abreathoffreshair.

After a long run of withdrawal, i've finally gotten my fix.
A shame it's a little bit late.

Heart Lake Secondary School in Brampton. The home of the Hurricanes. Their wrestling team is very well known in the wrestling community as one of the largest, and one of the more successful teams. In fact, three years ago, two of their grade nine boys took Ontario championship titles. That's a nearly unheard of feat. Probably due to their impressive rap, Heart Lake's annual "Hurricane Hammer Wrestling Tournament" hauls out the second most wrestlers in the region of peel every year. It's no surprise that the tournament runs from 8:30 AM to about 6:30 PM. With around 600 wrestlers, that's still impressive time.

Knowing all of this, the night before the meet, the gears were still turning fast in my head even when my body was ready to take a rest. All i could think about was what was going to happen the next day, what i didn't want to happen, what i wouldn't let happen, and what i would beat myself up for letting happen. Unfortunately, each of these topics were jam packed with substance and i didn't find sleep until around 2 AM.

Walking into a wrestling meet for me is always like being hit by a train. As soon as those gym doors open and you cross the threshold, the atmosphere changes dramatically. First of all, it physically changes (this is a kinda gross part, i'm warning you. nastysrsly.). Because of the huge numbers of wrestlers present, all pushing themselves hard on the mats, trying to stay warmed up for their match, the gym always feels like a sauna. A mixture of a ton of body heat, and like sweat in the air. Nasty i know. But nothing gets me more pumped up for a wrestling match than that kinda atmosphere. Secondly, the mental atmosphere changes too. Contrary to what you would think, everyone is generally in a pretty damn good mood at wrestling tournaments even though half of them are about to get their face ground into the mat. These two things combined are what i'm always preparing myself for the night before every meet, but it still knocked me off my feet when i opened those doors on Thursday.

Since i had gained upwards of 6 pounds over the break, i'd tragically pushed myself up into the next weight class. So when i looked at my bout sheet (it tells you who you're going to face, and when. boutsheet), i didn't know a thing about any of the people in my category... a change from knowing every single person on the sheet like usual.

The first match was against a tanked white guy with a tattoo and bigger arms than my legs. I honestly do not know how i could have possibly weighed as much as him but i wasn't so concerned about that so much as not getting my collarbone crushed when we locked up for the first time after the referee blew his whistle. Luckily for me, he was a rookie meaning i had a good technical advantage, and i was faster. After a round of 8-2 in my favour, i was feeling pretty good, and even though i had to continue backing away, i managed to take him down twice, and finish with a pin for the second round. That first win of the day made me feel pretty darn good.

The second match was against another guy with a similar build to the first guy, but he had longer hair. Again, my strength was really not my advantage, and i kept pretty far away from him, and lunged in for a shot when he tripped up. It was actually a really fun match, i used a bunch of different moves and even cross-ankled him three times in a row for the second round and match win.

The third match was not quite as good as the first two. I had been preparing myself mentally like mad for this one, because had i won it, i would have earned my way into the finals of my category, guaranteeing myself at least a silver medal. The first round was one of the most epic rounds of my life. The guy i faced (Sam. areallyniceguy), dealt with my setups really well and built off of one of my mistakes, leading to a nice trip and taking me down for one point. I had to defend pretty hard against his attempts to tilt me on the ground for two points. When the ref called us to stand back up, the score was 1-0 in his favour, and so i was desperately in need of points. Knowing this, i starting shaking him up and moving him around, looking for an openeing. Eventually i found it, and took him down as fast as i can for my one point. The ref awarded me my point with one second left on the clock. And though the score was 1-1, since i was the wrestler to have scored the last point, i won the round. The second round began pretty well for me. Since i knew how he wrestled from the first round, i knew how to act, and react, but i got too cocky, and made a move when he was still on balance. He picked up on my mistake and made me pay for it. Pinned me and won the entire match.

You could imagine i was pretty depressed after having lost when i was so close to my goal. But i realized that it was a fair match, and there really was nothing i could do now but shoot for the bronze. And i did.

I was pretty damn pissed. I threw all that energy into my next two matches, and they were easy as pie.

The first guy, before the match was talking to his friends about who he was going to be facing (me. ofcourse.). I like to kinda scope out my competition before my matches since i have nothing else better to do, and so i overheard the conversation. I ended up seeing him nod in my direction and then scoffing to his friends as if i would be an easy match up.

I made him cry.

No exageration. With his chin locked in my elbow, and my other arm bending his leg back to almost touch his head, he was lucky i wasn't holding on to his arm so as to not allow him to tap out like i usually do against the people that piss me off. Ohhhhhh how satisfying his grunt of pain and tears of shame were to me. The ref had to pull me off of him, and he shrunk away from me when we had to shake hands at the end of the match. Even his coach had a look of satisfaction on his face when i went over to shake his hand, and his remark "good job, Justin" really put the cherry on top of it all.

I promise i'm usually not this sadistic, but i don't tolerate people judging me on my wrestling ability just by looking at me, and before we've even entered the ring. I think i can safely say i made him eat his words.

The final match was for the bronze medal, and there was no way i was going to lose this one. The guy i was facing, decided he would try to psyche me out by flailing his arms all over the place and almost dancing around me. It makes me laugh every time i watch the video of this match because i was just standing there, like a rock, staring at him, and as soon as he made a move, i grabbed his chin, threw him to the ground and pinned him. It was all over in about 20 seconds.

So. At the end of the day. Even though i came out with just a bronze medal, i'm pretty proud of myself. I outwrestled two wrestlers who were much stronger than me by relying on my skill and speed, i made a last minute comeback, i taught a jerk a lesson, and i didn't allow someone to scare me on the mat. It was a good day.

To me, the medal really isn't just an award, it's actually more of a souvenir, and a reminder of everything that happened at this Heart Lake meet. The fights that i had. And that's a good thing because i don't want to forget them.

untilnexttime

Song: Headstrong - Trapt

PS. I have videos of every match that day, i just have to get a hold of them from various people. They'll probably be uploaded on facebook when i do. (it'll be nice to have some videos of me not losing on the internet for once. idowin.)

Here's some of the videos:
Match 2, Part 1
Match 2, Part 2