The State of Mistakes

It all started when my brothers Danny and Levi started wrestling in the first grade. I loved watching them both, I wanted to be just like them. I got my mom to let me wrestle when I got into the first grade, just like my brothers.The only reason my mom let me wrestle was because at a peewee tournament she saw a little girl wrestling. It brought on hard work and took hard work and dedication to be where I was last year.

Last year was my junior wrestling season. I was top in my wrestling weight class, getting ready for states because it was just around the corner. The following weekend that past was regionals and I just won the title of regional champ. Since I won regional I had a lot of reporters trying to get in contact with me because if I won states i’d be the first girl ever to win. It was on the news and it was in a lot of articles. They were asking me to talk about the season and my season was the best I ever had other than my injury earlier on in the season. They also were asking me to talk about how I wrestle and what its like to wrestle boys all the time and to barely be able to wrestle girls. Guys have strength to win over girls with little strength so us girls have to learn technique. Learning technique takes years and thats why I was better than the girls and beating the guys because I was wrestling for so long. But with interviews comes all the pressure and being stressed out I caved into the reports and said yes to interviews.

This was the big mistake, I shouldn’t have let my guard down and had interviews. After the interviews I was way more stressed out and feeling pressured than I was before.I needed to win or what were the interviews for? I was so stressed at states, I was off my game and I didn’t wrestle to my potential. I was wrestling down and it was like I didn’t know how to wrestling it was so bad. After my first match that I lost 6-5 in I ended up running to the bathroom because I was sick to my stomach because of all the pressure and stress. After the first puking session, I was puking on and off for the rest of the day. I could barely stand and talk to a coach I’ve known for years. It was not a good day. The lesson I learned from this outcome was don’t worry about your image and don’t give into the media. Stay out of the social eye because it will be more stressful than it was in the beginning.

photo by: Greg  https://www.flickr.com/photos/gregcullen/6504976811/