Today the wrestlers at 12:00pm had practice. They started off by stripping down into just there underwear. They do this because the athletic trainer had to do a skin check to check for certain contagious conditions, such as: ringworm, impetigo, staff infection, and herpes. This is mandatory and is required for all wrestlers across the board. They all lined up in front of the athletic director and they stand there with their arms spread out and the athletic director looked them over their front side carefully with a flashlight. He then asked them to turn around so he could check their back side. After that they can put all of their clothes back on. Then the actual practice starts. They begin warming up by running around the wrestling mats, they did this for about five minutes and then they started to do sprints down the wall jogging the other half of the way. They would repeat this but by doing it running and jogging backwards. They did so many various types of warm ups that got their muscles warmed up and loose. The wrestlers would do this plus many stretches to prevent injuries. Now what I just talked about they always did in practice but today being a Friday, one day before the MAC Championship the coach had something else in stored. He called it his system. He told the team “trust the system”. So what they did in this system was called a cool down practice. This means the practice will be a lot less intense then the usual practices. So what they did on this cool down day was their warm up that I just mentioned, and then they began drilling moves on each other in a very smooth, slow, methodical way. The coach said that this part of the practice is used to help warm up the wrestlers muscle memory. This allows the wrestler to be ready for the next and final stage of the cool down practice, and it’s called a “roll around”. A roll around match is a wrestling match against your partner there you both are going about 60%. In basic terms in looks like a real wrestling match but just in slow moe. The wrestlers do three of these roll arounds and then practice is over. Leaving them feeling good about their performance in practice and allowing them to get a nice easy sweat in to maybe loose a couple pounds. t

Practice

Today was a Friday, the day of there wrestling match against MSU . So i found it very odd that the coach had scheduled a practice for that very same day. i thought that it was a dumb call by the coaches to go and pull a move like that. they need a break before they wrestle. so i 12 o'clock they had their wrestling practice. i sat on one of the two workout benches taking my notes of an artifact that i could use for our up coming assignments when i started to notice that things were looking different. things weren't running like they normally ran at the beginning of practices. kids were rolling around all in sweatpants and sweat shirts wrestling each other. But it didn't look they were taking the wrestling part seriously, so it looked like they were just rolling around. some where off by themselves running, jumping rope or wrestling with themselves. i was sitting back looking around and was thinking where are the coaches, where is the order in the practice. i saw the coaches being ok with what they were seeing, and some even joined in and began rolling around and wrestling them while even cracking jokes. i later talked to the head coach and asked him some questions that arose out of me while watching this take place. he told me that this practice was for loosing a couple of pounds before they have to weigh in tonight at MSU. so that n that time span they can have something small to eat or drink so they wouldn't have to starve and hold their weight for the rest of the day. he told me that there is a lot of strategy that goes along with this sport other then just the physical wrestling.

another day

Practices start every day at 12 noon. Today looked to be a very bad day for the wrestlers. I noticed this right off the bat by how the coaches where treating them. The team performed horrible that weekend and today was their consiquence. The head coach sat them all down befor the practice even started just like any other practice, but this time the couch had a different talk in mind. the couch was getting very pationate about winning and what it takes to be a winner. He sounded angry at times when thinking back as to what happend that weekend but he kept his composure and took it as a building block for the future. I heard him point out stuff that needs to be worked on that i had no clue as to what it all ment but i got the gist of it. He also pointed out the goods that he saw come from the match and he pointed those out to spicific people to incourage them and not bring them down. He then open the floor up to any questions that the wrestlers might have and one freshman raised his hand and asked hime "coach what do you do when your get nervice" coach responed by saying "thats a great question" he then talked about what goes through his mind when he gets nervice and then others opened up and gave their little things that they go through and do when they are nervice. This practice opened up to me what really goes on behind the scence of a wrestling practice and how coaches and wrestlers respond to different types of things that happen along the way of being involved in this type of close community. When all the talk was over the hard work began as usual with the 20 min warm up that had sprinting , jogging, skipping, backwards running and sprinting, cartwheels, fog jumps, push ups, sit ups, squats and quarter squats. By this time they completed their warm up as you can se that everyone of them is starting ti sweat or is already dripping with sweat. Coach set the timer for a 5 min streach on your own. So there was many different types of streaches going on. This 5 min streach also included a water brake. After those 5 min were up they paired up into groups of threes all within thier own weight. Then the coach set the clock for 20 min and yelled out top , bottom, out. I have no idea as to what that ment? But thats when each wrestler began wrestling and when ever the coach said time the two that where wrestling from the group of three the guy that wasnt wrestling now went and then went and wrestled the other. They did this for 20 min. I felt tired just watching them move around like that at just a hard pace. im sure there probably just dieing. but their athleites and im sure there condishoned. After the 20 min coach said and pointed "On the Line!" every wrestler new exactly where to go and once they all got there the coach blew his whistle and they took off sprinting all the way down the mat and back twice. i coulnt tell you how many time the coach blew that whistle but i was just like stop it already just from watching. it looked very hard and intese. the wrestlers pace was that of nothing as one of them made it to the trash can in time to throwup. after seeing that i guess coach descied that it was enough and blew the whistle twice. all the wrestlers just looked so beat and tired they went straight to the water bottles and out the door. so i guessed that the blow of the whislt twice means practice is over.

I have noticed that in the wrestling community there isn't any unique individuals that stand out. They all pretty much have the same kind of personality and convey the same body language. Although there are many different sizes of wrestlers in this community from the little guys to the big guys that weigh like 300 pounds they still all show the feeling that they are robots. with the things they do in practice they all do the same. But there is one person that deffinatly sticks out of the normal wrestler and thats the coach. He is the one barking out orders to the wrestlers to do in unicen. Directing them through the practice so that the wrestlers will reseave a good workout. There is one thing that surprises me though. That is when the coach or the captain at times yells at a wrestler, it is not to put him down but to help him improve and show him what he is doing wrong. What intrigues me is the personality and body language of a wrestler. It all ways looks like a wrestler seems there like better then you or tougher then anyone else.They give that look that they all ways walk around with their chest out or something. it seems like they think that no one can beat them in anything. They become really intense sometimes at these practices against each other, arguing with one another and throwing some fist at times. Nothing really disturbs me about the way they act because i have been apart of this community for a long time.

Day 1

I am surprised how organized EMU's wrestling room is. They have all the equipment in it to make the team better. There are a lot of weights and bikes along a mirror wall for the wrestlers to get there training in. On the complete opposite side off the room are a line of black pull up bars. Two big green mats fill up most of the room, with padded walls and a wrestling dummy on the wall. There is a walkway on the side of the mat where the garbage cans and water are placed. There is also a little back room for storage with a scale and radio. The walls have paintings of the MAC, NCAA, and Eastern s emblems on them. There are also two big boards of history for accomplishments of past wrestlers and teams.

3 communitys

The community that I would most enjoy investigating would be the small, tight community of wrestling. Even though I am an insider already I think it would be a great experience to do this as I have never really looked at wrestling from an outside perspective. As I have been in the wrestling community and have been wrestling since I was 5 years old.

I have also thought to observe the library as i spend a good amount of time there each week studying and doing my homework. This will alow myself to know of the community that i seround myself with on a daily basis.I will mainly focus in on the library and on how it works / runs, see if anything interesting might come up. you never know.

The restaraunts is a great place to observe couples, so the closest restaraunt down my street Don Pablows (a nice italian place) would make a great place. I can also go to the movies to obsesrve couples on there non verbal communication or some sort. Basicly finding couples wherever. This topic of such a community finds intrest in me because I am also in a relationship and this community intrest me. I guess that this too will have me observeing to from an inside perspective as well.