Camaraderie

I frequently feel bad for my younger brother. Despite having 2 siblings (and now, 2 sibling-in-laws), he pretty much grew up as an only child. There were only 2 years between my older brother and I so we pretty much had a “built in” playmate (each other) which was vital when we were younger and lived so far out in the country that we couldn’t just “ride our bikes” to our friends’ houses. But with 11 year between my 2 brothers, and 9 years between my younger brother and I, his built in playmates were both graduated from high school by the time he was in 4^th grade, and married when he was in 7^th grade.

I haven’t failed to notice though, that he DOES get to do more things than Derek and I did as kids, and he gets away with a lot more too—thereby making him the “spoiled child”. However, I have also decided that no amount of being spoiled would make me want to trade in the memories of playing tractors, building snow forts, hosting our own radio show in the sandbox, or the time that we (I say we because Derek was CERTAIN it would work, and I—stupidly—believed him) discovered that girls CANNOT, in fact, pee on the tree while standing up—which is a few of the things that Derek and I did while we were younger.

However I have recently realized another advantage he has to growing up, being the youngest by many years. His own personal cheering section at wrestling matches and other sporting events is 350% (or more) larger than what Derek and I had. I wasn’t in sports really—2 years of softball was about it for me—but when I was, usually it was mom and dad that showed up at my games (which was fine, since I rarely hit the ball or made any “big” plays, or even any plays at all). Grandma and grandpa would occasionally come, but with 10 grandchildren they had to divide their time (understandably). Alec had his first (home) wrestling meet on Thursday and I looked around. There we all sat—Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa (who now have 11 grandchildren, but with 5 that are older and don’t have anything exciting enough worth watching going on), Steve and I, Derek, Kolby, and 5 month old nephew Jack. That’s right—we were all there. The cheering section of “2” that I had when I was younger, has since turned into a cheering section of “9”. Probably the biggest personal cheering section there that night. Although, if you’ve ever been to a wrestling match, you soon find out that the entire crowd becomes this unified, almost magical cheering section for ever kid that wrestles—whether they know them or not. And they. Are. VOCAL. And even though this is completely irrelevant (as is a lot of stuff in this blog post) I just MUST point out that on this particular night at the wrestling match, I knew of at least 3 families who didn’t even have children IN HIGH SCHOOL, let alone in high school wrestling that were there. And that was just the ones that I knew and could see from where I was sitting.

Anyway, there we all were, present and in the flesh, ridiculously early (except Steve who came later). When the time came, the lights dimmed and the ‘spotlight’ was turned on illuminating the wrestling mat. The music starts—“Sandstorm”—I had no idea that techno was still taking the world (or at least the high school) by storm. And out they come running—around the circle of the wrestling mat. My mom, always the avid sports fan (insert sarcasm here), says “This is a little overdone.” I told her that they have done this for as long as I can remember. In fact, I wouldn’t doubt that they did this when Derek was in wrestling 13 years ago. I figure, that whole spectacle got me kind of “pumped up” sitting in the crowd—I can’t imagine what it does for them as they run around that circle to a song that they undoubtedly chose. And if that’s what gets them excited and ready to go, then by all means, “overdo” it as much as necessary! Alec was one of the last ones to wrestle.

We sat through many wrestling matches, of kids we didn’t really know, and yet still got into the spirit of the “whole crowd” cheering going on. I’ve never been one to be real vocal in my cheering—I’ve decided that the chance that they are actually going to hear me is far to slim to justify the energy it takes to yell it. Plus, what do I yell? My dad, being a state champion wrestler in high school, can actually yell out useful information. He can yell out what move the kid should make so he would actually be of some help in the event that the kid hears his voice. Me? Although I have been to MANY wrestling meets, I know very little about the actual rules of the sport—I know punching and biting are not allowed, and that’s about the extent of my knowledge. I can’t see what move the wrestler should make next in order to escape whatever predicament he has gotten himself into. That means that my yelling would consist of “Come on ________” What does that even mean? And how exactly would that benefit him in the event that he hear my voice above everyone else’s. It wouldn’t benefit him. At all. So, I usually choose to sit there and cheer on the inside where my pointless advice won’t be heard by anyone else. Maybe it would also increase the likelihood that he would hear one of the people, like my dad, who is actually providing him with useful information.

When the match got to the wrestler right before Alec, I grabbed my camera and headed down the steps of the bleachers to sit on the floor in front of everyone—knowing that my camera’s zoom is minimal, at best (until I can save up enough money to buy a telephoto lens for it). I sat there and played with it a little bit, photographic some kid that I don’t even know as he wrestled another kid I don’t know. In an attempt to find some cool shot that I could use when Alec was wrestling. And I finally figured it out. I was so excited that I figured out how to do something cool with my camera that I didn’t really KNOW about, but discovered by experimenting. Here it is (only this is actually Alec wrestling):

  

Now, I know that if this same exact photo, in this same exact situation were taken  by someone else, I’m sure they would have been able to make the shot at least 400 times cooler, just by doing some other adjustment that I don’t actually know about—yet. I also know that my fancy schmancy camera is capable of taking photos way better than this. But I’m learning, remember?! That’s the whole point of this. So, for now, I am satisfied with this. I had a vision in my head of what I wanted the picture to look at, and through trial and error I figured out how to produce it.

For the record, here is a shot similar (lighting wise) to what that picture would have looked like had I just used my camera as a “point and shoot” instead of making adjustments myself:

Either way, as I was sitting there on the floor, for the first part of the match that Alec was wrestling, I was completely absorbed in my camera. I wanted to get “the shot” before he either lost, or beat the person he was wrestling. But as the match went on, and on, and on. I become less interested in taking pictures, and more interested in how Alec was doing. He was “winning” for most of the match. He always had the “upper hand” on the other guy and was always in the better position. There was one point where he got into trouble, but he was lucky (yes, lucky) that he was right on the outside of the ring and managed to scoot/get pushed out far enough that they had to get up and move to the middle again.

Toward the end of the match, I found myself yelling—like, out loud, not just in my head—although still nothing worthwhile. And I’m pretty sure I even threw in a few floor slaps—since I WAS sitting on the floor. I could tell toward the end that he was getting tired (and understandably so) and I think that’s why I was yelling. I was trying to use my energy to help him. Of course it doesn’t actually work that way. They went all three periods with no pin, but because Alec had acquired the most points during those three periods, he achieved himself a “win by decision”, three points for his team, and his FIRST varsity wrestling victory with his whole family sitting there watching him.

So, in regards to my New Year’s project, I have the blog post, I have the photo experiment, where’s the lesson? I have no idea. With the photo on Facebook, I posted this quote:

“The art of living is more like that of wrestling than of dancing. The main thing is to stand firm and be ready for an unforeseen attack." -Marcus Aurelius

I had the intention of making my blog about some lesson related to this quote, but the blog seems to have taken a different path and maybe there is a second lesson that lies in the blog post I generated. Maybe it should be something along the lines of:

“The camaraderie that exists—between strangers, and between family—paired with the inner strength that you know you possess, can yield results you thought might not be possible.”

How’s that for profound?