Inspired by a Paralympian...Never Give Up!

Since the novices at the beginning of the month i've been riding a bit higher than normal, it gave me a great boost and a confidence lift that I needed, I know it wasn't the biggest contest in the world but i'm still chuffed to have got a W on the board. 

The last few weeks at wrestling have been great, I've been going back over some of the moves that I was a little rusty on, gator roles, gut wrenches, head locks and leg laces all of which i've enjoyed. My body has held up alright, leg laces are horrible things and wrestling the guys who have been down Craig, Callum, Danny and Dave all of whom love an arm drag has left me covered in bruises but other than that i'm doing fine.

I finally managed to drag my ass back to the Emirates for a spot of wrestling. I haven't been able to fork out the extra cash for a 120 mile round trip but I happened to be in Cumbernauld on Tuesday presenting a breakout session  for the Scottish Sports Development Conference afterwards I was sitting listening to the key note speakers in the afternoon and was inspired. So much so that i'm almost re-energised to increase my efforts and get to the end goal of the Commonwealth Games. It's got me excited again.

David Smith MBE

I don't think that happens all that often... getting inspired or enthused into doing something but I was listening to David Smits' paralympic journey and how they secured a gold at the Paralympics and was pretty much blown away by what had happened to him. In a nut shell, he was in the GB bobsleigh team for the winter Olympics before heading down to the paralympic open day, basically if you have a disability you can do some testing and they match you to a sport. David was born with clubfoot and therefore qualified for paralympics and tested really well for rowing. It's a little more complicated than that but basically he had been feeling not quite right for the 19 years he had been doing sport and was finally diagnosed with a spinal tumour. After surgery he had to reboot his nervous system and teach himself how to walk again amongst other things and wow that was some story. 2 years later he is winning gold. If you ever get the chance to hear him speak, he is a very humble guy but his story is pretty incredible. 

Perseverance is the key

After David Smith there was a talk by David Grevemberg (chief executive Glasgow 2014) about the "legacy" of the games and building a sporting community, inspiring young people. Unfortunately, the speech didn't quite hit the spot for me. I've heard David speak before about the Power of Sport and he was very good, this time it almost felt scripted and lacked a bit of passion but it didn't matter I was already inspired by Dave Smith. Finally to top off the day we had Doctor Andrew Murray to close the conference, he is a great speak and another one I would recommend. He is an ultra marathon runner and is threatening to try out all the commonwealth sports before Glasgow 2014 comes about. I was chatting to him briefly afterwards and we might even see him on a Monday down at the Edinburgh Wrestling Club. The key message I took away from his speech is pictured to the right. Hopefully he will come down to Wrestling...

So I had a revelation that my training kit was in the car and decided to head through to the Emirates after the conference to make a much needed appearance. I text my mate Dave Simm to see if he was about and luckily for me he was and was keen to get down. It was a pretty full on session lots of technique work and Dave is a lefty, which I find horrific to fight against. I can tell that i'm getting better and I think Vio (Scottish Assistant Coach) was relatively pleased. Even better i'm going to head down every Tuesday and that will be my session in Glasgow to keep me in with the coaches. Vio gave me some really good feedback again and whilst I don't want to pre-empt anything, I know know there is still a lot of work to be done its looking possible that I will be making my debut for Scotland in July at the Commonwealth Wrestling Championships in Edinburgh. That's a really exciting prospect and of course gives me the third platform to qualify for Glasgow 2014. 

So onto Glasgow 2014 itself, people keep on asking me what the likelihood of this actually coming off and me making it to the games. I take an objective view to it. At the moment i'm enjoying the training, I need to work on a few things and find a bit more time to train but overall I think we are still in with a tangible shot at making it. In case you have forgotten how it works. I have my first qualification event in June at the British Championships. If I finish in the top 3 Commonwealth Athletes I have met the qualification criteria. The second is the Commonwealth Wrestling Championships in July, I have to be selected to compete in that event but there isn't any reason to suspect I wouldn't be selected at the moment, if nothing else to give me more experience competing against the best in the Commonwealth. If I finish in the top 8 or top 2/3 or the field then I meet the criteria and the British Closed in early 2014 if I medal I will make the criteria. Lets assume I make one of those criteria or lets assume I don't I still have to be nominated by Vlad and Vio to represent Scotland and the final decision is then taken by Commonwealth Games Scotland. The maximum number of competitors is 7 males for wrestling but they could double up a category if they wanted, which they might well do if there is a better chance of a medal. I don't know who we have at what weight category so its hard to say but I'll keep on trucking till I know. Most likely will be British Closed next year but we will need to wait and see you never know, I might get a good draw and qualify before then. It's exciting!

How good does that look!

To finish off i'm going to plug a couple of local companies / organisations in Edinburgh the first is the zoo, great training venue, get yourself a 28 month old and a buggy and go see the big cats. That is a great workout. I was in Leith in Edinburgh over the weekend, my cousin Sheila turned an unspeakable age on Saturday and had a get together party in Wild Creatures, really cool little bar on Leith Walk. The real company I want to mention is the one across the road. I managed to get across the road to Los Cardos for a burrito after the party. These things are amazing. If you are ever on Leith Walk and need a good feed...No... wait... if you are ever in Edinburgh and need a good feed you need to get to Los Cardos It is the bomb!! www.loscardos.co.uk If I could I would eat there all the time.

Thanks to all the guys who have made it down to training over the last couple of weeks and to those who are going to come down, look forward to seeing you there and thanks for the support. 

Thanks for taking time out to read the blog

Cheers

@shocksjr

British Novice Championships - 120kg Final

Nothing quite like a bit of gentle slander to get someone straight on the ball. Thanks very much to Martin King for taking the video down in Stockton for the British Novices, it was much appreciated. Even more so for battling with the technology yo get it on line. 

The long awaited video of my first Win. 

For those that don't know me i'm the big fella in the red!

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 

Who knew Brian May was a Wrestler?

Wrestling has had to take a bit of a back seat over the last couple of weeks. It has given me an opportunity for my other persona's to come out... I've been a Pirate through to Brian May from Queen. Keep reading and you'll see.

Alex and I having a cuddle...I mean wrestle

In fact training full stop has been slower and less often than normal. That's not to say I haven't done anything, I have but its been less intense. Following my rib injury I tried to get back into the swing of things with a strength session that included squats, I warmed up and got on with it. Only with 60kg on the bar, the aim was to gradually ease into it but I was still having problems with the rib and couldn't comfortably squat (Do you even lift bro?). That was disappointing but I have developed some new Wrestling specific training with Gerry at work using bands, really good for developing my head snap and neck stabilisation, look like a bit of a knob doing it but its all good! I had an episode with my lower back last week as well, basically the rotational movements and over compensation  because of the rib pain meant that my lumber was killing me, I could barely walk, so called in the big guns and kindly got Laura to do some Kinetic Chain Release, really helped! 

The Gym! I studied Sports and Exercise and It's funny  I've been noticing myself going through the stages of exercise behaviour. If you have ever trained for anything you will know what I mean, you go through the stages of pre contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action and maintenance. Action is the Honeymoon period, you grow to want to spend as much time as you can and its maintenance that is the tricky part and sticking with it. I'm currently in a mix, because I haven't trained I'm gagging to get into the gym  to do some weights, I'm in maintenance / contemplation at the moment if that makes sense. I don't think I'm strong enough or powerful enough yet and I know that so I need to be training. Sometimes its a massive chore and other times I'm really up for it, I guess that comes with the territory with these things.

The last month has been really tough with Cameron and Emma both being sick, its been difficult, lots of waking up in the night and lots of early mornings. For example last night, I went to be just before 11:00pm, was woken up by crying Cameron at 12:00pm, he had puked everywhere, curdled milk mixed with baked beans - disgusting! Emma can't deal with sick and was about as useful as tits on a bull. Anyway 2 hours later we were all back to bed, puke was cleaned, Cameron was bathed and there was a massive pile of stuff for the wash in the morning. Now, as a parent this comes with the territory and It wouldn't be a problem but come 4:00pm - 5:00pm and training time I really just want to get home to rest up. Trying to train properly it is a problem but its a psychological problem and i'm past that as well and ready to get back to work! Although I do need to get more rest.

Iain Feenan (Beast) photo courtesy of www. billykinnear.co.uk 

I have kept up my wrestling at [EN]GAGE, I haven't gotten through to Glasgow as often as I would like, whether its meetings or lack of time, exhaustion or money, I think i've hit all of those "excuses" over the last month. I had a good session with the French boys who can through with Steven Cote and I got a good Wrestle with Danny and Steve. I felt pretty comfortable and it was good fun. Steve keeps on going for the big 3 point throw and I keep on ending up on top of him. Think a change of tactics is needed there, I effectively weigh about a pig heading to slaughter more than Steve.Having said that there are just under 500 days till Glasgow 2014 and I still need to up my game. I need to train and get my skill level to where it needs to be. I got schooled by Gav Clark, former British Judo lad two weeks ago, he is smaller, quicker and more experienced (fighting) than me and ended up royally kicking my ass. It was like I had completely switched off and couldn't get anything to stick. It happens... its  probably happen next week when I will have to take on this brute in the picture above fresh off a win in his MMA career and a Silver medal in the English Judo Championships.
Iain Feenan is again a Judo lad at 81kg and studying at Edinburgh Napier, he is making an appearance at Wrestling for the first time with Rory Monks so you'll get an update on that one in a couple of week. It will be an experience training with them and even more so in the live wrestle at the end of the session. I've been friends with a lot of of the Judo guys for a while now, funding is tight in Judo and all the boys worked the doors down at the 3 sisters and faith, that meant a minimum of 4.5 hours of talking crap and I used to enjoy hearing about how the competitions went and where in the world they were off to next. Hopefully the boys will make up a decent proportion of the JudoScotland team at the Commonwealth Games, they definitely deserve to just a case of qualification.

Obviously, with the lack of training you would think that I have nothing really to write about but I like to think of blog as a diary of activities not just wrestling related, so let me fill you in with what's been happening off the mat...briefly

Freddie and Brian rocking out

Fancy Dress parties have been on the weekends! which has been fun, went to titch's 30th as Brian May supporting Callum as Freddie Mercury and Ross's birthday as a pirate. I've always been a big fan of fancy dress having been on many a night out. 

You may have noticed facebook was littered with Mothers day chat on Sunday, people wishing their mothers a happy day, half of them probably aren't even on facebook I still haven't figured out what that chat is about. What's wrong with a card and a phone call? Anyway, I spent a bit of time up in Pittenweem last weekend. Trying to get the parents house more manageable for my mum who has Multiple Sclerosis and uses a wheelchair. My brother Paul and I decided it was time for us to step up and help out our dad and get the house sorted. It's a big place and pretty tough to manoeuvre  We went up to help and mum made us get in the wheelchair and try to negotiate around. Man it was tough and it gave me a different insight into how mum copes. She is a trooper! My old man does a fantastic job looking after her and I don't think i've supported them enough over the last few years, which I do regret and am going to change. 

Another good thing over the last week is that my brother Adam in the USAF is now a major, that's pretty cool and congratulations to him. I'm really proud of him as well for that, he has done really well for himself after 10 years in the air force. Nathan his son calls me "muppet mike" after my brother taught him. Don't think that will ever change but at least he knows who I am and once Cameron is more coherent I'll get my revenge!

Back into the full swing of things next week with the exception that from tonight i'm going off the radar, a spot of annual leave it's my wedding anniversary this weekend so we are off to the highlands. 1 year of married life is the paper anniversary, nice of them to keep it cheap!

Thanks for taking time out to read

@shocksjr

Note to Self - gut wrenches are not good for the ribs!

After the IOC rocked the wrestling world there have been some pretty big movements on a political stage. Vladimir Putin is supporting a committee that has representation from Russia, the United States, Cuba, Iran and Japan. That's a lot of big hitters in the global community and as Michael Cavanagh pointed out "there aren't many things in the world that would get those countries on the same page" and he's right. Let's just hope the IOC take note and give Wrestling a reprieve in September. You've even had 2 Gold medallists from 1996 and 2000 send their medals back to the IOC in protest and I don't know what I think about that. Pretty extreme but they must feel strongly enough about it to do it.

Bulgarian Valentin Yordanov sends back his medal

Personally, I think the IOC would be pretty stupid not to give Wrestling its spot back, I was reading a blog by a guy called Willie Saylor and the stats he was quoting showed wrestling in a really good light and made you question what the real motives were to recommend Wrestling's removal. He actually highlights some of the things I was rabbiting on about but its worth a read. you can get the link here. One thing the decision has done is increase the profile of the sport.

My training has taken a little bit of a back seat of late. I was having problems with my side for a few days after the English Championships so ended up getting it checked out at the hospital. They reckon there is a cracked rib in there which Ross, my physio/masseuse agreed with. The medical stand point was "Nothing we can do, pain killers and keep mobile"so I continued to train. Problem was that I was getting gut wrenched and that hurt like hell. It must have been the Grecco Champion at the English Championships, he got a beautiful Gut Wrench on me.

On the home front, the family has been in the wars this week as well, Cameron has developed what looks a lot like Chicken Pox and Emma has a pretty bad chest infection, so its fun again this week in my household but on the plus side we are the happy owners of a new car! 

The Emirates Arena in Glasgow

I have had mixed fortunes in my training matches of late which has been annoying. I managed to get to the Emirates arena with Martin just after my last blog update. What a venue! it's an impressive facility and I haven't even sneaked a peak at the Chris Hoy Velodrome yet. The athletics arena is awesome and Wrestling is housed at the back on the balcony, you even get to watch the Glasgow Rocks pro basketball team in the morning sessions. It's pretty cool. I got some good one on one coaching with Vio and Vlad and I got some really good feedback about my speed in attack. That session I would say was the most useful I've had to date. They let me find what I was comfortable with and get my stance sorted before showing me the grips. That's what i've been missing. It's helped me massively, so much so that I finally managed to get a win on the mat against Steven Cote. It's been along time coming! not that I'm going to brag about it too much, that wouldn't be cool but suffice to say I was down by 3 and managed to get a double leg take down and then 2 rolls to win the bout 5 - 3. It was good fun. I could go on but if I was to do that i'd have to admit that Coach Cavanagh beat me the same day 5 - 2 or 5 -3 I can't remember, he is like a raging bull when he is losing!

My success on the mat didn't last long, back in Glasgow two days later I got my ass kicked by Zane and Pedram in a round robin one minute on and one minute off. That was hard going. I just couldn't find my groove and ended up head snapping Zane into my nose which didn't help matters. Still life goes on and I had a special visitor to Friday nights session, my good friend Callum Anderson rocked up for a bit of training and we worked on a move called the suicide throw. Sounds cool but its really just to use when your in trouble. The sneaky git, used it and scored three points to win the first round. Fair play to Callum, he got stuck in, learnt the move and used it well. Luckily for me, I managed to bring him down a peg or two in the next round with a  gator roll from standing. I think he enjoyed himself, might even see him again. 

Volunteer 2014

I've found the last week really infuriating, because my rib is sore I've been over compensating on my left side which has destroyed my back, i've been having massive problems with movement so haven't been training which i've not been enjoying but managed to get on the mat earlier to be in the background for an interview with the BBC. Michael Cavanagh was getting interviewed about the closing of the Glasgow 2014 volunteers which is tomorrow (28th February) If you haven't filled in an application and you are in Scotland - you should get it handed in - there is still time http://www.glasgow2014.com/join/volunteering 

Anyway, Joanne Macaulay from the BBC interviewed me about Volunteering and my exploits on the mat so for all you early birds it should be on Reporting Scotland tomorrow morning. I'm well aware I should have had a haircut! I should say thanks to Alex at this point for letting me throw him around a bit. I got my volunteer application in this evening, I was a little late to the party, but better late than never. Hopefully I'll be competing in 2014 but if not I would love to be there as a volunteer. I can't see there being another Commy Games in Scotland in my lifetime but you never know.

This week, its back to training, I want to hit it hard and get to where I need to be for the British novices in April. I'm looking forward to that one and feeling a lot more confident on the mat!

Thanks for taking time out to read and if you are a heavier lad  at a loose end on Monday lunchtimes or Friday evenings, get yourself down to [EN]GAGE and get on the mat!

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

The Baptism of Fire

With my inaugural competition out of the way, i've had a bit of time to look back and reflect about it. The whole purpose of entering the English Wrestling Championships was to benchmark against the best and figure out where I was standing in the grand scheme of things. As it turned out things probably couldn't have been much better for bench marking but it was a long slog and a tough draw.

With a week to go I knew that I had to get myself mentally and physically prepared. I treated it as if it was an important rugby match, that's all I really know and although I was happy with the prep there are things I would like to change for next time. 

The week leading up to competition I had all my sessions as normal, I managed to get in the wrestling, flexibility and mobility sessions, KCR and and had a really good massage off Pav, my hamstrings and quads were loose and my calves weren't too bad the only issue I had was with the small of my back, it was a little tight but all in all in good shape even after a light Wrestling technique on Friday night

Love a steak 16oz

My flight to Bristol was Saturday morning 8:45am meaning I needed to get to the airport for 8:00am, no problem except that Cameron has been suffering all week from a viral infection called slap cheek and was up every half hour through the night, I think I got 2 hours total. Not great two nights before competition. Anyway I made the flight and spent the day with Simmo helping him wit some rugby stuff in Bath and Bristol. What facilities they have down there, there Bristol Sports Academy and University of Bath - phenomenal! We had a good feed for lunch, I managed to devour 16oz steak no problem and probably couldn't have eaten any more on the Saturday after my chicken loaded pasta that evening. 

Early to bed and up at 5:30am the next morning for the 2 hour journey up to Wolverhampton. I have to say at this point that Simmo did me a solid favour over the weekend. He drove me up to Wolverhampton he then had to get to Bath for Rugby before coming back to get me in Wolvemhapton and taking me home again. 400 Miles in total that's the equivalent of driving from Edinburgh to London. Thank you very much mate! 

Aldersley Sports Village, Wolvermhampton - just before weigh in

I arrived in Wolverhampton in good time for Weigh in and despite my protein and carb fest the day previous I only managed to weigh in at 115.2kg - standard weight for me at the moment. I watched as the place filled up scouting out the heavyweights. The current British Freestyle Champion Chinu Chinu rocked in, he is a big man. I've been trying to find a picture but none really do his size justice. There were a couple of others 9 in total fighting in my weight category. 

It was pretty busy must have been 400 - 500 people there in total including 220 competitors meaning a lot of matches. The bouts were released and I got a bye in the first round which was fine and I got drawn against Chinu in the second. That meant that I would be taking on the British Freestyle Champion in my first ever proper wrestling encounter. It was a long wait, Chinu came and found me because he was a little confused that after my name came ENG and he didn't know who I was. I explained that ENG wasn't England and was in fact [EN]GAGE Wrestling Club. The prep before you fight is odd (well to me anyway), there are two extremes, those who are sociable and talk to anybody and then there are those who chill out and keep themselves to themselves. I watched a lot of wrestling and did a fair bit of talking, I was just trying to get a feel for the place but next time I'd like to focus a bit more on my matches. That said, I did have to wait 3 hours until I was on.

I sat down with my coach on the day and asked for advice, we joked and agreed the best thing to do was "run!". Seriously though, the recommendations were to stay away, defend and try to last out the round. That plan would have been good if Chinu hadn't been as strong and powerful as he was. Stepping onto the mat to face him was fairly intimidating, he is a bit lad and the lats on him we more like wings. Let's not beat around the bush, he dominated me and smashed me and i'm happy to accept that. There was no way I could have beaten him with my knowledge or skill

Chinu Chinu in blue (photo copyright Nigel Farrow)

I wouldn't go as far to say I was a bunny in headlights but I wasn't expecting the power that came from his head snap. He managed to head snap me and try to move around the back. Once I knew he was on his way behind me I went to default par terre postion, on my front on the mat. A good idea in principle but he managed to turn me and I was in a pretty crap position that I shouldn't have let myself get into. All in about 20 seconds! I was on my back, bridging, moving my shoulders off the ground, I could feel him pushing me towards the edge of the mat and the umpire about to call us back up after about another 20 - 30 seconds. Normally you would get called up after 10 - 15 unless there is scope for a pin. For a second my back was flat on the floor and the umpire called the pin. A pretty easy second round fight for Chinu and a massive learning experience for me. 

Wrestling is a lot more technical than most people give it credit for and I can tell you that rolling around on the mat under the weight of the British Champion only for 30 seconds trying to avoid a pin is physically and mentally draining. His power was something else and something that I really need to work on, I wasn't expecting the aggression that he had and have decided that I'm far too nice on the mat and need to find a nasty streak to start winning matches.

So that was the end of that. Chinu had in all senses on the word smashed me on the mat, it was good to get that experience but I was in effect out of the competition unless Chinu made it through to the Gold medal match. Which, of course he did. That meant Repêchage and another crack at the whip. I was only two bouts off a bronze medal but got drawn against the British Roman Grecco Champion who was trying his hand at Freestyle. He had done freestyle before and a bit of kick boxing so was expecting a quick exit. We got on the mat, had a scuffle and a bit of pushing, he tried the head snap, I defending this time and was doing ok but ended up getting gut wrenched stupidly 3 times in a row and that was the round! The second round went a lot better, I was getting pushed towards the edge and managed to get a throw in but was countered and lost that encouter. I did manage to get a single leg take down on the Grecco champ but didn't close it and hold him once it was complete so was a bit of wasted effort and got a pulled external oblique for my trouble. The round finished with another counter from him after I tried a throw and that showed that he was more experienced than me. I was a lot happier with that performance.

All in all a good day, the match against Chinu was a bit of a waste of time on the wrestling front but did give me a flavour of how powerful the best are and that's what this was about. I chilled out that evening with an uneventful night in Bristol, a couple of catch up pints with Simmo and the superbowl before passing out and heading home on Monday afternoon. Even got an easyjet upgrade (if there is such a thing) to better leg room seats, the flight attendant took pity on the two elderly ladies I was about to sit in between.

As Promised   singlet photo (ignore the socks)

So where does this leave me apart from in a bit of pain when I turn or rotate. Well, fighting the best was a privilege and showed me exactly how much I have to learn. I need to really hone down the fundamentals and develop the power. I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I may get the opportunity to compete in the Commonwealth Wrestling Championships in July, for me personally; as much as I would love to, I think this would be a step too far, I'm not ready for that and I wouldn't fare to well against the best in the commonwealth but that's for the coaches to decide. I've got a lot of training to do between now and then and the first qualification event in June. 

How are my Commonwealth Games 2014 qualification chances looking? I'm under no illusion that things are going to be tough, realistically if I'm going to qualify it will be at the British Closed Championships early next year. That would give me a year to buck up and learn the basics well. I'll still be entering the British and the other events but you have to be realistic about what you can achieve and luck can only take you so far! 

The next event for me is in April in Manchester at the British Novices! Looking forward to that one and starting training again. 

Thanks again for taking time out to read, and thanks especially to Simmo for his efforts last weekend #headofmoral 

For those of you who don't know the UK that well this is the journey that the big fella racked up this weekend. What a trooper! I did give him petrol money! not that tight!

Bristol - Wolverhampton - Bath - Wolverhampton - Bristol = Edinburgh - London

Cheers

@shocksjr