|
|
|
|
|
Many people may still associate wrestling with men. It’s just the opposite in my case. For me, wrestling is very much about the women involved in the sport.
In fact, far more than anything else in my life, wrestling has brought me together with other women from all over the world.
In large part, wrestling created a shared sense of unity and purpose with other women – or really at first girls – due to the great gender barriers we faced. When I first started wrestling, it was still considered a male sport. For this reason, whether it is one of the women I trained with, or one I met on the mat in an international tournament, I feel a unique bond with these women wrestlers. We share an understanding of what it means to be passionate about a sport from which we were initially barred and what it took to overcome these obstacles.
I grew up in a small farming community in Northern Alberta, Canada. I loved playing sports as a kid, but there wasn’t a wrestling team. I did, however, spend lots of time wrestling with my friends, brothers and sisters, not too mention the boys in high school. Even then I seemed to have a real talent for it and could hold my own. So, when I went to the University of Alberta-Edmonton with intentions of teaching – most likely, Phys Ed. – I began taking various activity classes as part of the program, wrestling among them. I was really excited that I was finally having the opportunity to learn about the sport. I wasn’t terribly surprised to discover that there weren’t other women in the class – but it did make me more than a little nervous initially to be the only girl out of twenty-five students or so. As it was a supportive environment made up of other education majors rather than serious wrestlers, I soon got over my intimidation.
I ended up doing quite well in the six-week course and when it was done the coach asked me if I wanted to join the wrestling team. I was a little confused at first and said to him, “But women don’t wrestle.” He went on to explain that for the first time ever in Canada, that year there was going to be a women’s division at the national championships. He said he thought I would be a good candidate, and eventually I took a chance to try something new and said yes.
Taking the class was a very different experience from joining the University team. These weren’t just other kids interested in playing around; these were dedicated wrestlers who had worked hard to get where they were and to make the team. Moreover, while there was going to be a women’s division in the championships, that didn’t mean that there were other women on our team. And there weren’t. I really felt like an outsider at first and wasn’t even allowed to train with the men. I had to go out and find a female partner and I ended up asking a girlfriend of mine to sign up. When she agreed the male coach began training us separately outside of practice time in one-on-one sessions. We would also go to the kids’ classes, grades seven to twelve, in order to practice with a team. Eventually, a couple more women joined and there were maybe four of us who went to nationals that year. Needless to say, I formed very close friendships with these other women and felt a special camaraderie with them. Together we were forging a new path for women in sport. The University of Alberta-Edmonton now had women wrestlers.
The next year our commitment to wrestling really began to have an impact. For the first time, there was a real women’s team. The four of us put in a tremendous amount of work to make it happen, advertising relentlessly and recruiting really hard. I personally got all my friends from my small farming community to join up. To just about every girl our age that I knew I would say, “Hey, you’ve got to come out and sign up!” And we ended up with around twenty girls on the team. Again, coming together with these other girls in the University and from my hometown to create a new team – a team of women wrestlers – was a truly unique and special bonding experience. Our individual courage and collective action made it possible to begin breaking down the gender barriers in wrestling.
Getting the women’s team together at the University of Alberta is only one example of how wrestling has united me with other women. Sport in general brings women together across all national and cultural boundaries. One of the great things about international tournaments like world championships, and certainly the Olympics, is how it brings people from all over the world into one space. And while countries may be at war with one another or in the midst of conflict, this has no bearing on how athletes meet one another on the mat, field or in the arena. We have a mutual respect for each other regardless of international politics. Sport also provides the opportunity to travel all over the world for the different tournaments. If I didn’t end up a world champion wrestler on the Canadian National Team how else would I have ended up in places as far as Mongolia, Brazil and Sweden?
Yes, wrestling has definitely been one of the greatest forces in my life. It is my passion. It is my career. And it has enabled me to develop lifelong bonds with other women, both in my local community and on an international level, who have defied traditional boundaries and have helped to make wrestling a sport for men and women alike. |  |  | FLAG THIS STORY FOR REVIEW | |
| |
|
| COMMENTS ABOUT THIS STORY |
|
|
|
|