I had to post this story... I love the narrative; it's like she's teaching a class, giving a lecture and she does so well with the action and the emotions. It's just about as close to perfect a fight account as I've ever read, and I'm being completely honest.
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You Gotta Have Heart
By Marie B.
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I've watched guys wrestle each other in high school. I'm not talking about fights where they use their fists because they're really mad, but rather “push-fests” where the guys feel they have to go at each other because all their friends are looking on. They want to save face, but they don't really want to hurt each other, so they wind up wrestling.
And I've seen (and participated in) wrestling matches between girls.
If there is one common element between guy fights and girl fights, it is watching what happens in the match when both competitors start to get tired and one gains the advantage.
How does the person on the bottom respond? Does he simply quit? Does she rise to the occasion and try harder? Does he show heart by continuing the fight, or does she start to lose the will to compete and just try to hang on?
It's all well and good to watch two people wrestle when the match first starts and they are fresh and willing, but it is when the fight goes on and on that the measure of a person's heart really shows. Each match tells a story.
My girlfriends and I wrestle for fun, exercise, and the thrill of competing against each other. We are all in college, most of us are involved in athletics, and all of us love to wrestle. As an aerobic workout, there isn't much that can equal a wrestling match and that's how we got the idea to start our little “club” in the first place. As I said in my first story, none of us know anything about scientific wrestling; we just like to roll around the mat and try to wear the other out in order to make them submit. But, as I said earlier in this story, the measure of one's own self figures in when the match has gone on for awhile and fatigue sets in.
What happens then? When one girl gains an advantage, what does she do? Does she become emboldened and try to make her opponent suffer even more than necessary? Does she let up and just do enough to stay on top until the other girl quits?
How about the girl who is at a disadvantage? Even though she was enthusiastic at the start, does she want to quit as soon as she starts to lose? Does she fight harder in order to try and reverse the course of the fight? Most importantly, how does she respond if her opponent starts to “rub it in” once she gains the advantage? What if the girl with the upper hand is willing and able to keep up the punishment until it is almost torture? How will the girl who is losing react to all this when her friends are watching? We always have several girls watching each other's matches.
For me as a fighter, these questions were answered in my wrestling match against Laurie.
Laurie had been my best friend since the beginning of college. She had been my lover, as well. Only a few of the girls in our “wrestling club” are gay, but all of them know that Laurie and I are. She is on the basketball team and we were scheduled to wrestle. I am on the gymnastics team and stand under five tall, weighing only 90 pounds. Laurie is nine inches taller than me, for heaven's sake, but I planned to try as hard as I could to trap her with my legs and scissor her into submission. At any rate, I knew that Laurie treasured me and, even though she would probably win the match, wouldn't try to humiliate me too much.
That's what I figured.
But unexpected things happen in the heat of battle, and let's face it; a one-on-one wrestling match definitely generates heat. That's what I mean when I say you find out about a person when you watch as their match plays out. On this day, I learned a few things about Laurie. And myself.
Standing in front of me on the mat as the match was to begin, Laurie looked cool and beautiful in her shorts and bare feet, with her hair tied back in a ponytail. She also looked impossibly tall and powerful. I was dressed like her but felt so tiny. Honestly, it was our size difference that had attracted us to each other in our personal lives. While lying together in her dorm room, I felt almost “mothered” by her, as though she was taking care of me. I knew that she loved my smallness. Both of us knew that she dominated our relationship, though never in an unkind or forceful manner.
But how was this going to translate in a wrestling match? If I persisted in viewing her in a parental role, I was going to lose quickly and surely. So I gathered my resolve and vowed to go at her as hard as I could. Could a dominant girl be defeated by a submissive one?
As it turned out, I surprised the hell out of both of us.
Rather than waiting for her to take the lead (as a child would) I leaped out at Laurie and, when I got close, jumped directly at her, wrapping my legs around her waist. She involuntarily let out a startled “OOF!” and her hands immediately went to my legs in an effort to pry them off. In response, I tightened them and wrapped my arms around her neck. I was making it hard for her to breathe, and as she whirled around and around in a futile effort to make me let go, her knees buckled and I forced her to the mat, lying on her side with me clinging tightly to her. As a gymnast, I could really bring a lot of pressure with my legs, and I was doing it now.
I was so excited! Could I actually win this fight? As I maintained control over Laurie, my ears started to register the sound of people yelling. It took a moment to realize that it was our friends who were watching the match. I had forgotten all about them. There were seven of them and they were howling with excitement at the unexpected course this match had taken. As one of them later told me, they had gotten an eyeful of the size difference between Laurie and me before the match started and figured that she would put me down quickly. Instead, they saw Laurie squirming helplessly to get free, grunting and groaning in discomfort.
Having one's air cut off will often take the fighting heart out of a person; that's the point I was making at the beginning of this story. How about Laurie's heart? My tight scissors hold around her middle was sapping her strength, and with my arms wrapped around the back of her neck, my eyes were at the level of hers. She looked desperate, not wanting to lose to a much smaller girl, yet unable to escape. I was thrilled with myself and I smiled into her face.
It was a mistake.
Laurie's eyes narrowed and she looked suddenly mean and determined. She raised the palm of one hand and thrust it against my jaw. She took her other hand and cupped it on my forehead. Then, she started to push with both hands. My questions about her fighting heart were answered, and I didn't like what I was learning. She started to thrust my face away from her, even though my legs clung tightly to the scissors hold. I knew that I couldn't let go; doing so would probably seal my fate in this match. But I could see her fighting heart by looking into her eyes and I realized that I was the one now in trouble. Laurie would not be denied despite the pressure on her middle.
Her powerful hands were bending me backward and my neck started to hurt. I tried to tighten my scissors hold, but Laurie's strength was overpowering me and my legs began to loosen their grip. Knowing that it was the beginning of the end for me, I unwrapped my legs and released her.
There was a pause in the action, just the briefest interlude. I looked at Laurie's face and it told me all I needed to know. Her eyes looked savagely into mine and the corners of her mouth turned down in a snarl that scared me badly. I knew then that she had never expected any trouble from me in this match; she figured to win with barely any opposition. I had proved her wrong and, having taken the best I had to give, she was now going to teach me a lesson.
As Laurie got up, I fought the urge to roll onto my stomach in a posture of submission. I wanted to put my hands over my head to protect myself but I knew I could not do that if I expected to keep my self-respect. I remained in a sitting position as she approached me; I intended to try to kick her legs out from under her. Before I could, she reached down and placed her hands on either side of my head. Not expecting this, I just sat there as she squeezed her hands together and lifted me to a standing position! Being so much taller than me, her upward thrust actually lifted me off the ground, and my bare feet dangled helplessly in the air for a second or two. Laurie then put me down and placed both hands on my shoulders and flung me back to the mat. She stood over me and looked at me with something like hate. I was afraid of her and everyone in the room could see it.
But this story is about finding out whether a person has fighting heart or not, right? Well, now it was time to learn about myself. I knew that Laurie had taken control of this match and I knew she could really hurt me if she desired. The look in her eyes told me that she might actually do it.
But I have my self-image to maintain, and as you can see, I have my own opinions about what it means to face up to your fears. So I got up and fought back.
She kept throwing me down but I kept getting back up. At first, Laurie would roughly fling me to the mat and place me in a hold, forcing me to twist and squirm my way out. Then, she tired of that and simply would throw me roughly down and allow me to rise. I would rush at her and try to intertwine my legs with hers in an effort to trip her, but she would just fling me down again. Over and over.
I was discouraged, but I wouldn't quit, even though Laurie was ordering me to. She had become quite verbal and insistent about it. She had me flat on my back and lay belly-to-belly on top of me, grapevining my legs. Hers were so much longer than mine and she exerted unbelievable pressure in forcing my legs apart with her own. My head was whipping from side to side in pain but I wouldn't surrender.
I knew that I mustn't cry, but I started to, anyway. She was really hurting me and yelling at me to submit, but I wouldn't. I could see anger in her eyes, but I also saw frustration because she couldn't make me give up. And finally, that frustration boiled over as she started slapping my face hard even as she forced my legs further apart. It hurt so badly I thought I would go crazy.
Suddenly, the pressure of her body on top of mine was gone. The other girls had rushed over and lifted her off me when they saw her hitting my face and yelling in anger. The contest was over.
Normally, after a match, everyone fawns over the winner. Not this time. Instead, everyone expressed their admiration for me, the overmatched girl who wouldn't quit. Laurie stood away from the rest of us, looking downcast and ashamed.
Although Laurie and I kept things cordial after that day, things were never the same between us. For one thing, our circle of friends wasn't thrilled with having her around anymore. For another, she learned something about herself that she obviously found displeasing. It was a case of the winner of a match actually ending up as the loser.
As for me, I lost the match but learned something about myself that I feel will be of benefit my entire life.
And it has to do with a lot more than winning or losing a wrestling match
