Shakthi Kanna Raja Kanna

1st hour 10 English Lit/Comp 1

Mr. DuFresne

First Practice in Wrestling season

There I was walking through the doors going into the east deck. It was on the other

side of the west deck, where the basketball court is. A lot of people were there waiting for the

practice to start. I had always been athletic my whole life, but somehow everyone in that

room made me feel unathletic and weak. They were all swole and jacked to the max, but me.

Coach finally came in and said, “ Starting rolling out the mats, I can’t wait to start the first

day.” Everyone nodded their head in agreement and yelled, “Hell yeah coach, we are

defeating everyone this year.” I decided not to speak because I didn’t know anyone there, I

also didn’t speak because I was shy. Everyone got back to rolling the mats. We then ran a

warmup mile and sprinted our last lap in the inside track above. I mean, after all, it is a

known fact that small guys a run fast and big guys are strong but slow. Somehow everyone in

the team defied the laws of physics in every aspect possible. We stretched and rotated a little

bit, then tumbled for five minutes.

After all of this, we were ordered to “stand in a single form line, from lightest to

heaviest in weight.” I was in the lighter weight section. I was 130lbs and I got put with a guy

who was 112lbs. I thought to myself, “ This is about to be the easiest thing I did. My partner

was Mike Miller 3rd. We were all astonished by name like that. He had the stamina of a

trunk, he didn’t have the size of a gorilla but he was as strong as one. Every time we wrestled

he would have fire in his eyes. We approached each other slapped hands and wrestled. We

both got in our stance he ducked a foot lower than his regular stance and shot for my leg. He

then moved on to pick me up, then slammed me on the ground. I got my wind knocked out of
 Shakthi Kanna Raja Kanna

1st hour 10 English Lit/Comp 1

Mr. DuFresne

me. Thud! Impossible I thought to myself, he did this all in a fraction of a second. All of this

happened I look at the clock, thirty minutes had passed by and the practice was 2 more hours

left I was dead tired. My body felt sore, I had never ever been this sore in my life. I had been

an all-around athlete for almost all of my life. I had done swimming, Taekwondo and Karate,

I had also been a state-level athlete in all of these, but why did I choose to do this sport. This

sport took me to my limits, and that's why I loved it. I kept getting slammed over and over

again. My body was getting used to the pain. I felt my soul walk out and walk back in

multiple times in a row. I was doomed to think that was the last of it. There was also, weight

cutting that was attached to it.

Coach comes up to me and pulls me off as I am drilling my moves and asked me,

“What is your weight?” I told him “I weigh 130lbs.” He told me, “I should go 119 lbs for the

weigh-ins.” That to me sounded like a hard cut. “I asked him how I was going to cut all this

weight?” He brought me to a door nearby which had a staircase only. It was called the oven.

“Unfortunately, the oven is over 90 degrees Fahrenheit,” he said, “This can get rid of all your

body fat and water weight.” I told him “I am still confused about the part of how it was going

to get rid of 11 lbs from my body. “ He said your body is 70 percent water so cut some of that

and replace that with muscle, and that’s a wrestler.” Everyone came up and started running in

the oven. Everyone was dying from the heat, which I think was an obvious result considering

the fact that they were all white and Michigan people. Luckily, It wasn’t hot for me at all,

because I am from South India where it is considered cold or freezing if it is 60 degrees and it

has never been that cold since 1895, but usually, it is 85 to 110 degrees throughout the year.

So for me, the oven was like my natural habitat. We went in with our hoodies to get rid of

body water faster. We all started at a normal pace and sooner everyone got slow and I started
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1st hour 10 English Lit/Comp 1

Mr. DuFresne

to pick up my pace and started to dust everyone and lapped everyone multiple times. I also

noticed how I was the only brown kid there was.

After this, we ended up doing sprints push-ups, sit-ups and wrestled for the rest of the

time. I was exhausted and completely dead and had no stamina or life left in me. We finally

gathered in a circle and raised our hands and the captains said “Redhawks on three, 1, 2, 3,”,

“Redhawks” we yelled. Finally, the coach said the one phrase I was waiting for, he then

proceeded to say “Practice is over,” I was excited, but I couldn’t show any of it from how

tired I was. I slowly dragged the remaining of my life I had left in me and walked to my

mom’s car.

This day this moment will always be a part of me and cherished in my life. This day

has changed my life for the better and made me the man I am today. I love wrestling and I

thank god for giving me this moment. This moment was like visiting hell for the first time,

but I am always happy when I look back to that day. The day my life changed. This moment

had changed me for the better, due to that day I made more friends, earned more respect, and

made myself stronger physically and mentally.