Light at the end of the tunnel

It’s about time I updated my blog, It’s been about 3 weeks and it’s been a long three weeks at that. Let me give you an update on where we are at the moment. I’ve been through a rollercoaster of emotions over the last couple of weeks. I was depressed, unmotivated, sad, frustrated and angry that I hadn’t met the criteria for Commonwealth Games selection which is still grating at me a little bit. I totally appreciate that these things happen but what a pain in the arse.

Pain equivalent - heart attack (fact)

Why was I feeling like this well, what seems to be the trio diagnosis of my injury is torn cartilage, costchondral separation and to top it off… fractured ribs. I felt awful at my first day of work, I was struggling to move, breath and probably visibly distressed. I’m still feeling pretty uncomfortable now and I’m just sitting. Now the pain feels like a stitch that you get when you run but two weeks ago I went through some of the worst pain I have ever felt. Scary Pain! I was driving home after a Scottish Student Sport committee day and had a sneezing fit on the city bypass travelling at about 60 mph I almost lost control but managed to save it. The pain was a searing pain close to my heart, it felt like I had been stabbed, someone was squeezing my chest, the whole episode took me about 20 seconds to recover. After that incident, nights of restless sleep I decided it was time to pay the doc another visit.

The doc was pretty good, empathetic to my plight at least and unsurprisingly it was the first time he had ever written a prescription for the cause of Olympic Freestyle Wrestling. My main issue was that I couldn’t sleep which to me meant that my body wasn't recovering well or at the very least quick enough, my point being that I wanted to get back onto the mat as soon as physically possible. He did reckon that the sneezing fit had fractured a rib due to the lack of support from the separated rib. He prescribed me some Supradol and Diclofenac in its droves to control the inflammation and numb the pain. With the Supradol, it was predominantly to knock me out at night and it did the trick, hadn’t slept so well in weeks but it did mean that I couldn’t drive.

I’m upset that I’ve lost out on 3 weeks of training already, I won’t be ready to hit the mat again properly for another 8 weeks or so but next week I’m starting to build up my cardiovascular endurance again, nothing strenuous but I need to get back doing something. I did try this 3 days after injury and was ok, iced down the chest and did some really light exercises (3kg fly) looked like a real hard man in the gym lifting those bad boys.

So... it’s been a frustrating couple of weeks, next week brings a new dawn in the training, it is going to be tough, I’m running a kids camp at work for 23 kids but luckily team [EN]GAGE will be on hand to deliver a fantastic week of activities. but I will need to chuck in some training as well. The key to this is to avoid reccurance 

Global blog - pretty cool


I was a little bit down at the end of my last blog post, I thought of it as me being a bit of a realist and I didn’t want to have expectations of making the Games next year, it still blows my mind thinking about it. This quest that Michael Cavanagh mused on me has taken its toll, I’ve put a lot into it. Sure, there are times when I could have and should have done more but I am where I am and I’m pretty happy with that. I feel like I have sacrificed a lot for this, I’ve completely stripped my social life down to the occasional catch up with friends and probably lost touch with a few more mates than I would have liked. I lost a few at the very start who thought that wrestling was stupid thing to take up and that I wouldn’t have the ability or conviction to get there and that took its toll mentally. At the end of the day It’s been tough but I have had a fantastic amount of support from a lot of great people and I’m lucky to have them in my life. They know who they are but what is cool about keeping this blog, I can thank them publicly. I read it back and it’s been an interesting journey, it’s been read over 6000 times from countries all across the world. In the last month alone people have been reading from the UK, USA, Germany, France, China, Russia, Netherlands, Poland, Canada and Australia which is incredible.

So for all those people across the world and particularly to my friends and family, I am absolutely delighted to say that I had a moment yesterday that made the slog of #mission2014 and everything over the last 10 months’ worth it.

I was lucky enough to get an email yesterday from Colin McLaren, wrestling team manager for Commonwealth Games Scotland who informed me that I have been put forward as the 120kg potential competitor for the Commonwealth Games 2014. To top it off, my friend Martin King is the same boat. A lot of other people have been working a lot longer and I hope they get their just reward.

On the horizon - fingers crossed

it’s by no means a definite that I will be competing at the Commonwealth Games, Glasgow 2014. I have to get a podium finish in the British Closed Championships next year to earn my place in Team Scotland and even then I think that Team Scotland will have to approve everything but I’m closer than I was and that’s the main thing. That said hearing that I have been officially put forward has renewed my motivation, passion, vigour and to have a target is and always has been important in this. It’s amazing to be recognised as having potential to do something and its thanks to everyone who has supported me thus far and for the coaches and management of Scottish Wrestling for seeing a bit of potential that they can work with. My thanks especially has to go to Michael Cavanagh and Steven Cote for the hours of coaching they have put in and the things they have taught me. Final shout out goes to my friends and family, guys who have taken time out to wrestle and the support of family and family in law.

Still lots of work to do but we are back on track and it feels amazing!

As always, thanks for taking time to read.

Cheers

@shocksjr

The first bite of the cherry! British Open Championships



Qualification has started

This week was really the start of the Glasgow 2014 Qualification campaign for me... I was Southward bound for the British Open Wrestling Championships in Wales. This time with a coach in tow to sit in my corner, it was the first time I had a coach who was there for me specifically at a wrestling event and it really helped put my mind at rest about strategy and what I should be doing.

The event itself was in Welshpool, North Wales, and a mere 289 miles from Edinburgh. An interesting location for a British Championships. I have actually asked Coach Michael Cavanagh to write a blog post for me and he has agreed. Michael is an incredibly busy man, so we might get it in the next few weeks or so depending on when he has time, but I’ll let him fill you in with details of the road trip,the weekend and progress to date from the coaching perspective. No pressure given the calibre of Steve’s post the other week.

Mark Cocker (2010 qualifier)

My preparation for the British was very good, I ate well, slept well and had trained hard to get ready for what was the start of the campaign. I managed to get a good bout of KCR in before heading down and a massage from Optimus Massage on the legs which massively helped. I weighed in again at a solid 116.8kg had a big meal that night which would have bumped me up a little. The event itself was great, I really enjoyed the atmosphere that was there and I met Mark Cocker, English Heavyweight who came 5^th in the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi. Mark took me for a little bit of a warm up and gave me some pointers about my opponent in the first bout. That was great for me and I really appreciated him taking the time to help me out. He is a genuinely good bloke.

The target for the day was to finish top 3 British Competitors and that would secure me one of the criteria for the Commonwealth Games which meant that I could potential be nominated by Scottish Wrestling to Commonwealth Games Scotland.

The good thing (depending on how you look at it) was that there were only 6 Wrestlers entered into the 120kg category which meant in theory that I was entering at a quarter final stage and I needed to get to the semi - finals to be in with a shout of qualifying. I had a pretty unlucky draw compared to some of the others. There were two byes into the semi-finals I was not one of them which meant I had to fight Tomas Bujak from Poland. Tomas is a Greco Roman wrestler, strong but not to savvy on the leg attack / leg defence. The strategy was to not get sucked in close defend the attack and once the attack was finish counter with a leg attack. It worked beautifully. I defended well and saw an opening and had a strong leg attack which put him on his back and gave me a 3 point lead. Great! The Rules of Wrestling have changed a little over the last few weeks and the latest change was that instead of a 10 point margin for a win you now need a 7 which obviously got me a little bit excited because I thought if I could get another 3 point take down I could be left with just 1 point for the win. This is where “mat craft” comes into it and lack of experience on my part. Had I stuck to the game plan I probably wouldn’t be sitting here licking my wounds and wondering what may have been.

Costal Cartilage tear - rough area in green (hurts lie hell)

Yep, I attacked – for who knows what reason, confidence, stupidity, excitement. I didn't hear Michael in my corner but I'm sure he was telling me to defend but instead I dived right in...Well as you would expect, I got blocked and got caught in a headlock before finding way to the floor to concede 2 points. He put me in a nelson which stretched me across the chest. I felt a pop that was uncomfortable but I managed to escape and get out of the hold. I was half expecting to be called back to our feet but that didn’t happen and Tomas put me in the same move and tried to turn me. This time the stretch across my chest ripped the costal cartilage next to my sternum, connecting my ribs and I don’t think I have been in as much pain since I blew my knee in 2005. It was agony. The ref heard me yelp in pain and called an end to the match. That in theory would have been me out because Chinu Chinu was the next opponent for the winner of my bout but Bujak beat Chinu with a pin, an upset in the heavyweight world.  Meaning I was pulled into the repechage but couldn't compete. I finished 5^th Overall, 4^th In the British Athletes meaning this time I’ve just missed the Qualification Criteria Boat. I continue to dwell on what might have been but I guess there isn’t any point. Had I beaten Tomas I would have been through to the semi-final and really had a chance of competing for the bronze spot. You live and learn.

I lay on the mat for a couple of minutes, paramedics were there before I managed to get up and head to the side where my breathing returned to normal. Tomas helped me get there which was very kind of him and a testament to the character of wrestlers. Something that I learned a great deal about this weekend. The organisers whisked me off to hospital with Michael to speak to the doctor who diagnosed the cartilage rip and ramped me up on some pain killers that aren't nearly strong enough for this. If you haven’t done this to your ribs, the pain is horrific, it hurts to sit, stand, lie, rotate, eat,  breath and if you are really stupid and make a sudden movement. I had hiccups earlier and wow, that was ludicrously painful. The pain changes from an ache to a stab that is possibly one of the worst things. I was almost sick with pain twice but it quickly wares off. I was reading a bit about what I could do to help progress the speed of the recover and a couple of articles I read compared the pain of this injury to a heart attack! how nuts is that! 

Although my competition was over for the day, I went back to watch some of the remaining bouts. I saw Cocker wrestle for the first time, he defeated a lad from Birmingham called Khan 7-0 before beating Bujak 7-0 in the final to become British Champion again. I watched Chinu fall to Bujak and saw my first live suplex, Leon Rattigan 96kg suplexed a lad and it was a beaut the video is here...

The highlight of watching wrestling for me was watching the women’s competition. I watched Sarah Jones compete in her final against Spiteri, that match was intense. Sarah was in control but got countered and the other girl straight back into it. The match finished 10 – 9 in Sarah’s favour. It was a great spectacle to watch. Then there was the two lassies from Tullibody and the Institute, Chelsea and Shannon. They were great to watch, just very good wrestlers, strong, aggressive and technical.

I had the opportunity to speak to loads of wrestlers and that’s the nice thing, although you are going to have 6 minutes where you are trying to hammer the guy, you can always sit down and have a chat before or afterwards. The sport is too small to do otherwise in my opinion. I really enjoyed meeting folk and chatting to the other Wrestlers and that is one of the things that makes it a great sport.

Where does this me now? Well, the qualification criteria, in theory gives me two more attempts over the next year. Although getting through the British Open Championships would have significantly helped my cause, I wasn’t expecting to qualify at this event but what has really annoyed me was that it was in my grasp, it just wasn’t to be. The Commonwealth Wrestling Championships were supposed to be in July but have been postponed and possibly moved meaning that there may be a call to rejig the Scottish Selection criteria to another tangible event but failing that I have to wrestle as much as I can and get a result at the British Closed next year. 

If I’m completely honest, it’s a tall order and is going to be pretty difficult to qualify for next year but I’m going to continue training for it and still put in the work, even if I don’t make Glasgow 2014 I have got Gold Coast 2018 on the horizon and who knows what will happen. another 5 years wrestling experience under my belt I could well be in for a shout for something better than just making the team. I've had some really nice positive feedback about my wrestling so far and although its disappointing not to be able to say i've met the qualification criteria, I have plenty of time to throw myself into contention at the British Closed Championships next year and that is the focus. 

As always, thanks for taking time out to have a read… sorry I haven’t made it yet, but where would the fun in that be!

@shocksjr

Food Poisoning and the British Novice Championships

It's been almost a month since my last blog update and there has been a fair bit happening in the last month not to mention the death of Maggie Thatcher, man has that caused some controversy! Personally, I didn't agree with a lot of the stuff that she did or some of the things she said, I was only a lad when she was Prime Minister but to see people out on the streets celebrating someone's death, in my opinion is disgusting and shameful. I read an article in the guardian it made some valid points but I thought the UK had a little more decorum than that. Then you have the Boston Marathon Bombings...I haven't got much to say about it except that it is disgusting and really makes you see how sick some people in the wold are. To kill an 8 year old boy who was just there to support his dad is heart breaking, not to mention all the people who were there supporting loved one's or friends who were raising money to help others. It is horrible and lets hope those responsible are caught soon.

Back to happier topics...If you recall at the end of my last blog I was about to take annual leave and head off for a bit of annual leave for my 1st Wedding Anniversary . All was going well, we took a trip up to Aberdeen on the Wednesday to drop off the little guy to get some peace and quiet. That was fine but we decided to get lunch from an undisclosed restaurant in the Bon Accord Centre in Aberdeen - big mistake! I had a steak sandwich, Emma had some pasta and nabbed a little bit of my sandwich - its an important point.

It was a good day until about 11:00pm when I was the only one up, lounging on the sofa and I started feeling a bit crap. I took a trip to the toilet to throw up and that was me in there pretty much until 4:00am. For those of you who don't like sick, you probably won't enjoy the next paragraph, but as I experienced it, I will describe it for you in all its glory! I couldn't stop being sick. It was a horrible experience. It wasn't even sick as you would imagine, it was thick, minging, disgustingness, looked like my stomach was cleansing itself. I couldn't believe how much there was and the worse thing was... you know how when your sick after a night out, its pretty quick and watery? well this was nothing like that. It was slow and had next to no water in it. I was like a dog regurgitating its dinner and it was rough. BOAK!

Anyway, to make matters worse I tried to go to bed at about 1:00am but couldn't and had to dart to the toilet again waking Emma up who then began to feel about as good as I was. She had to run to the toilet as well and her bout of sickness began. It was a great start to the weekend. It gets even better though. Cameron, who didn't have any of the food we had, started crying, this was about 3:00am. We went through and guess what... he must have felt left out because he had spewed as well, all over himself and it was in his hair. That meant we had to run a bath for him. So you have Cameron in the bath crying, my hugging the toilet barfing and Emma running down stairs to the other toilet. It was comical.  



Craigatin Guest House  - beautiful

 The next day was a total write off. I spent most the day drinking sugary tea and sleeping but managed to get a bit of food in the evening. We felt ok on Saturday for our anniversary weekend and went to a lovely little B&B in Pitlochry. It was really nice but we both still felt crap, went out for a meal and whilst we ate it, I don't think we enjoyed it as much as we would normally of have and there was no way we could tackle the bottle of champers we had brought with us. It was a nice weekend, we took a drive out round Loch Tummel and to Aberfeldy before heading back to the lodge to feel sorry for ourselves. My only complaint was that the bed was a bit hard for me, in fact Fred Flintstone probably would have struggled to get to sleep on it, might as well have been a slab of rock, so much so the second night I slept on the duvet and actually slept alright. A pretty wasted weekend but it was nice to get a way for a while and spend a bit of time just the two of us. Still got the bubbly as well.

That little episode meant that I dropped about 2.5kg couldn't train for over a week and felt pretty rubbish, The good thing was that I was feeling better the following weekend to head out to our friends birthday party. Whilst I know having a drink isn't great when your training, but I needed to let my hair down and ended up having a a fairly potent concoction of booze, some crazy combo that Nicole came up with topped off with a whisky that wiped me out. It was a mardi gras party, I'm claiming best costume award over Callum, he looked like a skinny version of the Hamburglar. My flexibility has obviously improved, played the cereal box game, where you pick it up with your teeth, probably haven't done as well since I was 5.

Danny trying to cut weight

Again fortunately for me Easter came round and it was a trip towards Blackpool to see Emma's grandparents and Aunt and Uncle. This meant that my weight would be back on track, I ate like a horse, I knew I had the British Novices the following week which meant that I needed to get my weight back up to 116 - 117 at the very least. I did pretty well.
So onto the Novices... Danny and I were representing [EN]GAGE Wrestling club (now Edinburgh Wrestling Club) We travelled down with Martin, who was there for moral support and he likes the atmosphere at these events. We had to wrap Danny up because we thought he might not make weight at 74kg. He wore maybe 6 layers, had bin bags and by the time we got down to Billington he had shed 900g but the funny/annoying thing for Danny was that the Novices is matched weight not done in the categories. that meant he didn't need to lose any weight. Never mind...



Sporting my first Gold Medal and championship

 We arrived the night before and had a good feed at the guest house after weighing in. I weighed in at 155.8kg. which was fine. Unfortunately there weren't very many heavyweights at the tournament and I only got one fight for gold. The guy I was against was a local lad and had been wrestling on and off for just over a year. He was pretty well build probably weighing in between 110kg - 115kg. The goal I had set myself prior to the tournament was just getting a win, I wanted to stick to my strategy and have my hand lifted by the umpire at the end of the bouts. As it turned out either way I would be getting a medal.

The fight itself was pretty good, I found some aggression that I had been lacking and managed to stick to my strategy and got some decent points. The video is coming later: It was a tough contest but I felt in control for the vast majority of it and came away with the win. It was a Little disheartening to have only to one fight but for me the most important thing was to come away with a win and despite there only being one other competitor at my weight - one of the coaches I was chatting to said "it doesn't matter, its on your wrestling CV" I'm still the British Novice Champion at my weight. Not bad for 9 months training! It was a massive confidence booster and I'm feeling alot better about going back against the more experienced guys.

Next stop the Bolton Open Championships... 18th May.

 I got back to training and was feeling confident, I've had a couple of mates come down and got some good wrestling in, Cal anderson got himself along on Friday and he is a tricky customer, i'm covered in bruises and still have a bit of a sore shoulder from a drop he got on me... we had three bouts and there wasn't any surprises this time, he was looking for the transferables to rugby and think we gave him some stuff to take back to the mighty Edinburgh Eagles! 

Thanks for taking time to read, I'll get that video up as soon as Martin King overcomes his technological impotence and gets it online. 

Cheers

@shocksjr 

Thoughts on the IOC recommendation

I'm taking a break from my normal blog style of telling everyone else what I've been up to in my quest to get to the Commonwealth Games in 2014. Rest assured, it’s all good this week but there are more important things to discuss. I promise my break in normal themes hasn’t got anything to do with losing a match 5 – 2 to Michael Cavanagh on Monday. It was a sad day but great fun and absolutely nothing to do with a cracked rib!

International Olympic Committee

Of course the more important thing this week that I’m blogging about is the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) recommendation to remove Wrestling from the Olympic Games after 2020.That recommendation from the IOC has the potential to put Wrestling on the sporting equivalent of the endangered species list. You may think that's a tad dramatic but indulge me for a minute and I'll qualify that statement. 

First of all let’s take a quick look at Wrestling – Wrestling is one of the oldest combat sports in the world. Historians can track wrestling back 15,000 years but most noticeably and most relevant to this news is that Wrestling was the number one sport in the ancient Olympiad and has featured in every modern Olympic Games bar Paris 1900, that’s a pretty impressive track record. In one sense Wrestling has until now withstood the test of time, holds the traditional values and provides a link back to the ancient history of the games themselves.

Egyptian Burial Chamber drawing depicting wrestling from 2400 BC

The Olympics is steeped in tradition, I for one don’t think enough emphasis has been placed on the traditional values and the merits that the individual sports bring to the modern games. Not only that; but let’s look at the popularity of the sport. Those in the UK will say “What? popularity of Wrestling?” well you’d be surprised, there are over 200 countries across the globe where Wrestling is recognised, in the College set up in the US it is the 6^th most popular sport and their High School programmes last year alone had 280,384 participants pushing Wrestling into the top 10 sports. That’s just the US, look at Russia, Eastern Europe, India, Canada and Iran to name but a few and I’ll bet you have a hell of a lot of world wide participants. Granted the UK only had 701 registered Wrestlers last year but there were more who aren’t affiliated to the National Governing Body.

Here are my thoughts - In my view what makes the Olympic Games the greatest sporting competition in the world are the principles that they were founded upon. The Olympic Charter speaks of Olympism. They describe Olympism as a philosophy of life that combine the qualities of mind, body and will, blending sport with culture and education. The Olympic Charter goes on to state that the goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind and that the practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practising sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic Spirit. 

Unfortunately, In my view I don’t feel the vision and values that the Olympics and the IOC should hold to its core match the current situation that we find ourselves in today. Once upon a time the Olympic Games were about Amateur athletes coming together to compete for their nations but nowadays that’s been lost in the commercialisation of sport. Wrestling lost its place because the IOC deemed there to not be enough global popularity, the volume of ticket sales and its sexiness for a television audience. I’m paraphrasing of course but they could have just said... Money!

I would like to think that because I’ve not been involved in Wrestling for that long, I can take a slightly objective view of their decision but to be frank I think they have made the wrong choice. The IOC are trying to modernise, I get that. It’s essential for every organisation to move with the times, the Olympics is now big business with big sponsors and they can and need to continue to attract big television audiences and ticket sales, how do you maximise TV audiences and Sponsorship? you get the big names from the big team sports but I would argue that its taking away from the whole ethos of the Olympics?

GB had Andy Murray playing tennis, whilst it was great for GB to medal. I watched (on TV) Andy Murray play in the Wimbledon final three weeks prior to the Olympics starting. Don’t get me wrong, it’s done wonders for Tennis, but the question is, did Tennis really need the extra exposure of being an Olympic sport?

The question I would ask to the IOC is why do we need to lose any of the smaller sports, the IOC claim that the cap on sports is to allow for manageable organisation but surely Tennis, Rugby, Football and Golf all have their rightful places away from the Olympics. If I wanted to watch a contest of any of the above sports I could do so easily throughout the year, every year because they all have majors, grand slams, world cups and International Competitions. What’s next Olympic F1?

Save Olympic Wrestling

Back to one of my opening comments, the endangered species. Wrestling has the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games, yes it’s got Regional and World Championships in Europe, Asia and the Americas but taking the carrot of the Olympics away from Wrestling would be like taking away the Football World Cup. Wrestling is very much a development / grass roots sport and if you take away something as large as the Olympics, then what do the young one’s have to aspire to. You are almost guaranteed to see the world wide participation rates decline. For those nations not in the Commonwealth, what do they have left on an international profile raising stage?

You have to hope that the people at the IOC have thought about it and aren't just bowing down to the political, corporate and commercial pressures that have been festering within sport over the last few years. The IOC has an obligation to protect the autonomy of sport; that means to keep it independent, to me that means forget the politics and forget the commercialisation and let sport be sport. Let’s hope they see sense and keep Wrestling where it is...where it deserves to be. 


Thanks for taking time out to read

@shocksjr

Another Impromptu Update: competitions

Getting thrown in at the deep end somehow isn't a statement that is cutting it at the moment. I was hoping that I would kick off my Wrestling career in a competition where I would be comfortable competing. That would have been the British Novices at Stockport in April, the beauty about the Novices is that all competitors have to have been wrestling for under three years. That was the plan and it was a good plan. Would have given me 12 weeks to prepare and get myself into good nick to compete. 

"The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry" was a quote by Rabbie Burns that my old man once said to me when things didn't quite go the way I had planned. 

Why am I telling you this? well I started my new training programme this week. It's pretty intense, really focussing on developing and maintaining aerobic capacity, anaerobic fitness, strength, muscular endurance, flexibility and power! it's 6 days a week which is pretty tough. I did the Muscular Endurance circuit yesterday and that involved squat jumps, medicine ball rotation slams, bear crawls, kettlebell swings and kettlebell overhead lunges for 5 sets. Yes, I was blowing afterwards but needs must. It's after all 12 weeks till competition season, or is it? 

British Wrestling Association

To even further knacker me out, I then took a trip through with Martin to Glasgow to train at the Palace of Art, my first of 2013. I was chatting to Vio before we started about a whole host of different things and what the plans were for this year. I mentioned that I was planning on entering the British Novices in April as a gentle break into competition but he swiftly said that I really should be entering the English Open, it holds more weight, is a more credible competition and will give me a solid bench mark to find out exactly where I am. You see, if I want to represent Scotland at the Commonwealth Games I need to be an institute athlete on the Scottish Wrestling Programme, that comes from a nomination from the Scottish Coaches who say "we think this person should be on the programme." My problem is that whilst I could be nominated now for an institute place, the comments that will come back from John the performance director would be...well what's he done, what competitions has he been to and what are the results. Hence as Vio said "the earlier I can compete the better" and he wants me to compete at the English.

The English Open is in Wolverhampton in three weeks! that means I need to get some new wrestling shoes (no offence Mr. Festorazzi, your dancing shoes have served me well) and need to purchase those sexy singlets as well as registering with British Wrestling. So if there are any birthday treats heading my way. That's all I want.

This week has been good for me though, wrestling on Monday was good fun, Mikey Young managed to get down, which was awesome, he is good fun to wrestle with, a strong lad, not quite at 115kg - 120kg but over the tonne club anyway, so it was good for training. It was a nice surprise to see him training. Monday was all about leg attacks and a few throws, I'm still working on my stance, left still feels a bit unnatural for some things but i'll get there. 

Wednesday's session was tough, event the warm up was tough. Wrestlers can do some crazy things, back-flips and twists and loads of gymnastics style stuff, i'm getting better compared to what I was in September but am not quite there yet, saying that not sure if a heavyweight needs to be. I was wrestling with Pedram and Ali, my two Iranian friends. We spent time on leg attack, leg defence, snap to headlock, par terre and par terre defence. followed by some live wrestling. Pedram is about 80kg at the moment that 35kg less than me and that makes him a hell of a lot more agile and of course a bit quicker. So his leg attacks had me hitting the deck quite a few times. Bigger they are harder they fall and all that and I need to work hard on 

The second point is that I mentioned in the last blog post that the Commonwealth Wrestling Championships would be probably passing me by this year as I need to get a lot better very quickly to get selected to take on the  best in the commonwealth, well i've since been told that might not necessarily be the case. As there is a lack of 120kg Wrestlers and Scotland is hosting the championships, they might decide to enter me anyway just for the experience of competing and again to bench mark where I am against my heavyweight counterparts from the corners of the commonwealth. That's an exciting / scary thought but we will see. This is all just hearsay at the moment, i'm not saying that i'm going to jump onto the institute this year, I might leave it till next year but Vio is right I need to get fighting now! 

Like I said, all very exciting chat even if I am a little nervous about it all

Cheers

@shocksjr