Do you remember being really nervous about something? That feeling you can’t shake butterflies in your stomach. It almost feels like a mental block in your head, no matter how you try to think of the problem it just makes it worse. Then your chest feels like there are chains constricting around your lungs slowly until your breathing stops. 

It was just after warmups when it started. The announcer was calling brackets to tables. I heard my name along with about seven others getting called to table 6. I would be staying there for the rest of the tournament. 

 My breathing stopped when I saw the other kids my size standing around the table. They all looked like they had been in cage brawls because of the scrapes on their faces. One’s eye had blood leaked into the cornea. I thought to myself, there's no way that I am as fast or strong as these competitors. We all came for the same thing, to get our hand raised at the end of the match. 

The light kids started wrestling, they were called to the table before our bracket. I am half watching and half thinking about how the kid in my bracket looks like he kills people for a living. 

The next weight class is wrestling and my bracket is the following. I hear a man yell over the cheering “In the hole, Bushman and -------.” When he says this my heart skips a beat and I see a kid next to me start jumping a bit to warm up his muscles. That’s my kid I think to myself. In my head the thoughts keep going through my head like, he looks like he is 10 pounds heavier than me, there's no way I have to wrestle him. The match finished and I was on deck. 

Thankfully Coach Evan came by to coach my match. He repeated just like hes said, “Our team works harder than all the other teams we wrestle.” When he said this, I thought to myself that's true. There's no way any other teams have done a grind match in practice( A twenty minute match made to physically exhaust you so you work on your mental strength).

 I replied “I know I’ll push the pace of the match.”

The match was over and I was up. I took off my warmups so I was in my singlet and Evan told me “Do your stuff and work hard.” 

I walked out onto the mat and shook the kids hand the ref hollard “Wrestle” and blew his whistle. All of the butterflies and chains disappeared. Everything was so fast. That’s the way I wanted. I was trying to break him.

I heard a hand slap the mat and a whistle blow. Both of us got up, I walked to the line and the ref had us shake hands again. Then he grabbed my arm and rose it up. That moment never feels any less amazing than the time before.

I walked off the mat and Evan congratulated me “ That was one of your best matches.”

Still trying to catch my breath I replied.”I don’t remember any of it.”

Evan commented” That’s because it was all muscle memory. When I was in highschool I had a match that I didn’t remember at all and when I finished my coach said that it was the best match I had ever wrestled.”

That was just the first match. I had more that day and the chains didn’t come back. It’s almost as if they were gone forever. Until the next tournament of course.