During my sophomore year of high school, I was persuaded by one of my classmates to join the wrestling team. I joined the team not knowing what to expect. On the first day, the practice began with an intense abdominal workout followed by running four miles around the school. After these activities, I was exhausted and believed we were done. However, another wrestler told me that was just the warmup. Then the practice became even more difficult. We proceeded to wrestle with little breaks for two more hours. The practice was over, and I wanted to never go back. I complained to my friend about the difficulty. He told me to keep working hard, and it will become easier. I went to practice the next day, and it was not any better. It was just as hard, if not harder because I was sore. I had to persist through the pain to be able to get better. The harder I worked in practice; the easier the workout became.

Another difficulty I faced during the season was cutting weight to make it to a lower weight class. As I was struggling to make it through practice, I had to cut out all bad foods from my diet. I ate less, and I ate much healthier. I had to sweat off the weight, as well as burn off the calories. During my sophomore year, I lost over 40 pounds from wrestling practice. I learned to work together with the other wrestlers and love the sport of wrestling. We became a team that could rely on each other during the hard practices and cutting weight. During wrestling season, the practices went late everyday. Despite the lateness and my exhaustion, I had to maintain my high grades. I really wanted to come home and sleep, but I had to come home and be responsible. I had to take a shower then immediately begin my homework. It was tough, but I was able to be on the wrestling team, and keep my grades up.

I have learned to love wrestling because it changed my life. It grew new characteristics inside of me. I matured during the wrestling season because I had to handle my busy schedule. I had to become responsible to keep up my grades and attend all the practices and wrestling meets. I became disciplined by watching what I ate and losing weight. I learned how to get along with others and become a family with those around me. I became more persistent and did not give up when practice was hard. Listening to my classmate and joining wrestling was one of the best things that I have done in my life because it developed me to be the person I am today.