Who Wants to See me Wrestle?

Standing next to my sister in the 1970′s.

Yep.  That is me over there to the left.  I was about to start my senior year of high school.  If you can’t tell from the picture, I was small for 12th grade.  Ha ha no, that was me when I was perhaps 5?  When I was a sophomore though, as you’ll see in the wrestling video below, I wasn’t much larger than I was in this pic.

I was coming home from elementary school one day, I think I may have been on my way to go fishing with a friend of mine, Eric.  Back in my day, boys fished, shot bb guns, and would wrestle each other at the drop of a hat.  Eric and Dean, both classmates of mine, both wrestled for Eric’s Dad on the local team.  Eric’s Dad also coached the junior high and high school teams in the area.  He saw us wrestling one day, Eric and Dean were always much better than me, and told me I should sign up for the team.  He talked to my Dad and that was how it started.  This was around 1980 and I was in the 4th grade.  The rest is history.

I was not technical by any means and as you watch the video, you’ll see I never was, lol.  Another friend of mine that I used to go to school and wrestling camps with uploaded this video to youtube a while ago.  I don’t know why but I was embarrassed to show you guys.  Know what?  Who cares.  The guy who uploaded it is none other than Jake Zweig, former Navy SEAL and contestant on that TV show Top Shot.  Jake ended up winning the state championship when we were seniors.  He was on a different level than me.  He had something in his mental make up that allowed him to see himself as a champion back then.  It was like he already knew it was supposed to happen, he just had to carry it out and fulfill it.  Of course I didn’t recognize that at the time.

Why didn’t I shoot my doubles this way in high school?

Anyways, my Dad, Jake’s parents, Jason Dunn’s Mom, they never missed a dual meet or tourney.  Ever.  Jake’s Dad would set up his camera on a tripod on the edge of the mat, my Dad with his in the bleachers, sitting next to Jake’s Mom and Jason’s.  The video Jake’s Dad got was usually focused, non-vibrating, and relatively quiet.  My Dad’s?  Aside from only being able to hear those two Mom’s – Jake’s and Jason’s – screaming like demons, quite often my Dad would be so intensely watching my match that he’d forget he was filming.  There might be two minutes of nothing but two women screaming and the floor underneath the bleachers as my Dad would let the camera and his focus drift away.  Then all of a sudden, like motion sick sudden, he’d remember he was supposed to be capturing it for posterity and the video camera would SNAP back onto the mat.  Hello dramamine.

Anyhoo, about the wrestling video below.  I was a sophomore, the year looks like it was 1987 so I had just turned 15 a few weeks earlier.  This was in the 101 lb weight class, the same weight I had wrestled the year before.  The only difference was that the year before I was 14 lbs under the limit, this year I was maybe 3 over.  The next year I shot up to around 130, and then 140.  I am in the green singlet, my opponent from Steilacoom is in the red.  Good old Jake Hertel.  I think we wrestled each other 3-4 times throughout high school.

Here it is:

 

 What did you think as you watched it?  I cringe whenever I watch it.  Don’t worry though, I have had an old vhs tape sitting in a closet for years now.  Once a year when I happen to notice it I’ll think to myself – you know, I should convert that over and upload it so everyone can see my muscles.  But I never do it.  Until now.  I needed a vcr first.  I snagged one last night from work to use.  I already have some conversion software so I shall give it a go soon, probably this weekend.  I think the tape has matches from my senior year only.  The other tapes are lost somewhere in the Washington wilderness, packed in dusty boxes above my parent’s garage.

How about you?  Any wrestling, bjj, or judo videos of yourself that make you cringe as you watch?  Would you like to share?  Come on.

Who Wants to See me Wrestle?