The porta open

The Porta Open

 

As some people may know, I used to wrestle in high school and I did pretty well at it my last two years.  When I’m a freshman in college now, I haven’t wrestled for some time, and this last weekend I decided to go and wrestle at an open wrestling tournament in Petersburg Illinois.  Many of my friends and family told me not to wrestle, not because they didn’t have confidence in me but because I happened to break my left hand one week prior to the tournament.  Even with everyone telling me it is a bad idea to still wrestle and that, I could get hurt worse, I still wanted to wrestle and that’s exactly what I did. 

As you could guess the wrestling tournament didn’t go so well for me, having a broken hand and all.  My first match I didn’t even hand my hand taped up because there were no trainers at the meet and the person that was going to tape my hand got there a little late.  Before I even stepped out on the mat, I was extremely nervous.  I hadn’t been on the mat for close to a year and I had no idea if I would forget everything or if it would all come back to me.  When the whistle blew for the first match to start I was more focused and was able to think more clearly.  I ended up losing the first match, not because I was out of shape or didn’t know what to do, it was I couldn’t really do anything with my left arm because I could grip or control his movement with the broken hand.  For the second match I got my hand taped up and wasn’t as nervous as before because the worst had already happened, I lost and my hand was in pain.  In the second match I went out more aggressive and fought through the pain a little more but it was all for nothing.  I ended up losing my second match as well and since it was a double elimination tournament, I was done for the day.  People told me that this was exactly how it would end up but I believe I have to make my own mistakes so I can learn from them myself.  The main thing I learned from this tournament is that I need to get some training in before the next tournament and I need to let injuries rest.