Wrestling with Life

I am going to scale back on my blogging. I have started another project. I am going to try to beat the odds and wrestle in the Veterans National’s next year in Division D (50 to 54 years old) 69KG weight class (152 pounds – will have to lose at least 10 to 15 pounds of extra junk). I am not sure if I will compete in Folkstyle, Greco Roman and or Freestyle classifications. At a minimum, my goal is to compete in some local “old timer” tournaments. My neurological condition (Benign Fasciculation Syndrome - BFS) will make it a very tough road ahead. With this condition, my muscles are already fatigued, stiff, in pain and to make matters worse, I cramp very easily and BFS affects my balance (critical for any sport). Maybe my condition makes it impossible for me to meet my goal, but I guarantee you I will not quit easily. And if all of that is not bad enough, I have not wrestled in over 28 years and when I did wrestle I was not very good.

I have the opportunity to work with a fellow youth coach in our town – Zach Flake. Zach is a former NCAA champ at both the JUCO and NAIA level as well as being a 4 time All American (finish in the top 8). Zach was also a state champion in high school (Ohio – a very competitive wrestling state). Zach has agreed to work with me (poor guy) and I will help him get his wrestling youth camp business up and running. Here is his website: http://flaketrain.com/. We hope to get his camp up and running by the summer of 2014. He is great guy and very passionate about wrestling. If your kids want to go to a wrestling camp this is a good camp because there is a reasonable coach to student ratio. Unlike other camps where there are hundreds of kids for only a few coaches. Besides, Buena Vista Colorado is a beautiful place situated in a valley at 8000 feet along the Arkansas River and surrounded by 14,000 foot Rocky Mountain peaks. Zach will even arrange to take his clients and parents white water rafting down the Arkansas. Zach is a certified and licensed raft guide.

I will more than likely not win any matches and will probably get my head handed to me. That is not the point. The point is to improve ourselves daily and be a better person. This opportunity will not only make me a better coach, but I hope it helps to motivate and even inspire other people with neurological disorders. If that happens than no matter what I accomplish it will not be a failure by any stretch of the imagination.

There is one thing I like about wrestling, it treats everyone as equals. If you only have one leg, if you are blind, or if you have any other debilitating disorder – you still have to wrestle people without disabilities. And that is fine; I do not want to be given an advantage because of my disorder. Sometimes life is not fair and it is our responsibility to fight off our backs. As coach Gable elegantly stated “Once you have wrestled, everything else in life is easy”. And that is the truth, there is no harder sport than wrestling and it does not deserve to be eliminated from Olympic competition.

My training will consist of not only wrestling but weight training, cycling, hiking, snow shoeing, yoga, bouldering, and rock climbing. I hope to train up to 5 hours a day.

I will still make posts, but the whole political thing has become a negative aspect in my life. While blogging provided me an outlet to release stress, I think my new project will not only help with stress, but it will eliminate political stress (I won’t have the time to look into things). Hopefully future posts can update my progress towards this seemingly unreachable goal as well as updates on my BFS statistical analysis project.