical response in me, they most assuredly did so last weekend at the New York State High School Wrestling Championship.
I suppose the first thing to point out is that from a very young age I'd been trained in a form of competitive hand to hand combat. That alone should be enough to indicate how deep the neural pathways involving wrestling are in my psyche. It goes beyond mere familiarity. Those motions, reflexes and movement rhythms are as natural to me as, say, riding a bike or writing with a pencil. If you stop and think for a moment, you can call up vivid memory of what a pencil looks like, its texture and consistency, and what it feels like to write with it. Wrestling is this way for me.
Needless to say, being around it will provoke a different reaction in me than in most. It all calls back a sense of disturbing normalness and familiarity. I've seen these people before. The old, balding, fat men with mustaches who were wrestlers in their heydays, expertly surveying the action and passing judgement on the competition. The young girls with fit bodies and ugly faces, there supporting their teams, keeping team scores, jotting in team notebooks, wearing team jackets, embracing the winners and absently rubbing the heads of the losers. The wrestlers in plainclothes who didn't make it this far. Easy to spot, they dont have an ounce of fat on them, their hair hasnt been cut for months and usually their complexion leaves something to be desired. Small, easily excitable coaches with team polo shirts, high shrieking voices and close cropped hair. Even the body shapes of the wrestlers on the mats are intimately familiar to me. I've seen each a thousand times before, and I'll never really erase them from my mind.
This imagery isn't what sets me off though. Its more the mood, or tone. I know these vibrations all too well. Veiled arrogance, indiscriminate hostility and the barely contained electric current of adrenaline abound here. Savage vibrations in this place.
I look down at the wrestlers on the floor, preparing for their matches. All of them unconsciously performing the same nervous set of rituals, pounding complex slapping rhythms on their theighs, chests and headgear, a thin sheen of sweat on their skin under the warmup, visualizing, anticipating, impotently wishing that time would speed up so they could get on the mat. The announcers voice booms out over the speakers, telling the noisome mob the current matches, who is on deck and who's in the hole. To the wrestlers, it's as though the voice of God himself is speaking directly to them, reading their fates from the Book Of Life, resounding with unfettered inevitability.
I felt such compassion for those man-sized boys I saw. I know what they go through every day, the ins and outs and every way in between. In the bathroom, there was a boy in wrestling warmups, crying. He was a lighter weight, a small kid. He was sitting across from one of the stalls, and I went in and thought about it, thought about him. When I emerged, it was only him and me in the bathroom. I felt like I should say something out of a sense of connection to the sport and primarily out of empathy toward his experience. I didn't say "It's alright, man," or "Theres always next year" or any bullshit like that, because it's not fucking alright and who knows if he'll even be wrestling next year. I looked him dead in the eye and said simply, "I know how you feel." With that I walked out. Maybe it was something in my tone, or in my eyes, or simply in the way I carried myself out, but I saw in his eyes that he understood. He had no question at all that I know how he feels.
And so, if you ever wonder why I might be hesitant about rejoining a sports team or maybe uncomfortable about being called "Muskie", try to remember what I said here and maybe you'll understand just a little bit better.
I suppose the first thing to point out is that from a very young age I'd been trained in a form of competitive hand to hand combat. That alone should be enough to indicate how deep the neural pathways involving wrestling are in my psyche. It goes beyond mere familiarity. Those motions, reflexes and movement rhythms are as natural to me as, say, riding a bike or writing with a pencil. If you stop and think for a moment, you can call up vivid memory of what a pencil looks like, its texture and consistency, and what it feels like to write with it. Wrestling is this way for me.
Needless to say, being around it will provoke a different reaction in me than in most. It all calls back a sense of disturbing normalness and familiarity. I've seen these people before. The old, balding, fat men with mustaches who were wrestlers in their heydays, expertly surveying the action and passing judgement on the competition. The young girls with fit bodies and ugly faces, there supporting their teams, keeping team scores, jotting in team notebooks, wearing team jackets, embracing the winners and absently rubbing the heads of the losers. The wrestlers in plainclothes who didn't make it this far. Easy to spot, they dont have an ounce of fat on them, their hair hasnt been cut for months and usually their complexion leaves something to be desired. Small, easily excitable coaches with team polo shirts, high shrieking voices and close cropped hair. Even the body shapes of the wrestlers on the mats are intimately familiar to me. I've seen each a thousand times before, and I'll never really erase them from my mind.
This imagery isn't what sets me off though. Its more the mood, or tone. I know these vibrations all too well. Veiled arrogance, indiscriminate hostility and the barely contained electric current of adrenaline abound here. Savage vibrations in this place.
I look down at the wrestlers on the floor, preparing for their matches. All of them unconsciously performing the same nervous set of rituals, pounding complex slapping rhythms on their theighs, chests and headgear, a thin sheen of sweat on their skin under the warmup, visualizing, anticipating, impotently wishing that time would speed up so they could get on the mat. The announcers voice booms out over the speakers, telling the noisome mob the current matches, who is on deck and who's in the hole. To the wrestlers, it's as though the voice of God himself is speaking directly to them, reading their fates from the Book Of Life, resounding with unfettered inevitability.
I felt such compassion for those man-sized boys I saw. I know what they go through every day, the ins and outs and every way in between. In the bathroom, there was a boy in wrestling warmups, crying. He was a lighter weight, a small kid. He was sitting across from one of the stalls, and I went in and thought about it, thought about him. When I emerged, it was only him and me in the bathroom. I felt like I should say something out of a sense of connection to the sport and primarily out of empathy toward his experience. I didn't say "It's alright, man," or "Theres always next year" or any bullshit like that, because it's not fucking alright and who knows if he'll even be wrestling next year. I looked him dead in the eye and said simply, "I know how you feel." With that I walked out. Maybe it was something in my tone, or in my eyes, or simply in the way I carried myself out, but I saw in his eyes that he understood. He had no question at all that I know how he feels.
And so, if you ever wonder why I might be hesitant about rejoining a sports team or maybe uncomfortable about being called "Muskie", try to remember what I said here and maybe you'll understand just a little bit better.