wrestling

(something I wrote a couple of years ago that I'm using for a reading tonight)

Gym class with Mr. Smith was largely about rules. A red headed man with a neatly trimmed beard, beady eyes and the fixed gaze of a drill sergeant, Mr. Smith had done what no other gym teacher I had ever had was capable of: he had made gym not fun.

In elementary school, gym had been about dodgeball or the more survival-of-the-fittest, elimination, with the red rubber ball as weapon. It had been about newcomb, that bizarre introduction to volleyball where you could actually catch the ball. It had been about doing things as a group with a parachute, which, although it seems bizarre now, was incredibly entertaining. It had been about sitting in class afterwards, still sweating –before you even new what deodorant was – not being able to concentrate because you were still coming down from the rush.

Finding out that we got to go to gym every day was one of the few comforting things about starting junior high, even though we were forced to bring and change into gym clothes in a huge locker room, surrounded by other awkward adolescents all physically maturing at different rates, I of the “late bloomer” sect. Regardless, gym was still supposed to be fun.

But fun was low on Mr. Smith’s priority list. For him gym was about rules, because you can’t properly play a sport without first learning the rules: what constitutes a foul, how to properly use your stick, racket, feet or hands, what is proper technique. At the beginning of every “unit”, when we would be introduced to a new sport, before we could even touch a ball or pick up a racket, Mr. Smith would stand, arms folded across his chest, legs planted firm, un-necessarily excessive knee-brace intact, and lecture extensively on the sport, often taking up the entire period to do so. There is nothing quite so infuriating as sitting amongst a group of other thirteen year-olds in the middle of a soccer field with freshly-cut grass and chalked lines, outdoors for the first time all day, while a man long past his athletic peak preaches for half an hour on what is and isn’t offsides.

Mr. Smith’s lectures inevitably focused on the dangers of what would happen – although not on his watch, dammit – if you didn’t follow the rules: you could get hurt. For every sport there was a tale of a graphic injury told with the intent of striking the fear of god in our young hearts, a technique to which we eventually numbed – at least a compound fracture sounded more exciting than listening to an oral history of the bounce-pass.

Eventually we learned to tolerate Mr. Smith, like a grumpy relative or a nasty pet, and on those rare instances when he felt that we had fully grasped the rules of a particular sport and finally, FINALLY let us play, gym was as enjoyable as ever.

The rumor started a couple of days ahead of time that the following week we would start a wrestling unit. Yet to realize the extensiveness of the impending introductory lecture on a sport where one could, in fact, very easily get hurt, I was thrilled. This was my turf. A sport with which I had been obsessed at one point, but never had an outlet for… until now. And yes, unlike many of my peers I knew that this was Greco-Roman wrestling – much different than the WWF. There would be no fake blood or flying elbow-smashes, no tag teams or steel cage matches. What there would be was the closest thing to hand-to-hand combat that an 85-pound hormonal whirlwind of a thirteen year old had ever experienced.

A large, collapsible wall sectioned the gym in half. The girls would learn gymnastics on the other side – this was man’s work. Predictably, Mr. Smith started his lecture by letting us know that we would NOT be learning the kind of wrestling we had seen on TV. That was not a sport, it was “nonsense” – there were no rules to speak of. I nodded knowingly, for once seeing eye-to-eye with Mr. Smith, having conveniently forgotten that the “nonsense” he spoke of had once comprised a large portion of my identity.

For what seemed like weeks we sat on the large mat, surrounding Mr. Smith as he told tale after tale of horrific wrestling injuries – broken collarbones, severe concussions, paralysis. When the day to begin actually wrestling finally arrived, we were ecstatic. Slowly we were taught the basics – referee’s position, the half-nelson, single and double leg takedowns – say what you want about Mr. Smith, but he knew his stuff. After a week of the unit everyone had an elementary grasp of the sport, and he would let us “go live” for a few highly supervised minutes every class.

On a seemingly innocent Monday we took our places as usual on the matt, waiting for Mr. Smith to march into class, silencing everyone with his usual, “Alright, listen up.” But instead a soft, shaky voice came from behind us. “I’m the substitute for today”, said a man old enough to be my grandfather. He was seated in a folding chair against the wall, and it was apparent that he would not be getting up any time soon. He had large, thick square glasses and thinning grey hair. After sizing us up for a moment, a slight smile crossed his face and he appeared to be somewhere between happy and slightly scared. “Well”, he said, “just… do what you usually do.”

Mr. Smith had never missed class. He was never even a minute late and would be out on the fields setting up cones or goals when our school-busses dropped us off in the morning. Maybe he had jury duty, maybe he was having that old knee injury checked out, maybe he was getting some long overdue psychiatric help, but regardless, for the first time ever, he wasn’t there.

I don’t remember who started it, but it was preceded by a long pause, a collective realization. We stood up, our eyes darting around the room and senses heightened. Then it was on – a full scale, no-holds-barred battle royal. For the next forty-five minutes we pummeled each other with all we had. We tried every move we had seen in the WWF – drop-kicks, the figure-four leg lock (which actually works quite well), clotheslines, the abdominal stretch – everything. Long standing grudges came to a head and alliances were formed as we all fought for survival. Due to my lingering status as “the wrestling guy”, I was a popular target, but save for a bloody lip, I held my own.

Somehow, someone got themselves up onto the rim of the basketball hoop that hung over the matt and delivered a crushing elbow smash – a la Randy “The Macho Man” Savage – to the back of someone’s head. There were scattered attempts at using the sleeper-hold to actually put someone to sleep. Hearing the commotion, students passing by in the hall began to congregate at the door, their mouths frozen open with shock and envy.

At one point, sandwiched at the bottom of a pile, trying to choke someone with one hand while protecting myself from people’s stray feet with the other, I looked up, and across the matt, through the warring combatants saw the substitute. He was still sitting in the chair, only sitting up a little straighter, his eyes wide open and darting around, trying to take it all in, undoubtedly shocked and amazed and what they were teaching kids these days.

When the bell finally rang to end the period, we stopped and, gasping for air, pulled ourselves up. Several people hadn’t lasted the whole class, leaving early due to injury or fear. But those of us who stayed were forever bonded by the right of passage, and before we had time to comprehend the wrath that awaited us from Mr. Smith the next day, we sat in our next classes sweaty, bloodied and bruised, coming down from the rush.