Monday, March 02, 2009

I’m Suffering from a Case of Bleacher Butt. Let's Hope It Isn't Permanent



Seriously, my butt is still sore from sitting on hard gymnasium bleachers all day Saturday. My back isn’t feeling entirely swell, either. On the other hand, I managed to get through the entire day without crying over the fact that I couldn’t drink a Diet Pepsi so, apparently; a pain in the ass counteracts addiction cravings, who knew?

Aside from the pain caused by the seating situation, the tournament went really well. We had fifteen wrestlers, aged 4 to 9 in the morning session and sixteen wrestlers in the afternoon session for older kids. Of those, we had at least 20 finish in the top three of their brackets and, with some much-appreciated help from the High School wrestling team; we managed to have a coach at every mat.

The Man-Cub wrestled his heart out but, did not manage to medal. We weren’t surprised; when we got to the tournament we discovered that the Cub, being somewhat light for his age, doesn’t really have any competition in his weight bracket. And, since he is older than the other wrestlers whose weight he most closely compares to; he was bracketed with kids his own age who out-weigh him anywhere from five to thirteen pounds. It’s the nature of the game; small wrestling programs don’t have the luxury of having a large number of kids with whom to compete.

So, the Cub’s choices were a) don’t wrestle or b) wrestle up. He chose to wrestle up and, in his first bout, he got pinned in the second period by a friend of his from a neighboring town who out-weighs him by seven pounds. In his second bout, he lost by one point to a kid we hadn’t encountered in previous years and who outweighed him by nine pounds. The Cub gave it his all and didn’t take the losses too hard, for which we were both proud and grateful.

And, since he will see basically the same kids at each tournament that we attend; he is preparing himself for the fact that he will always wrestle up this season and may not be as successful as he has been in years past. It could be a sad season for my boy, is what I’m thinking. On the other hand, that which does not kill us, yada, yada, yada.

And because he is far more resilient than most kids his age, the Cub was quick to remind us that, while he might not have taken the wrestling mat by storm this weekend, he rocked the gym with his mad headstand skilz. And, seriously, if there were a competition for most awesome headstand, he totally would have medaled.
Gold, baby.


Gold.

1 comment:

  1. Very good headstand!

    I'm impressed you made it through a wrestling tourneyment without a diet pepsi, I don't know if I am as strong as you...

    ReplyDelete