Aran Simm - Guest Blogger - Fancy a Wrestle?

Whilst I'm doing this blog, I guess it could get quite monotonous having to read me spraffing on about what i'm up to, so i'm going to mix it up every now and again and get a couple of other perspectives from friends, family, colleagues. Whoevers' arm I can twist into writing something for me. I might even throw in a prize for the best one! Anyway, the first one is from Aran "Simmo" Simm, he made it to wrestling on Monday and got put through his paces. Thanks for coming and making up numbers...only kidding... but seriously, thanks for taking time out to write for me, hope everyone enjoys Aran's contribution to the blog.

You fancy a session of wrestling Simmo?... Why not, how hard can it be smashing you up?

Shockers and I on Napier RL Knights Night

After 3 days of nagging Ive finally got around to writing this blog for Mike. My name is Aran, i'm one of mike's  good friends, often known as "Simmo" or T-Rex (supportive, character building picture received from mike in 2011, below) due to my very short arms. I''ve known mike for about 9 years. I live in Bristol now and  I was a "very drunken" groomsman, for his wedding to the beautiful Emma, back in March. I first met him when i was told that some guy wants to set up a rugby league team at Napier University. Being from Wigan, ( and already bored of Rugby Yawnion) I decided to get in touch. We've had many a drunken night together as the picture to the left will show you, think that one was 2004/2005, those costumes aren't as good as when we made our own out of cardboard the year before.

 Shockers sent me in 2011 with  a message
 "saw this and thought of you"

To start I was invited along to a Rugby League 9's tournament once and was playing for Edinburgh against Scotland Students, I recognised the guy known as Shockers and thought I'd see how tough he was so from a good 8 metres out from the line i dropped the shoulder and surged forward with the ball and scored, right under the sticks and right underneath Shockers., HAHA, after much gloating..........Scotland then went on to smash us 6 tries to 1. I think Shox scored 2, so he was always a good rugby player.


Anyway on to the wrestling...

When Mike first mentioned #mission2014, I was a little reserved, but as his friends and others got behind his bid and I kept reading his blogs and I thought, well next time I'm up in Edinburgh, I've got to go and see just how he's adjusting. After my very early triumph against him all those years ago in the rugby (which continued for many years) I was keen to see if I could still smash him UP! I turned up a little late and was escorted to the mat, my shoes and socks were off. Very quickly we were practising a take down move I can only describe "as the duck under with a pirouette , after  many times of getting my face on the floor we then moved onto the hook the ankle with a choke slam. On a personal note I excelled at this move, throwing a hand-off into Mike's face was quite fun,  until Michael Cavanagh (our coach) kindly informed me how sloppy my technique was and it was more a bicep push to the face.

Injury inflicted by Mike at Paintball

We then moved onto the defensive escape were you had to quickly get off the floor and spin around on top of the guy who was pretty much lying on top of you.  This move I called the "elbow joint stretcher", it really makes you feel the burn and drop to the ground. Mike is known for his no mercy tactics, after once hunting  at a paintballing event on his stag, shouting " Where are you boar?" before inflicting the injury below. (I would like to put on the record that the "Boars" visor had steamed up and he had no idea where he was #nomercy. As demonstrated here:

So I didn't do well with this drill.

We then finished with a grappling drill, The intensity was huge!, where the same instances of me getting an early win, and Mike following this up with about seven take downs on me, as shown in below video continued.

In short, #mission2014 is a massive journey and just one session has left me with enough bruises, I'd love to go again to help him train, I'm personally gutted that I only get to do this whenever I'm back in Edinburgh, so I'd encourage anyone to go along to the sessions at the ENGAGE centre at Sighthill. #mission2014 is do-able and I know Mike will give it his all.

Good Luck pal, #getinvolved

@asimmshady