Wrestling is for Losers

I watched my 13-year-old son wrestle against a blind kid today. He lost. He put up a good fight after nearly getting pinned in the opening seconds, still he lost to a boy who could not even see him. Humiliating? Maybe so. Good for the soul? Definitely. I can think of no other venue better equipped to teach you how to lose than wrestling.  

I was a wrestler myself back in the day and now two of my boys are as well.  The one lesson I repeatedly tell them they need to learn during wrestling is how to lose.  Losing? Losing? Are you really telling your boys to lose? No, of course not.  I am telling them to fight and try and hurt and bleed to win.  That is their personal goal, which is likely the same goal as their opponent.  But winning won't happen every time, especially in their first season.  

Losing is probably feeling habitual by now for one of my boys - and that is fantastic!  Think about it.  Is there any more personal and direct way someone can show you that you are in fact a loser than by forcing you down on your back with superior force and skill until you cannot move?  And unlike boxing where your opponent stands on the other side of the mat as you take your 10-count, in wrestling he is right on top of you ensuring your defeat (likely with your nose is smashed in his armpit). You feel the wetness of his smelly breath and he (or maybe she) crushes the breath from your lungs. He has probably grabbed and jabbed you in places that, in any other venue, would have him in human resources for sensitivity and harassment training. And to top it off for your ego, there is no one else to blame! No quarterback who overthrew the pass. No center who missed his foul shots. No pitcher who had a "off night." It was you and you!  You lost on your own.  Yes, it is most definitely personal.

None of this happened is private either. This was not a bloodied nose in some boy-on-boy fight behind the school.  No.  You lost in public.  You came up a loser in plain sight of EVERYONE.  In front of your mother (who in my experience is closing her eyes anyway - so that may not count), your father, your friends, your competition, your classmates, your rivals, and maybe even your girlfriend (all while wearing a ridiculously tight and overly revealing singlet to boot).  In fact everyone in that room is probably watching you at your most vulnerable moment until your defeat in announced by a man blowing a whistle and slaps the mat right next to your head.  But you are not done yet.  You must then stand up and look your better in eye, shake his hand, and watch the official raise the other person's hand showing all who the winner is - and it is not you.  You are in fact the one and only loser in that room at that moment.

This defeat may have come at the hands of a scrawny unassuming kid; it could be your biggest rival from a neighboring school; perhaps even your older brother (as happened to my son at a tournament last month).  Even worse for boys, you could have lost to a cute little girl who has learned more wrestling technique by the age of 12 than you ever could. Try that one on guys.  Go face your buddies after a little girl has wiped the mat with you and showed everyone in the room that she is your physical superior.  I have seen the mortified look in these boys eyes as they walk over to their coach.  While there is no shame in this (especially because this little girl is amazing), still, does that really make it easier?  YOU LOST!!!  LOSER.

In life you are going to lose and sometimes lose BIG!  No matter who you are or where you come from, at some point you will be a loser. You will have to deal with that and find a way to pick yourself up off that mat and carry on.  Life will guarantee that you will lose in school, in work, in friendships, in love, in marriage. And if you somehow manage to succeed in all those, you and everyone you know will all die.  How is that for life’s little joke.  Yah, we all lose.  So just plan on losing. It’s coming your way, if it is not already your intimate friend.

What happens when your first real taste of losing comes at a monumental crossroads in your life and you fold like a cheap suit because it is all new to you?  Isn't that the wrong time to be initiated into the fraternity and sorority of losers?  Aren't you better equipped in life when you are a practiced and experiences and trained loser?  Wouldn't be better to learn to lose and take accountability for that loss when and where it really DOES NOT MATTER to your life - as a youth on a wrestling mat?

I remember a year-and-a-half into my career when the three managing partners at my law firm called me to a room to tell me they were laying me off. I purchased a house earlier that year, I had a purchased a family car just the night before, and I had my third child due in eight weeks. I was a loser that day.  Most definitely.  There was no changing that.   I could look at my billing numbers and say it should not have been me to go; that I was better than those other guys staying.  It didn't matter.  That guy in the mirror, yep him, he was a loser. And so like I did on the wrestling mat many times, I stood up, shook the hands of the men who took my job, thanked them, and walked off that mat (to pack-up my office and wait of the curb for my dad to pick me up - literally).  Yet I walked out of that office already a practice loser.  Having learned that best lesson that wresting has to offer, how to not let losing defeat me.  

I hurt and I was humiliated and even had to spend several minutes convincing my wife that I was not joking.  She didn't want to believe that her husband was a loser.  Still, I learned from countless defeats in both practices and meets how to pick myself up and prepare for the next match.  The next day I submitted my resume to a firm that had already turned me down several times before.  I was started work there three weeks later (and fortunately received insurance only a few days before my daughter showed up a month early and in respiratory distress).

There is a sign hanging over the door to the wrestling room at my boy’s school. The slogan is ubiquitous throughout the wrestling world. It reads "pain is weakness leaving the body." A bit of wrestling vibrato to be sure, but it never promises that pain will wring every bit of weakness out of your body.  It never will. We all have weakness. The trick is to have practice combating the pain this weakness cases.  To know what it feels like to fail; to be utterly powerless in the grapplings of life, but still stand up through the hurt and pain and keep moving. 

I think of one of my hardest times in life when the love of my life dumped me and left me emotionally destroyed.  Losing is never fun, but it was monumentally earth shattering that day.  I was definitely a loser, but a well-practiced loser.  I knew what to do.  I built up my strength and ask for rematch - by asking her out again.  She said yes. I was proud of myself.  Not for her saying yes, though that felt might good, but for have the courage and humility to ask after having lost so badly.  I won that day and lost again in others.  The cycle will continue – guaranteed.   Still isn’t winning all the sweeter when you have known the agony of loss?  Isn't that paycheck more meaningful when it wasn't there last week? Isn’t that kiss all the more tender when those same lips cut you to shreds? This is the yin and yang of life.  This is the lifeblood of the wrestlers.

I remember a torment where I lost four matches in on the first day of a two day tournament after having gone undefeated for an entire year. I had pulled my groin (and was shocked to learn you could actually tape that for the matches the next day).  I was battered and bruised and humbled.  And as much as I hated it then, I learned the strength to accept those loses.  I had tp come to terms quickly that my perfect streak was over and I had to start again. So I suited up the next day and won out that tournament only to lose my varsity wrestling spot by one point the week before the state tournament and stayed home - ending my career as a loser.

In our society of scoreless soccer games and “everyone gets a metal” competitions, are we really doing our children a favor by sheltering them from loss? Is their self-esteem more important than their own emotional self-reliance? Because, make no mistake, there is plenty of pain for all of us, there are bucket loads, no maybe truckloads waiting for you in this life.  Trust me.   What will YOU do when it finds you?  Will you fold? Will you lay on that mat crying and moaning because you lost and lost big? Or will you stand up, look your conquering the eye and not just shake his hand, but also shake the hand of the man who coached him to defeat you.  Will you stand again knowing more of yourself, knowing better of yourself.  And when will you learn this skill? Will you hope it will show up when the very fabric of your life is on the line?  Or will you learn it on the musty mats of the wrestling room were all you lose is weakness and pride (same thing)?

In my own life, and in some of the most important life matches, life kicked my butt hard, leaving me flat on my back on that mat in front of my family, friends, and children.  They knew I lost and I knew I lost.  Not just lost a bout, but lost the most meaningful matches of my life.  But thank heavens I was a wrestler and not some namby-pamby no-score soccer player.  I was a trained and experienced loser and because of that I am confident that I will win again.  And not win every time or most the time, but win by just getting off that mat, shaking defeats hand and carrying on.

I will always be a proud wrestler; on and off the mat!