YOU'RE GOING DOWN

We have a new guy.

New guy is a wrestling jock.

New guy has an issue.

We square off for grappling. He looks at me, and says his first words to me, ever:

"You're going down."

"Well, I've done grappling maybe 6 months, so that shouldn't be too hard for you"

"Well, I'm new too," he says "I've only had one fight."

The guy is wearing a t-shirt that proclaims him to be the assistaint wrestling coach at a local HS.

I roll my eyes inwardly.

Wrestling jocks all come on pretty much the same three ways. Sadly, they're the best three ways, and this guy does dump me, and I land hard with all of our weight on my hands and knees.

"YOU BETTER DO SOMETHING FAST OR I'M GOING TO CHOKE YOU OUT" the guy says in my ear.

I tap out.

He's looking at me, confused, as we stand up. He throws me again. This time he lands in side control, crossfaces with his elbow as hard as he can. I tap out.

"You're tapping out just from that?"

"Yep," I say, "you win. Good job"

We stand back up.


"I'm a wrestler," he says, "I don't give easy sympathy, dude."

OK, this guy, I'm thinking, this guy is something special. 30+ year old guy, works with children, has an outlook/attitude like this.

Fine. I stifle the urge to ask him to box, where I could return the one-sided work, and proceed to show him every clinch stall I learned in my short time in judo, tapping whenever we hit the ground. Whatever. I'm not going to give practice to a guy if he's going to come on like that, and I'm not going to trust him to apply a sub until I understand his personality better.