English 100 Writing Topics pg. 92-98

Chayse J. Adams
9-23-2010
English 100 Writing Topics pg. 92-98

A Time When Someone made me Feel Important

When I started wrestling for the first time ever, my dad brought me to Metro Wrestling’s, the youth wrestling group in St. Joseph Mo., first practice of the year where anyone who wanted to wrestle could come for a meeting and join in on practice if they wished to try it out. I sat through the meeting with my dad and decided wrestling sounded interesting enough to try it out for a week and see what I thought. Towards the end of practice for all the other kids who were already in the sport, when the meeting was over, the coach encouraged us to get on the mat and try it out.

We found a partner to wrestle against that was similar to our weight and age and he let us have at it. I went a few minutes with one partner and then another and one more. The coach, Rick Burns, pulled me to the side to talk for a few minutes. He asked me my name, age, approximately what I thought I weighed, and if I played any other sports. He asked what I thought about wrestling so far and if it interested me. I said that it was kind of cool and that I was a little interested to learn the sport more. He said that he noticed I was doing pretty well for someone who had never seen the sport before. He and I went to a far corner of the mat and he gave me a little instruction on the general purpose of the goal of wrestling and showed me a few things to do against an opponent.

He then put me in a group of wrestlers who started the year before and let me practice a few of the moves he had shown me. I did decently enough for him to notice that I was a quick learner and had a mentality for being aggressive when taking my shots, take downs to score points, and working my stand ups, or escapes from bottom which is another way to score points. Practice was soon over and we broke out as a team. I went back to my dad when we were, for lack of a better word, dismissed.

Coach Burns approached my dad and I to ask what I thought about practice. I responded that it was a little different but I liked it however, I didn’t quite understand the whole concept of who to score points yet, it was unlike any other sport I had ever seen before. He laughed and replied that, yes it but it’s not hard to get the hang of. He said to my dad that the first tournament was the next week but he thought I should get two weeks of practice in first, since practice was only twice a week, but that if I was interested I should consider competing in a few weeks in the novice tournament, which are tournaments for beginners that have two years or less of experience in the sport. This is so the kids who just started can wrestle with kids at a similar competition level. I agreed that I would like to give it a try and so began my wrestling career. I especially like the feeling that Coach Burns singled me out amongst the mass of new wrestlers that day, noticing that I was not a wrestler yet but I had the potential of becoming a good wrestler. I felt important that Coach Burns sensed a possible source of talent in me that day.