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08.30.05
• PLUG!!!!
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| 08.29.03
Seize The Moment #1: The Journey Begins
by Samir
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This new column is about my experiences having begun to train as a pro wrestler. I started late, at 23, and thus, I expect this to remain a hobby and nothing more. The following is a commentary which bounces around and basically collects my thoughts as I progress through my training.
The date was Friday, August 1st, 2003. It seemed a little too eerie for me, such a perfectly rememberable date; but then, August 1st and I have always had a clandestine, eerie relationship. Every summer as a child, August 1st was the dreaded wake-up call that reminded me that summer was half over and that school would be starting soon. August 1st was also the day I rushed to the hospital to see my 1-day old baby brothers, twins who were 15 years my junior(s), for the first time ever. Later, it was the official anniversary of the relationship I had with my first "serious" girlfriend, if one could call such a delusion "serious". So you could say August 1st and I, well, we had a little history. How appropriate then, that on August 1st 2003, a mere 2 weeks after my 23rd birthday, I was to have my first ever professional wrestling class. I brought my friend Claudio with me, an 18-year-old, 6'5" hooligan who, like me, had been a fan of the art since childhood, and was keen on taking lessons. Even at that, Claudio wasn't much of a conversationalist, and most of our ride together was silent. I felt that I was reliving the good old days again, where it was just me and August 1st again, encountering whatever wrinkle life would throw at us that day.
We pulled up to Montreal's NDR-Center, a small recreational facility with, among other things, a bowling alley and a gymnasium. Here, Montreal-based Northern Championship Wrestling, held its wrestling lessons. Since the doors were locked, Claudio and I sat down and began speculating on exactly what lay ahead of us. Soon, other boys drifted to the NDR center, and began waiting with us. Among them, only Claudio and I were "virgins". As the number of waiting boys grew, I began to understand that, even at this level, competition was inevitable. Two of the guys, both wrestlers with NCW, told me that about 3 out of 15 trainees will make it onto an NCW show. Some might wrestle elsewhere, some might quit, some might train for years and still never make it- onto an Indy card, let alone the bigs. It was somewhat of a sobering wake-up call to Claudio and I. I am sure he had the same visions as I did about showboating in the ring, insulting the fans like a cocky heel, and applying different maneuvers, all dancing in his head. Still, we had resolved not to quit until we could wrestle professionally, and a little adversity wasn't going to stop us now.
Why had we come all this way, from our homes on Montreal's South Shore all the way up to the North Eastern end of the Metro area of Montreal, after all? It certainly wasn't going to be to get discouraged after a bit of scary talk from a guy who was smaller than both of us! No, the decision to embark on his journey, this new hobby, was about seizing the moment and I was going to do exactly that. I knew already that as a future accountant, my job would probably provide very little satisfaction. To me, that field was about selling my time for money. Not being especially talented at any show arts like singing or dancing, I resigned myself to that fate of a pedestrian career, telling myself I would work long enough to save up and live comfortably, and retire as soon as possible. Yet, as the days passed, a spark of curiosity grew brighter and more intense inside me. I wouldn't mind being the accountant by day/wrestler by night, but I knew I'd be cheating myself if I ended up being the accountant by day/regretful dreamer by night. My old Tai Chi buddy Dave once told me never to create regret for myself, and it's advice I always tried to follow to the best of my ability. So here I was, to give this thing my best shot, and expect nothing.
It all seemed so glorious, of course, until it was time to take bumps. You know that feeling, the one where that voice in your head goes "What have YOU gotten yourself into!" ? Seeing one of the NCW wrestlers who attended the session jumping 6 feet into the air and landing flat on his back on the mat with an almost sickening thud, it gave me that feeling. The wrestler sprung to his feet instantaneously, though, and proclaimed that the mat was fine to bump on. So we bumped. First from a sitting position, then from a squat, and then from a stand. Then, I was put aside while the older hands did the "full blast", running and jumping into the air. The trainer, the NCW worker known to many as Cobra, smiled and told us we'd be doing those soon. Well, I was here to seize the moment. I never figured it would be this painful, though.
By week 2, I was giving and receiving body slams. Now, there's one thing I hated more than bumping, it was giving and receiving body slams. The instructions I received still haunt me deeply, almost 10 days later. "First swing my arm over like this. I'll jump onto you, and you grab my crotch or my ass from underneath-" Now, I expected wrestling to be tough. I expected it to be painful. I even expected it to require me to reach deep down into depths of testicular fortitude I had never reached down into before. I didn't expect it to be THAT close to my testicles, though!
I suppose another aspect that surprised me more than bumping and the homoeroticism of wrestling, though, was the conditioning. Every week, a good portion of the classes are allotted to foot speed drills and cardiovascular work. Calisthenics also figure largely. I never expected such a thing, considering I've seen obviously out-of-shape guys wrestle in many an indy. By out-of-shape, I don't mean fat, necessarily, as we've all seen fat wrestlers do amazing things. I mean guys who get winded throwing punches, or guys who can barely run the ropes. Now, here I am in a practice, being asked to hop laterally (as in, sideways) over benches. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. Obviously, I'd suspect my training of letting me down if I wasn't getting in shape. No one wants to wrestle like Bastion Booger! The thing was, when I was telling my good buddy Justin T about it, his curt reply was "Imagine that. Just like a real sport." Yup, and even now, I can see the odds of success in this "business" aren't good, just as they weren't good when I first tried out for my high school basketball team. 15 guys training for 3 spots in an Indy fed? Not what I'd call good odds.
So here I am a few weeks removed, and I have to consider how my first month in wrestling has gone. I'd say it's gone pretty well. The sheer exercise of it, combined with the fact that I stopped drinking beer and eating bread has led me to lose 19 pounds in a month. For the first time since I was on the high school basketball team, I'm weight training on a consistent basis. Most of us have experimented with weights, or even trained seriously at some point in time. In my experience, weights are boring. Not just boring, but the height of boring. I'm sure somewhere in hell, the Devil is keeping a health spa for evil nerds just so he can force them to lift weights all day an all night while re-runs of Sleepless In Seattle play on the television sets in front of the treadmills. I know for some people, the idea of lifting for the sake of lifting is enough. Not me. I've found it was easier to stick to a program when weights were used as a means, when there was some larger objective in sight. When I played ball, I was a power forward, the smallest in our region. At 5'11", I was playing every night against people who were bigger and heavier. My motivation? To get strong enough to stake my claim in the paint. So I trained, like a nut. I don't think I skipped a workout for my entire senior year, including practice. Then, when I graduated, I could never stick to a weight program for more than 2 weeks. So now, it seems wrestling has given me a great motivation to get back into "game" shape, something seems pretty far considering I haven't actually played a game of basketball in 4 years.
I'm not too worried about how long it will take though, because I'm already sensing that this whole wrestling thing looks to be a journey of increments. Right off the bat, the prospect of spending a year training and marginally improving underscored the fact. A lot of the boys have already told me that most people start as jobbers, or as "Thompsons" as they like to call them. Then, it's a slow arduous climb. Of course that's all hearsay, but I wouldn't expect any less considering most of NCW's own top stars have been wrestling there since 1997. Then again, I'm thinking it's not so bad. At 23, time flies by faster than ever. Heck, I've already been driving for 7 years, and I can still remember my first driving class, which I spent practicing how to drive in a "straight line" in a 1992 Nissan Sentra. I figure the weeks will eventually add up faster than I presume, and before I know it, I'll either be cast out on my ass or in the ring.
My trainer's told me that the next two weeks, he's going to work me really hard to see what I'm made of. I suppose that first month was just an adjustment period! Personally, I'm both relishing the thought of challenging myself and forcing myself to take it to another level at the same time as I'm a little bit anxious about whether or not I'll be able to keep up. I think, whenever I'm at the bottom of the well, sucking up enough wind to make all of New York City pass out of oxygen deprivation, with a river of sweat pouring down my forehead, I'm going to use 4 words to find a way to dig deeper: Samir, Seize The Moment.
Samir
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