Personal Narrative: My League Tournament For Wrestling

In the first 20 seconds of the match, I had the first take-down. I was working crossfaces, cheap tilts, and everything else I knew after my takedown. Then, I did what I do best and gave him a swift, hard crossface and cradeled him up. Squeezing with all my strength and might it took about 7 seconds of him being on his back and he was pinned! It took a total of 55 seconds to pin my first opponent at state.

I looked at carson and he looked cocky so I was up for the challenge so I decided to

It was dead silent as the ball sat in the air and as if time had stopped. It was December of 2015, I was 13, my team and I was playing for 3rd place in the Colt Classic Tournament. It was a night game at Barrington Station High School. We were playing the Barrington Colts, which was weird considering they are playing for 3rd in their own tournament that they were hosting, before the game, I was talking to some of my teammates Aaron Pattis, Stephen Harris, Bradley Jenkins, Ayden Anderson and I were talking before the game, going into that game we speculated that we had this game in the bag easily as a result of how well our team was playing. Little did we know, we had another problem coming.

My second match was my second easiest. I took him down my opponent named Rowdy Martin from Ulysses and worked my cross arm series from turk, to cradle, to butch. Then, in 1 minute I finally pinned him with a cradle.

When I qualified for the AAU State wrestling tournament I never thought I would have done so well. Being in 8th grade and it being my last year to go to AAU State I put in the hard work and qualified for AAU State and I was overjoyed with happiness. For the next 2 weeks, I practice my heart out trying to get better for AAU. The day that wrestling starts the older group doesn’t wrestle till 4, so we went to the mall till 12 then Wells Fargo. The team started to warm up around 3:30 and I was one the first matches up. I won my first match with a pin and my second with the 11-3 win. My third match was against the kid that won the tournament and I lost to him 2-5.

“Tweet Tweet,” screamed the birds as the sun smacked Tyler and me in the face with its Florida heat hotter than jalapenos.

It was the big day of the match and nobody got a good night of sleep the night before. It was time to wrestle now and we had MOC first.Sergeant Bluff had Spencer. We started wrestling at 145 and we got a good lead on MOC. t came to our 132 match and one of wrestlers got hurt. next

“Why Kid?” said, my grandfather. I replied, “simple, not everyone can do it, that why I love it. I love the grind, I love the self-torture, and of course the leading reason I look ripped in a singlet. Wrestling is one of the most demanding sports there is. The dedication, hard work, dieting, endless practices, and the everlasting season. Don't forget sectionals, then finally state. I can't tell you how many parties that I had to turn down during the season because I didn't want to be tempted to binge eat. The countless Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner I've had to give up. I felt like a dog watching everyone eat their honey roasted turkey.

Then, as quick as air, he writhed his way out, came out behind me, and scored two points for a reversal. I struggled to get one point for an escape, but we went out-of-bounds. Placed at the center of the mat again, I finally escaped. Sloppily, he took another shot and I scored off of it as I had done before. He quickly escaped, bringing the score to 5-3. Suddenly, he went in for another takedown. Unable to defend properly, I fell to the ground and he scored, tying the score at 5-5. I could hear my teammates and my coaches shouting my name, telling me to escape. I squirmed and finally managed to escape and score the point; I was in the lead. I just had to survive these last few seconds and I would win. We circled around more, but I kept backing away, unwilling to risk giving him any more points. The whistle sounded, “One point red, stalling on green.” The score was 6-6. I cringed slightly, but kept my composure.

We were in the locker room getting ready to weigh in. I eyed down my opponent trying to get in his head before the match. He didn't look like the strongest

The sun was shining brightly and the snow was melting outside on a beautiful March afternoon. Inside the Marian High School Wrestling room was an entirely different picture. Inside the room there was an intense off-season workout going on. Afterwards, the wrestlers and coaches all sat down, dripping in sweat, and began joking about the wrestlers who chose not to show up to the off-season workouts. My teammates, coaches, and I began making a list of the laziest wrestlers on our team. Jokingly, I asked my coach, “Where am I on that list?” he looked at me with a straight face and said, “Trust me Justin; you are nowhere close to being on that list.”

Ever since I was eight years old I have been wrestling all year, every year, almost daily. I never thought that my wrestling career would extend past junior high or even into high school. I started doing pretty good at tournaments and practices so I thought I might actually make it in high school and become a successful wrestler. Before I graduated from junior high, I had decided that the high school that I was going to be attending didn't have the best wrestling program so I moved to another school nearby which had a renowned wrestling program called Washington Community High School in Illinois. It was a tough decision, but I eventually told my parents that I wanted to move to Washington in order to keep wrestling. They agreed surprisingly and that's when the journey began.

Football season just ended, meaning I had a couple weeks to recoup until my favorite season started--wrestling. Wrestling has run in the family for decades, each generation breaking a record or making it to state. With the few weeks to recoup, I picked up some extra hours at work. I clean at the local YMCA, so I don’t have much interaction with kids or anyone really, but I like it that way.

I believe in wrestling. Wrestling is not a sport you just play to have fun, or enjoy. To be successful in wrestling you have to be gritty. The sport of Wrestling is about hard work, perseverance, and believing you can achieve your goals. To be able to succeed in the sport, you have to have an abundance of mental toughness and determination, to not let anything stop you from reaching your goals.

Who knows if wrestling yourself is harder than wrestling others? My passion, ever since I stepped on a wrestling mat, is wrestling. Every single person was a novice, with a month advantage, and so I challenged each individual as my panacea to all my anger, sadness, stress and loneliness. The first day I made a huge impression on my coach. I hip-tossed other wrestlers and heard, “I can’t breathe, get off of me!” My skill was acknowledged as a suitable wrestler, meaning that I have heart, spirit, strength, speed, and skill. As a team we each played a role, we had to work hard, go to practice or Beat the Streets, win matches, and, ultimately, not get pinned. The most difficult task was to be in our own designated weight class; we had to control