Guest Christmas Blogger - Andy Grodynski

Being a master of persuasion, I managed to get Andy Grodynski to write me a little piece for the blog. Andy is a good friend who has packed up his life and moved to Australia which is a little sad as we don't get to see him much any more, still there is a holiday friend to tap up when I get to Oz! Andy has more passports than James Bond and Jason Bourne put together... He is a little bit British, Polish, Indonesian and Australian. Pick one of those four for a place to set up shop and its not a surprise he has headed down under to show them how to do some engineering. He is only back for three weeks and managed to get a wrestling session in, which was great fun.

Before I let you read any further I should state that Andy was "emotionally compromised" from excessive alcohol consumption at time of writing and claims to have been lurking in a dark place on Struggle Street. 

Thanks for doing the Blog Andy, I appreciate it and hope you have a safe trip back home to Brissy!

All the best

@shocksjr

Grod vs.Shocks but really vs. Simmo

Andy Grodynski        -             Shortround

Mike, or Shockers, as I’ve always known him, managed to appeal to my competitive side when he said Aran Simm’s guest blog entry would be a tough one to beat on the hits!  So, here we go… I’m Andy, otherwise known as Grod, or Short Round, due to my slight resemblance to Harrison Ford’s sidekick in Temple of Doom. 

I first met Mike nearly six years ago, making my debut for the Scotland U18s RL side, where he was part of the coaching staff.  I must have been doing something right because he encouraged me to get along to play for the Edinburgh Eagles and the Napier University side.  A handful of Student and Amateur caps and 4 Grand Final wins later, I’m now playing rugby league in Brisbane, and have much to be thankful to Mike for getting me involved in the early days.

I made the escape to warmer climates just over year ago and have missed a big year for Mike and his family.  I left not long before his son’s first birthday, missed out on his stag doo and had to be content with viewing his wedding through photos!  And then there was the announcement that he had taking up wrestling!

At first I thought the pressures of parenthood and married life had hit him really hard – so I had to Skype home to make sure he was feeling okay!  However a thirty minute chat, and a bit of assurance from Emma, it was clear to see he was intent on giving the wrestling a real go.  He has done really well to get a great back-room team up and running for him very quickly – he’s got fantastic facilities and a great team at work, and I know Emma and Cameron are rooting for him at home.

I already knew I would be home for Christmas, so as well as making sure I caught up with him and Emma, I was definitely going to get along to one of his sessions to see how it was all going.

Napier Rugby League league winners 2008/2009

I rocked up to the Friday night Wrestling session not really sure what to expect.  There was some chatter amongst the other guys about different techniques; ways to win points; ways to win more points; ways not to lose points; and very quickly I was aware I didn't have the slightest clue about any of the rules!  The speed of the session was good for me – after a quick warm up we went through an hour or so of technique work.  I was fascinated by a lot of the drills we went through, which ranged from take-downs, headlocks and some counter moves.  I had no idea that the sport was so technical, as I thought wrestling was just about throwing your opposite man into the ground.  Some of the techniques were transferable to rugby league, but I’m not sure how legal the headlocks are in my game!  I think I've forgotten a lot of the technique stuff already, and whatever I did manage to retain got thrown out of me when the session moved into a few bouts.  The bouts were fun to watch – there were an obvious variety of different fighting backgrounds amongst the other boys and it was interesting to see them fight against each other.  I was a bit apprehensive about taking on Mike as he’s got nearly 30 kilos on me in weight, but (I think) I held my own and came out in one piece!  As there’s no video evidence, I might try and tell people I dominated the bout!

Proof that there are headlocks in rugby league

I was very impressed by the session and the setup at the [EN]GAGE centre at Sighthill, and really enjoyed my short session there.  I’d love to be able to do more to support Mike his bid for a spot at the games - I’ll definitely be keeping a close eye out on his progress from across the globe.  Although his foray into the wrestling world may seem a bit left field to a lot of people, he’s made a huge amount of progress in a just a few months, and has a big year of graft and training ahead of him.  The Commonwealth Games in 2014 is a huge incentive for him, and I know he’s got the added personal incentive of doing it for Emma and Cameron.  

I hope a few more of his friends can get behind him and give him the support he deserves to ensure that the next time I’m back in Scotland, it’ll be 2014 and I’ll be cheering him on from the stands at the Commonwealth Games!


@the_grod

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

Challenge Cup final and a cheeky trip to London

Its been a really exciting week, although I haven't managed to get in as much training as I would have liked, I've managed to substitute for other things and my motivation hasn't been lacking!

A good friend of mine is making 2012 his year of sport, inspired by the Olympics and Paralympics being held in London, he set out to get to as many sports events as he possibly could throughout the year and take a secondment from his lovely girlfriend and make this year all about sport! You can catch up on his adventures here http://coxysyearofsport.blogspot.co.uk/. 

He managed to get to the six nations, Heineken cup, Tour de France, Olympics, Paralympics, SPL matches, The Crucible and even Silverstone for the Formula 1 to name a few. I have no idea how he managed to afford all this but he has done it and I don't think he will be allowed to go to another sports event till at least the Commonwealth Games in 2014.

Me, Coxy and Shadow at Wembley Challenge Cup Final

Overall he has manged to hit 52 events (probably more now) over 30 sports in 17 Cities in 6 countries and shockingly he has only managed to rack up 9 wins for the individuals or teams he has supported. Maybe he is bad luck! Why am I telling you about this you may ask? Well Sport wouldn't be as much fun to watch if you went on your own and Coxy has got friends to join him for each of the events he went to and I was lucky enough to be the  friend who was chosen to chaperon him to the Challenge Cup along with Mark (shadow). Who will always now have a special place in my heart for taking us to possibly the best south indian curry place in Wembley - it was phenomenal!

This meant a break from training (or so I thought), a nice relaxing time down in the capital and a cheeky trip to Wembley. I mentioned to Alex (S&C) that I was heading away and back on the Monday the following week and on that comment, he prescribed my London programme to do at home whilst I was away. What a nice guy! It was interesting getting this new body weight programme done in my cousins living room but I still managed to get a good sweat on. I even managed to get a little flexibility session is a quiet corner of Gatwick Airport before heading home.The things you do!

I was still a little stretched for cash as most people are the week before payday when I headed to London but I was adamant that I could spend a ridiculously small amount of cash and get away with it. I pretty much did that by not taking any public transport and walked everywhere as much as possible. I worked out that I walked atleast 16 Miles over the course of the weekend. Pretty mad when you consider I was only cruising about the London tourist sights.

Challenge Cup Final at Wembley - Warrington vs. Leeds

The Challenge Cup Final itself was pretty good. 79,000 people almost filled Wembley and we took our seats next to Zeus and Odin up high and watched as the ant like figures of Leeds and Warrington fought it out for 80 minutes. Adrian Morley still looked huge. Warrington came good in the end but not before the lighting and thunder hit. It sounded like a bomb had gone off somewhere distant as the Thunder echoed around the stadium. The storm lasted all of 20 minutes and that's a good thing about being up high, not getting wet!

The exciting #mission2014 developments came on Friday whilst I was away, I mentioned in my last blog post that Mike Cavanagh was coming into ENGAGE to do some coaching, he is in on Monday lunchtimes which is awesome and even better we are actually getting a wrestling mat at ENGAGE which is going to be phenomenal for training. I can't wait to get into training properly and start grappling and wrestling. Unfortunately, I'm missing the 1st session because I'm away but come the second week in September, I'm all over it. Actually, I am thinking about setting up a community club properly and getting a coaching badge to help run on a day over the weekend. I'm pretty sure we would be the only pure wrestling club in Edinburgh and the East if we were to do it.

I was doing a little bit of work with Jig on Tuesday at the throws training, we did some ground work stuff, Bear joined for some punishment and Jig worked us pretty hard which is always good (maybe not for the bear). No dropping on heads this week but there was an accidental bollock in the face moment, its all character building! I'm swopping in Training next week for a trip to Alton Towers, so i'll have to make it up somewhere.

Finally, back to my training I'm away next week to Emma's grandparents 60th Wedding Anniversary which is a pretty awesome accomplishment. Alex very kindly has prescribed me some training to do for the next two weeks whilst he ventures off to France on his motorbike. There is a lot of running in this block and back to the circuits and the dreaded wattbike tabata intervals, which may kill me off. I should be starting to look that little bit fitter come two weeks time. The key for me is to try and maintain a little weight! 

It's the Scottish Wrestling Open Championships next week, I elected not to enter this year, simply because I don't feel I have done enough wrestling yet to warrant a decent competition but next year! I will hopefully be Scottish Champion and well on my way to qualification for Glasgow 2014!

As always, thanks for taking time to read the blog, feel free to share it around and again as always you can catch me on twitter @shocksjr #mission2014

Oh and if you are interested in Wrestling in Edinburgh, drop me a line, I'm starting to collate a database of interested people:
mikewallacewrestling@hotmail.co.uk

Soaring with the Eagles

I wasn't planing on updating the blog this weekend but I did promise one of my best mates that I would.

This weekends sporting action has been phenomenal, Team GB have been dominating things in the Olympic Stadium, in the velodrome, on the water, on the tennis court and even in the Gymnastics hall. Not bad considering the press were moaning about how crap we were doing a few days ago - a distant memory. We are now sitting pretty with 34 medals (16 Gold, 9 Silver, 9 Bronze) compared to Beijing where we racked up 47 medals (19 Gold, 13 Silver, 15 Bronze). We've still got a week to go and I'm sure there are a few more medals in the pipeline for Team GB. Makes you proud to be British! 

The highlight of my sporting weekend didn't come from London or the Olympics. Funnily enough it came from Sunnyside in Falkirk where Edinburgh Eagles Rugby League soared to a 36 - 10 victory over Aberdeen Warriors to claim their 9th championship title in 14 seasons. That means that in the history of the League in Scotland the club have a championship completion rate of 65%. That is sporting dominance. 

I was helping out with the coaching which was great and its still an awesome club to be involved in.

Edinburgh Eagles 2012

This weekend has been pretty good fun, I managed to get in a quick half hour session in the gym with the Darren (the bear) Steadwood. He dominated me, I had absolutely no energy but managed to get through it before heading off to the rugby. 

I also managed to squeeze in a quick demo of what I saw on Friday's wrestling demo in the form of the leg lock and roll. I remembered it which was good but my demo buddy Clive used to be a marine and almost snapped my elbow with a submission move.

Watching the Grecco Wrestling today, I think its safe to say I'll be going to try for Freestyle. I think the strengths of my wrestling will be through the rugby stuff that I've done and the ability to hook the leg and wrap up on the ground.  

I'm still being hit with people thinking that i'm joking but I guess they'll see once #mission2014 takes off properly in a weeks time!

In the mean time, i'm on holiday for a week, heading up to see the folks and the in laws before gettting back to head to Steely's leaving BBQ on Saturday night. (Obviously no drinking).

Final words for the weekend, congratulations to the Eagles boy on a fantastic effort and great win. Credit has to go to my friends in Aberdeen as well though. To get three teams out on Grand Finals day in their second year in existance is no mean feat. Congrats and commiserations to them, i'm sure your day will come. 

#mission2014 = one week to go.

Off to a good start

It's been another exciting day.


Well...The kid is in bed, still jumping around it, but in bed. The wife is on a pass tonight and in town and i'm chilling out at home on baby duty, so figured i'd update with what's been happening.

Yesterday and today have been pretty awesome. I've not really kicked off my campaign to get into the Commonwealth Games Wrestling Squad, i've been dabbling a bit with the gym, mainly sitting on the bike and just trying to shift a few pounds before the mental training starts, the diet has been pretty good the last couple of weeks and I haven't been eating any crap and i've been off the booze completely. 

Even though I haven't started yet things are starting to come together. I received my nutritional plan and diet yesterday - It looks pretty good, no starchy stuff and loads of veg. I've seen a lot worse, so it should be pretty easy to stick to. Could hit the wallet quite hard though! Yesterday I announced on facebook (obviously that makes it official) that I would be embarking on this quest and within hours of that I got offered a cheeky sponsorship deal with my mates company (Tysonfitness) to help with supplements. Looking forward to hearing what he has to say on things. Quite a few folk thought I was joking, but alas i'm not. I've been needing a goal for ages to get me back into shape and i've found it.

Today was pretty wicked, I took a trip down to the Loch Centre in Tranent of all places to watch Michael Cavanagh (Chairman, Commonwealth Games Scotland and former wrestler) deliver a session to the SRU age grade lads. It was awesome to watch and I got my first real taste of wrestling up close. There is a lot of cross over with Judo - happy days as my throws coach is a GB judo lad. Today was all about Tsuri - Goshi,  I learnt quite a bit and the chat was good afterwards. I should be getting in touch with Scottish Wrestling's performance director over the next couple of weeks (after the Olympics) to discuss the plan of action which is great news for me. 

This evening was good fun as well, I popped into Edinburgh and Caught up with Matt and Kev from Uni and bumped into my best mate from school Rich. Awesome to see all of them and was nice to hear their thoughts on my new venture, they all gave good support for me even trying to get to the CWG but honestly, I reckon its just to see me in lycra (bunch of perverts).

Thanks for your support so far. 

Scottish Wrestling

Back again - Day 2

The Goal

As you can probably tell, I'm really excited about this new venture into the Wrestling world and am really positive that I can qualify for Glasgow 2014. I can't wait to start training properly. It's been ages since I've had a proper focus for sport and ages since I've had the motivation to do something. Almost feels like a switch has been flicked and my focus completely restored. I have got too many people involved with helping me get to where I want to be to pull out, so either way this is going to be happening.

I've been doing a bit of research into how things work with the Wrestling and think I've managed to get my head round what needs to be done. I'm hopefully catching up with Michael Cavanagh tomorrow who will be able to give me some guidance and make sure i'm on the right track. 

At the moment my target is to compete and win the Scottish Open Championships in 2013, then Finish in the top 3 of the British Championships in 2013 before finishing top 8 in the Europeans in March 2014 before the Commonwealth Games in July 2014. That should allow me to qualify for the CWG... in theory although the official seclection criteria is still to be realeased.

So, that gives me a year to learn the ropes of wrestling and get into really good shape to be able to compete.

My training is officially starting on 13 August with fitness testing. VO2 max testing, anthropology and 1 RM testing. I'm dreading it a little bit... haven't done a VO2 max since my second year in uni almost 10 years ago. Plus I know that I'm not that fit and am sporting more fat than I would care to have for this sort of testing. I suppose the final thing is that I haven't been hitting the weights very hard over the last couple of months but can probably still shift enough to get me started.

Alex Rawcliffe - my S&C coach

It's all relevant anyway, everything will give me a baseline a that will gauge my progress and in that sense I'm looking forward to it.

My new training diet also starts on the 13th, a friend of mine who is clued up in that field in sorting me out with that side of things.

Tuesday the 14th will be the first day of the programme and my S & C coach Alex hasn't given me any details except to say that "he is going to break me in that session." Which is fine. #gohardorgohome

James Millar - my Grappling / Throws coach

Tuesday also sees my throw coach coming in to burst me on the mat and start to give me some basic know how on grapples and throws. James Miller is my throws coach, he has represented GB judo on a number of occasions and is a good friend of mine. Looking forward to working with him. Jig as he is affectionately known is a lot smaller than me, but I cant wait for him to put me through my paces.

Wrestling itself in Scotland is a bit of an anomaly, I want to join a club but the nearest one is about 60 miles away from me in either Stirling or Glasgow but needs must and I'll be joining one in January to improve my wrestling skills and of course learn the rules! That is of course until we have a club set up out of [EN]GAGE in Edinburgh.

I'll get my first taste of wrestling coaching tomorrow and see what's what and how its done. very excited about that and the next few weeks.


Twitter: @shocksjr

Where better to start than at the start!

Well... This is my Blog - i've never done one before so we shall see how it goes. 

This is all about the journey i've decided to embark on to try and get myself to the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games as a Wrestler in the 120kg weight category. 

A bit about me and why i've decided to do this? 

I would class myself as a very average guy, there isn't really anything special about me. The basics are that i'm Scottish / American (My old man is from Edinburgh / and my mum from Kansas), I'm 28 and married with a little boy. I'm 6'2 and a little bit over weight, the last time I had a 6 pack I must have been about 8 years old. I'm a graduate from Edinburgh Napier University in Sports Science and one of the few to work in my chosen field in the Sports Sector. My mates call me "Shockers" after my brothers before me and I suppose the other thing that makes me normal is that I have financial worries just like every other new family man. Pretty bog standard.

I've played sport as long as I can remember, rugby was my forte but I was always pretty good at Athletics in particular the shot putt and discus. Towards the latter days of my school career I played for Fife Chargers in the county rugby set up and played midlands rugby union before getting dropped just before the making a regional team called the Caledonia Reds. To be fair I had a shocker of a game and that was the end of my climb up the rugby union ladder. 

My brother Adam after a tour to France

My older brother Adam used to come back from uni with all sorts of cuts and bruises and once with a broken thumb and that got me interested. He was playing rugby league for Scotland Students and got me involved in the first ever Scotland Rugby League under 18 squad. We played France in Peebles and got humped by about 40 points, but it was a good experience and since I went on to play for Scotland Rugby League about 60 times at various levels. Never made it pro though.

I've had my share of injuries. I'm 28 now, 11 years ago I had my first keyhole surgery on my knee which was a bit of a bugger, it set me back a little bit having my cartillage out. I made it back to form and to a national level and blew my knee out completely in 2005. I was playing for Scotland Students in the World Cup in Australia against New Zealand. 

When you get an injury like I received that day everything happens so quickly but I seem to remember it in slow motion. This monster of a kiwi came running towards me I stepped forward, planted my left leg and threw my shoulder into him. This guy was a mutant and just ran over me, I remember trying to pull him down, realising my leg was stuck, it hyperextended as I fell backwards and twisted, completely tearing the ACL. very painful. If you ever see a footballer on TV rolling around, you know they aren't really injured. When that happens and you hear your knees cracking, you don't move a muscle.

Anyway, I made it back to play for Scotland and it was a great achievement for me after thinking I was done. Actually my comeback was a complete fluke, in 2009 I was helping out with the coaching of the Scotland A squad and we had a few injuries which meant I was drafted into play against Wales, did alright and that was me back in the fray.

Playing for Scotland 'A' against England (2010)

In 2010, after a fantastic international and domestic season I was playing in the Scottish Grand Final for my club "Edinburgh Eagles" and in the last moments of the game jarred my knee against someone. It was sore but not too bad, on MRI I found out the PCL had torn and from then I decided my competitive sporting career was over.

In fact, it was over until about a month ago when I decided to play Rugby in a friendly match. I miss playing competitive sport dearly so it was nice for a run out. I managed to show the young bucks how its done a little and like anyone else, its nice to know you still have it! Anyway, I played my last game of rugby last week for Edinburgh Eagles 2nd team and got hammered 84 - 4. You'll never guess where the 4 points came from!! 

More to the point though... Wrestling!

I know pretty much bugger all about it. All I know is that Michael Cavanagh who is the Chairman of Commonwealth Games Scotland and a wrestler himself popped in for a meeting at my work about setting up a wrestling club, he was looking for a 120kg man with a sports background who might take up wrestling as we (Scotland) haven't really got anyone in that weight category. 

I joked with him about me getting back into training and going for it and his parting words were "aye, see you at Glasgow 2014". I went home reflected on it, spoke to the wife and a couple of others and now here I am, ready to start training for the Commonwealth Games 2014. 

I've managed to get myself a Sport Scientist, Strength and Conditioning Coach and even a nutritionist and a throwing coach to start me on my quest. So i'm all set and the 13th August is my start date.

Honestly, I have no idea how it will go, I dont even know the rules of the sport or what style i'm going for... but what I do know is that i've been inspired by the Olympics and inspired by my friend Euan Burton. He won't know this but he is a two time Olympian and his commitment really is inspiring and I want to have that. Euan has had a tough time at London 2012 but he'll bounce back. I'm 100% motivated to do this and want to compete for my country but most of all I want to try a new sport and fall back in love with competing. I've never really done any individual sport, so this will be a test but I'm confident I can make it!

So to sum up - I'm an average bloke, who has been inspired and is motivated to try this and see if its possible. I don't have a clue really about the road ahead but for me all signs are pointing to Glasgow 2014 and that's where I want to be in 2 years time!

watch this space!!

Oh and you can catch me on Twitter - I've only just set it up, hence hardly any followers: @shocksjr