Wrestling is one of the hardest sports out there. For one, if you’re a wrestler you must be a little crazy. Who in their right mind is going to put their body through hard weight cuts each week and strict diets all year just so you can go out on a mat by yourself and wrestle someone for six minutes to win a little medal no one cares about or understands but you.
When you step on the mat, it is different from any other sport. You don’t have a team to back you up. It is just you, your opponent and the referee. You have no one to help you out. No one to help you take them down. You must do it all on your own. Every point, every move and every second of the match is on you. You don’t have to anyone to blame your mistakes on but yourself.
Not only is the sport brutal but you will receive crazy looks. For example, you will show up to school with black eyes or bruises on your face from wrestling practice. You will get crazy looks from people, and your teacher will ask you if something is going on at home. But in reality, you are fine. You just went to wrestling practice.
Wrestling is a brutal sport. You not only have to be physically tough, but you also must be mentally tough. When you are out on the wrestling mat your opponent is not just trying to beat you physically, they are also trying to mentally break you. When you are out on the mat you must be tough enough to push through the exhaustion, pain and frustration that is going on during the match.
Wrestling is a sport that will help you in life forever. For instance, you can’t halfway wrestle. You are all in or not. No one is going to step out on the mat and try to lose. They are going to give it everything they got. The sport will teach you discipline, toughness and self-respect in ways many other sports cannot. It will teach you not to give up on things in life that are hard.
When you are getting ready to go out on the mat you will get a feeling like no other. You will have butterflies no matter what. You could be going up against the best wrestler in the world or the worst. It doesn’t matter, you will still get nervous, anxious, excited and scared all at once. But once you step onto that mat you get a sense of calm because anything can happen in those six minutes. Everyone can be beat, it doesn’t matter who they are.
For example, I was wrestling in a match against a wrestler from Life University. She was beating me, and we had 30 seconds left on the clock. She shot in and I was able to put her onto her back. I ended up winning the match that I was losing the whole time until the end. I did not give up. I stayed calm and focused and kept the trust in my training, and it led me to a big win over a tough opponent.
Wrestling can enable you to travel around the world. There are some ups and downs to that because when you are away from home you will miss some important events. But you will meet people from all different countries. They will all have a different style of wrestling, and it will teach you and help you evolve in your wrestling career.
For example, when I traveled to Budapest Hungry with Team USA, I had to wrestle people from all different countries. Some of the girls I wrestled were from Ukraine and Hungary. Although we all had different wrestling styles, it was still just wrestling when you’re out on the mat. When I was wrestling in my finals match against a girl from Hungary, I had to remind myself to stay calm and focused. I had to trust and believe that I would win that gold medal. In the end, I believed in myself, I won the gold medal, and I became a world champion for Team USA. This is a memory I will never forget. I will also never forget the people on Team USA with me, and all of the experiences we shared together. To this day, I still talk to some of them. It’s a bond I’m gratefully for.
In the end, wrestling is a brutal sport, but it has so many rewards that come from it. I believe everyone should give wrestling a try, and they can see why wrestling is one of the hardest sports in the world.