Another Love Another time

Chapter 4: Just a girl

River: Age 12

This year I decided to go out for wrestling at our local youth wrestling club. My mom showed me a picture from the one year she wrestled, and she says she loved it. My brother didn't think I would do it. He started wrestling when he was five. I've gone to a lot of his practices and tournaments, and we wrestle at home, so I understand and know a lot of the moves. How hard could it be, right?

Tonight, is my first night of practice. My mom said female singlets have come a long way since she wrestled. She's pretty excited about me wrestling, she went out and bought me new wrestling shoes, headgear and a singlet. We don't have to practice in a singlet, but I have spandex shorts and a leotard on so it's similar. We start warmups. Duck walks, wall sits, suicide sprints, pushups, and shot drills. The coach then instructs us that we are going to do a couple of laps around the wrestling rooms. There is a bunch of groans when the coach yells, "You all know the drill, let's go!" Well okay then, I think to myself. After everyone gets their laps in the coaches start pairing all the wrestlers off in twos with people around the same weight to start on drills. I know a lot of these drills since I've practice with Brock some in the past, but Brock is still smaller than me so I'm able to overpower him a lot of time.

We start with the take down drills. The coach grabs someone and runs through the technique he would like us to work on a few times and then cuts us loose to practice the move. We're supposed to be taking turns practicing the drills. I've been paired with a new kid. I have never seen him before. I let him go first and when he takes me down, we reset and it should be my turn, but he surprises me and takes me down again. Okay so this is how we are going to play this. He doesn't know me. "Hey, I think we are supposed be taking turns" I state.

"Naw I'm going to need more practice, it's not like you're going to even win anyways." "Well, I'm definitely not going to win if I don't get to practice" I scoff. "Whatever" he sneers and then he gets back in his stance to start the drill again, so do I. He goes to try to take me down but this time I'm ready. I maneuver back so he can't grab at my legs. I look him in the eyes to let him know that I'm not backing down. How dare he, I know he's doing this because I'm a girl. In my head I'm thinking, LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE! He goes for another take down, but again I move away to quickly and before he can recover, I'm on him, I grab his head with my right arm and squeeze it into my armpit while my left hand grabs his right arm, I then drop down to my knees and drag him down with me. I think I've caught him off guard which gives me time to rotate behind him and pin him down so I can get a half nelson and flip him over. I think the poor kid is still in shock. I'm pretty dang pleased with myself until I hear my coach, "River, we're not practicing pins yet, you should only be working on take downs" as he walks over to us. I get off the kid and he jumps up. I turn to look at the coach. He's been a coach for a while, so he knows who I am. "I'm sorry, but he wouldn't let me have my turn, so I had to put him in his place coach". I can see he wants to smile, but he can't in front of this kid. "So, are you done putting him in his place?"

"If he's done not giving me a turn than I'll be done too coach."

Coach turns to the new kids, "You got a problem wrestling with a girl?"

"No coach" the kid mumbles.

"Okay you two quit wasting my time and get back to work." He walks off to oversee some of the other wrestlers.

"You had to snitch on me, huh."

"I'm not a snitch, don't put this on me. You are the one who didn't want to take turns. Is that not true? I'm not getting into trouble because of you. I told him the truth. That doesn't make me a snitch."

"Forget let's get this over with" he gets back in to position. This time he lets me do the take down drills.

We get a few more minutes and we move on to reverse and then pin drills. Me and the new kid don't have any more problems. Hopefully he learns that I'm not scared of him.