Wrestling Blogs - Martin Floreani

Its funny how tough it is to deal with wrestling after your career is over. There almost always is some level of disappointment with your performances. If you are extremely competitive there is really very little peace until you can address Post Traumatic Wrestling Disorder (PTWD) . Wrestling is unique because there is no genetic bias in the sport. Leaving one variable....your mental state.

Your mental state, which is built brick by brick* over a course of years sets the tone for everything you do. Do you clam up when you step on the mat? Are you unable to not wake up to get your extra work in before class? Do you have the right level of focus and concentration in the mat? Do you think too much inhibiting any fluid action? The mind-state and ability to have your mind as an ally is the main variable to your success.

Even if you are a 2x World Champion like Terry Brands, your disappointments or losses are the memories that can stick out. Wrestling can be such a personal and emotional relationship that when you are done competing your performances or lack there of can haunt you. Unless you end out on top like John Smith who went 6 for 6 in world championship and olympic competition than you probably have some level of disappointment and if you are hyper competitive than it could turn into a haunting. You can cut this feeling short if you walk away from the sport on top even if it wasnt at the highest level. However there is a chance that if you do you might always wonder if you were able to make it at that next level. You might be 75 years old and just lying in bed staring at the ceiling wondering if you attempted the next level how you would have done.

Its funny because the feeling could be the exact same for some wrestler who wasnt able to make his state tournament as for the 2x NCAA champ who wasnt able to make the Olympic team as for an Olympic silver medalist. OVer time of course the intensity of the losses fade and you put the sport in perspective. This is important part to a former wrestlers life and hopefully you can put the sport into perspective while watching and enjoying it not as a coach or wrestler but just as a fan.

The sport is bigger than one person, its like a ritual that is a part of humans. The desire to wrestle. The tradition goes back thousands of years. It is like football in Texas but it is for the whole world and human race. When you realize you are a small piece in the puzzle and you were a part of a powerful tradition, no matter your success, is when you can have some peace.

I think there is no better place to do this than at the NCAA tournament. It is the best run tournament in the World and it cant be more exciting. Here is a venue where you truly can sit back and enjoy the spectacle. Some other tournaments that are great would be the New Jersey States, Pennsylvania States (so I heard), Ohio States as well as California States. And if your a true die-hard the Olympic Trials or World Team Trials can be a place where you just sit back...check that..on the edge of your seat.. and take it all in.

*ref Roy Hall