*Before we start, a lot of people asked why I decided to do this. The answer is pretty simple actually. Can I really be a teacher and tell my students to follow their dreams, no matter how far fetched, if I never tried to follow mine? My answer was no.
6:55am- The alarm goes off and I'm up...not happy though to be up before 7am on a Saturday. This might be the first time I've seen any part of a Saturday before 10am in a couple years.
7:45am- Hitting the road for the trip down to North Andover, MA. Anyone who has EVER taken a car ride with me, whether it was 2 minutes or 2 hours, knows that there is always high probability of it being epic. This trip was pretty ho-hum though, as the trip is a pretty straight shot all the way down, although I did see a girl completely take out a post by the on-ramp of the highway on my way back, it was fantastic. The wooden stake/post completely lost the battle and got sent flying into the oncoming traffic.
9:30am- I pulled up to the Killer Kowalski school of wrestling, also doubling as the North Andover School of Dance, and walked in expecting a whole new experience. And then they handed me a clipboard with a test on it...maybe not so much of a new experience. With 150 college credits so far, I think it's safe to say that taking tests is something I'm pretty much a pro at, but none have ever been like this. This was a test on wrestling history and also was the easiest test I've ever taken. You see, in addition to physics, chemistry, the NBA and one-hit wonders (don't ask), my other trivia topic speciality is pro wrestling history.
10:00am- At this point all the "students" had arrived and were milling about in the one room building, awkwardly trying to make conversation. I made the mistake of trying to have an intelligent conversation with someone. He was talking about the schools founder, Walter "Killer" Kowalski, and I remarked that it must have been pretty interesting to have been born in 1926 and in his late teens during World War 2. His response, was that he agreed and added that Killer was so old that he had been born before World War 1 even.........At that point I just stared at him and nodded while thinking, "These are the people I always defend as not being as dumb as people say." For those of you who aren't big history buffs, or even semi-intelligent people, World War 1 ended in 1918.
10:05am- I'm looking around at this point at all the other students and amazingly I think I'm in the best shape of anyone else there. It wasn't exactly an all star cast, but everyone else was either really overweight, or 130 pounds soaking wet. The instructors and full time students were a different story as they were all in shape and looked like wrestlers normally look. Also a bit perplexed that more than one person thought that skateboarding shoes would be the best idea for footwear...going to guess that they've never played any type of sport before. Ankle support is pretty crucial.
10:15am- The class starts with a calisthenic warm up, consisting of 25 pushups, 25 jumping jacks, 25 squats, and 25 sit ups, of which we did 4 sets. After three months of p90x this wasn't much of an issue for me, but it was clear that some of the other people hadn't seen the inside of a gym in a while. Also at this point, I was asked if I was related to Frank Viola, former Red Sox pitcher. I said no, but they decided to call me his Frank's grandson all day anyways.
10:30am- "Handsome" Johnny gets into the ring along with Johnny Vegas, and tells us to get up on the apron, as we're going to have the first lesson. He gets two of his regular students into the ring and tells them to demonstrate a collar and elbow tie up, generally the first step of any wrestling match. It looks pretty simple, but just about everybody got critiqued when they tried. Some were pretty good, only having issues with their foot placement or bending too much at the waist but others were about as coordinated as your average guy with two left feet and no control of their extremities. Surprisingly I managed to sum up enough coordination to nail the tie up on my first try.
10:45am- Step two was locking up with someone and then "working" the hold around the ring. Pretty much locking up and then walking around as a pair into the corners, against the ropes, and then back to the center of the ring. They said it was like a dance, which is when I started sweating because I'm possibly the worst dancer in the world. Rhythm has never been my calling card. This however was much easier than any dance I'd ever done. You just listen to the person that you're locked up with and they tell you exactly what to do. If the girl did that while dancing, I think it might be easier too. I was locked up with Andrew Rock, who hissed out directions and we successfully "danced" our way around the ring, earning praise from the instructors. Funny moment happened when one of the regulars was leading someone around the ring and Handsome ran up behind him and gave him the greatest wedgie I've ever seen. Unintentionally but awesomely ripped the kids boxers completely in half, causing him to collapse in great pain.
11:00am- Our next lesson was to learn how to exit the ring. The trainers explained that there are four different ways to exit the ring, you can go forward through the middle ropes, backwards through the middle ropes, forwards over the top rope, and backwards of the top rope. These sound easy, but in reality were pretty difficult. The first attempt was to go forward through the middle ropes, which most people had little trouble with. This entailed grabbing the second rope with your left hand, then propelling your body through the top and middle rope while placing your right hand on the mat to help you stabilize yourself as your feet hit the floor. The only part that really hung anyone up was throwing their feet too high and hitting the top rope. The second way we tried was to go out of the ring backwards through the middle rope. This was quite a bit trickier because you had to hook the middle rope with your right arm and then let your body fall out of the ring being sure to use your forearm to push off the mat so that you don't crash into it. This one didn't go smoothly for anyone, and I was no exception. I came away from it with bruising on my arm from the ropes and bruises on my legs from crashing into the side of the ring a few times. You had to keep going until you got it right, so I eventually did but this wasn't anyones favorite. The third one, and by far the easiest one, was to go over the top rope forward. This was done by pushing the top rope down with your left hand and jumping up so that your body is split by the rope, then leaning towards the ground so that your bodies momentum takes you over the ropes, placing your hand on the apron of the mat and landing with your feet on the ground. I don't think this took anyone more than two tries, as it was very straight forward. The final, and most difficult, way to exit the ring was over the top rope backwards. Amazingly this was accomplished by hooking the top rope with your right arm, pushing it down with your left arm, jumping up and letting your bodies momentum take you straight back, then when you were completely upside down it was necessary to place your left arm on the apron of the mat to stabilize your trip down to the floor. This all ended with you landing on your feet...ideally. This was not made any easier by hearing the story of one student that had been there before and suffered a compound fracture in his ankle. Incredibly this went well on my first attempt, but others weren't so lucky. Many were scared to death to try it, but all eventually did and made it.
11:45am- At this point the instructors decided that we were ready to learn how to run the ropes. This was the part that I was looking forward to the most, because it looked like it would be the most fun. How wrong I was. I had noticed when I felt them earlier in the day that the ropes were pretty stiff. Unlike the rubber bands they appear to be like on television, the ropes are actually made out of stiff cables that have been wrapped in what I can only compare to electrical tape. Needless to say, these were not comfortable to run against, as you need to throw all of your weight against them to get any bounce. They warned us that we would definitely end up bruised afterwards and they weren't lying...a day later and my sides are all black and blue. It was fun though, as we got to run the ropes with another person running the other way, so we made a criss-cross pattern in the ring. This was a timing exercise so that we could understand how it would be to adapt to an opponent.
12:05pm- Lunch Break. I pulled out my PB and Fluff while some others messed around in the ring. As one of the older "one day" students, I feel like being a bit more mature led me to not try and bounce around the ring with some of the others. I generally don't like to try and do something potentially dangerous until I've actually learned what I'm doing. And I was proven to have made the right choice when one of the other guys chipped a tooth trying to learn how to get hit by a clothesline.
12:35pm- We're back in the ring learning how to fall or take a "bump". For those of you that know me, you might remember this being the thing that gave me a concussion last time I went to wrestling school. I was a bit nervous this time, although I have been thinking about taking a bump again ever since the last time. Where I failed last time was that instead of tucking my chin I whipped my head back and cracked it off the mat. Easy mistake...unfortunate result. This time I got in the ring and executed a perfect back bump, didn't knock my head off the ground, and they didn't critique it at all. I did a couple more and it was over, I avoided a concussion and actually got a little praise from the instructors, not something that they handed out freely.
1:15pm- The part that I was looking forward to, not for myself, but to watch everyone else look stupid. It was time to cut a promo. To accomplish this you had to come up with a character, and talk into a microphone explaining who you were and possibly answering questions. Embarrassing fact notice: I often think about what I would say during a promo while I'm driving. It's not rare to see me talking to myself while I'm in my car, sometimes singing along with the radio and other times thinking about what I would say in an interview. The one part of the interview that I've never been able to figure out though is what my name would be. I had settled on being a teacher type of character who thought he was better than everyone else because he was smarter than everyone else. On the spot I decided to call myself Professor Trent Richardson. Yeah yeah I know, he's the Alabama running back, but it sounded like a smart name so I just went with it. Talking in front of people was clearly uncomfortable for a lot of people, but teaching every day has really taken the fear out of it for me. I gave a pretty decent 30 second promo saying who I was and that I was at Chaotic Wrestling to beat everybody who stands in my way. On the way home, I came to the conclusion that I should have called myself Professor Trent Richardson the "Sexual Intellectual". If only I had realized it in time...
2:00pm- This was the end of my day at wrestling school and the instructors let us have a q & a with them for a while. Handsome Johnny, Brian Fury, and Johnny Vegas all took turns answering questions about their careers and what it took for them to make it. I got a New England Pro Wrestling Academy t-shirt, which I plan on wearing everywhere, and headed home free of head injury.
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. Remember to become a member of this page, go back and read all my other blogs, follow me on twitter @joshviola19 and follow your dreams, I just followed mine.
-Josh
Should have padded your but like Miss USA for running the ropes!
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