Another wrestling tournament \u2013 the last of the year: the state championships. Only my older grandson went; the younger did not wish to go and made no sense to force him into it. Which, by the way, turned out to be a good thing because he woke up with a temperature and feeling really ill in the morning so he couldn\u2019t have gone anyway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Being the states, there were more people there than we had seen in previous tournaments to both wrestle and spectate, so it was a wild and noisy place \u2013 complete chaos. First time for my grandson at such a boisterous venue, his first states; second for my son, and third time for me. It doesn\u2019t get easier\u2026. Wrestling, alone with your opponent in the square circle is daunting, intimidating even. Thousands of eyes upon you, people yelling and screaming; it is an assault on the senses, yet your immediate need is to focus on your adversary, to remember what you\u2019ve learned, and to fight to win. Everything else needs to be blocked out \u2013 a mental magnifying glass if you will \u2013 to focus your mind and body on solely the moment about to unfold. Focus, concentration, the ability to turn the knobs and flip the switches of all external inputs that serve to do nothing but distract, is a crucial skill in wrestling, but also in life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every successive match brought screaming\nand cheers, followed by jubilation or tears. These young boys and girls take\ntheir objective seriously \u2013 they take it to heart. And when they fail their\nmission, miss their objective, they leave the mat emotionally ravaged. One poor\nchild dropped prone and couldn\u2019t will himself back to his feet to leave the mat\nafter losing a match he had been winning throughout. The emotional rope is long\nin these moments and as such, it allows an abnormally wide swing between the\npolar ends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And this is another great teaching moment of wrestling; as Jim McKay used to announce every Saturday at the start of The Wide World of Sports: the joy of victory and the agony of defeat. It is a microcosm of life. We will, invariably, experience wins and losses throughout our lives. Balance through both is critical to living well. Focus too heavily on the losses and you become a sorry Charlie walking through life with head bent down, bemoaning your bad luck and the unfairness of life. And focusing in on the victories makes one an insufferably arrogant person offering little to entice others to join company. The balanced person will mourn their losses and celebrate their victories, but with control and restraint. With every loss comes a memory of a past victory, and with every win, a memory of a previous defeat. Balance. And my grandson learned all that this day. He lost matches and he won matches and though there were tears, there were also smiles. There was balance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there are other lessons, harsher\nones that cut more deeply than a singular loss. Life is not fair. And the sooner\nwe learn that lesson, the better our chances to a happy journey through life.\nBad things happen, indiscriminately; it is one of the anomalies of life. There is\nno avoiding it, no amount preparation and planning can help one avoid a misstep\ncreated by the vagaries of life. My grandson used a move called a headlock,\nearning him two points for a takedown. It led to a back exposure of his opponent\nwhich is worth either two or three points depending upon the duration the opponent\u2019s\nback is on the mat. His opponent then rolled through it and out and they ended\nup on their feet again, resulting in a point to the opponent. At that point the\ncomputer on the scoring table went down. When the dust had settled, Robbie\nshould have been leading 6-2. But the points for the back exposure were never awarded;\nnot three or not even two \u2013 he got none for it. Ultimately, he lost the match by\none point; had either the three, or even the two points, been awarded as\ndeserved, he would have won this match. But he didn\u2019t. He was devastated that\nhe had lost, more so when he learned he had gotten no points for the back exposure\nand that those point would have given him the win. But that is wrestling and\nthat is life. Bad things happen. The points were not awarded and he did not\nwin. The kid that did win went on the consolation finals where he would wrestle\nwith the 3rd<\/sup> place medal to the winner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But we weren\u2019t done learning yet;\nwrestling had another life lesson to teach. Through his tears after the match,\nRobbie told us that he had let go and allowed the kid to escape the headlock.\nAs fate had it, he ended up wrestling a teammate in this match. A kid he wrestled\nin every practice, three days a week, for the last thee months. They are teammates\nand they are friends. And during the headlock his teammate cried out that\nRobbie was hurting his arm in the headlock. And Robbie chose compassion over\naggression. He felt badly about hurting a teammate, a friend, and he release\nthe hold. A great number of wrestling holds hurt \u2013 that\u2019s sort of the point to them.\nThey rarely cause any real damage, but they sure feel as if they are. In any\nother match against any other opponent, I have no doubt but that Robbie would\nhave maintained his hold and pinned his opponent. But being a friend, he let\nhim out. I have no doubt Robbie still thought he would win the match and\nletting him escape was no big deal. But it ended up costing him the win, and\nprobably 3rd<\/sup> place as he was far better than the kid he would have\nhad to wrestle had he advanced. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What do you say to a child who\ndemonstrated compassion and lost a match as a result? In wrestling you are taught\nto go full speed, full ahead, no sympathy for your opponent \u2013 at least during\nthe match. If there is an safety issue, a danger, the referee will instantly\nstep in and stop the action to protect the wrestler. You are taught to go impose\nyour will on your opponent until that whistle blows. But a teammate? A friend?\nThat\u2019s a tough one. And as much as my machismo and testosterone make me want to\nteach him to be tough and callous and a force to be reckoned with on the mat,\nthe fabric of my soul wants more for him to be caring and compassionate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I was so proud of him in how he wrestled\n\u2013 his growth in physical ability, mental toughness, repertoire of moves and\ncountermoves, and endurance in just three months is astounding and clearly\nshowed in his wrestling. But all that waned, at least for me, when he admitted\nhis \u201cmoment of weakness\u201d and released his opponent, his friend, from the hold.\nThat compassion will carry him much further (and more successfully) through\nlife than would have a bronze medal in a wrestling match. I could not have been\nprouder. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Another wrestling tournament \u2013 the last of the year: the state championships. Only my older grandson went; the younger did not wish to go and made no sense to force him into it. Which, by the way, turned out to be a good thing because he woke up with a temperature and feeling really ill […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2162,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"ocean_front_end_style_editor":"no","ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"0","ocean_second_sidebar":"0","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"0","ocean_custom_header_template":"0","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"0","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"off","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","entry","has-media"],"yoast_head":"\n