devonwrestler's blog

I notice that lots of people here, me included, tick the box on their profiles to say they like pool wrestling but I do wonder if all that many of them have ever actually tried it. I suspect not since for most of us it's not easy to share a pool with another guy into wrestling. But I did actually did do that just once and found it lots of fun.

I contacted this guy through meetfighters and he told me that he was going to a party with gay friends. I said it sounded interesting and he checked with the host that it would be ok for me to come along. It was a big house with a private indoor swimming pool, the owner was a builder and had buit it all. Most of the others at the party were not all that interested in the pool, they seemed more interested in eating cakes then other activities that were starting to happen in various parts of the house. Since I had met this guy through meetfighters I knew that he was into wrestling and sugested we try pool wrestling. We wrestled naked in the deep end of the pool where we could hardly touch the bottom with our feet. I am not an expert swimmer, indeed to my shame I have never even learnt to swim crawl. However, I am happy to be in the water and dont mind my head going under. I enjoyed diving down and attacking his lower body, then lifting him half out before dropping him back and pushing his head briefly down for a submission. He was less confident about the water than me, so I was careful not to overdo things. I have to say that when we wrestled on dry land it has been the other way round since he is a body builder and is stronger than me.

That was in quite deep water and was my only experience of pool wrestling to date. I guess you could also wrestle in shallow water which I guess would be a different experience. Probably much more like wresting on mats, but with the possiblity to get a submission by holding the other guys head under, you would probably need less than a foot of water for that to be possible, maybe just a few inches. Of course, for safety you would need to release him pretty quick, not necessarily wait for him to tap because he might not be able to. But you need to be careful about that with any submission wrestling.

Looking around on U Tube, as you do, I came accross some clips showing traditional Cornish wrestling matches. Since I live down in Devon it is not too far for me to drive over the Tamar bridge and into Cornwall so I decided to go along to watch one of the Cornish wrestling competitions that are held over the summer months in various parts of Cornwall. If you want to find details of these competitions Google should help, although I think there may be more frequent events than are actually listed on the internet.

The event I attended was one of the events open to novices as well as experienced wrestlers. I had read that the only equipment you need to take up Cornish wrestling is a pair of ordinary shorts, the special jackets are provided by the event organisers, although frequent participants will have their own jackets. So I put some shorts in the car, just in case, but at that stage I didnt really think that I would end up being one of the competitors. Not wishing to miss anything, I arrived about half an hour before the advertised start time and there was already a small crowd gathering on the village green where the wrestling was to take place. There was also a circle marked out on the grass with sawdust and plank on trestle style seating had been set out, presumably for spectators. There was a marquee in which refreshments were being served, the main offerings being, as you might expect, real Cornish pasties and real Cornish cream teas. Another tent was marked 'wrestlers changing' and a third tent was for the officials and had a table beside displaying an impressive collection of silverware, presumably the trophies for the winners. As well as the spectators there were already a few wrestlers changed into shorts and standing around bare foot as they chatted together.

Realising that pretty well anyone could enter the novices class, even with no previous experience, I could not resist sighning up - the entrance fee was small change and you just had to fill in a simple form to register for the event. They were collecting the forms up at a table in the marquee and as I handed in my form I explained that I had never done any kind of formal martial arts (I dont really think of the informal wrestling I have done though meetfighters.com as 'proper' martial arts. ) The guy said he would find someone to give me some instruction.

I should say at this point that the wrestling jackets used in Cornish wrestling are an essential part of this sport. They are very loose fitting, short sleeved and made from very strong canvas so pretty well impossible to tear. Male wrestlers wear the jacket over bare skin, a few females do also take part and are allowed a teeshirt or bathing costume under the jacket. When you wrestle you grip the opponents jacket, you are not allowed to grip his limbs but as well as gripping the jacket you can use the flat of your hand on any part of his (or I suppose her) body above the waist. The thought occured to me that unlike most forms of fighting clothing such as modern combat helmets and medieval suits of armour, these jackets are not designed to protect you from attack. Rather than protecting you they seem to be designed to make you more vulnerable to attack from your opponent. Because the jackets are loose fitting there is plenty of spare cloth for your opponent to get a good hold on. The jackets do not open at the front, you put them on over your head, but accross the front of your jacket there are a couple of ropes or straps, conveniently placed to make nice handholds for your opponent to grab and heave on while at the same time he will probably be tripping you or kicking your feet from under you. But for much of the time your opponent will be grasping your jacket each side of the collar and using it as if it were a rope round the back of your neck so as to wrench your head to wherever he wants it. This makes the jackets ride up to the shoulders so if you are male you are effectively almost 'topless' much of the time. Sometimes a jacket does come off over a wrestlers head in which case the fight stops to replace the jacket.

It was all very new to me and a bit bewildering at first. Then a couple of young guys in shorts and wrestling jackets came up to me and said they had been asked to give me some tuition. They were friendly and seemed keen to help a newcomer to get started, which was encouraging. One of them explained the rules, which are fairly simple and which I had already studied carefully on a web site. Then they demonstrated some of the moves on each other while I watched. I was soon feeling that although the rules are fairly simple the tactics and various moves you can make using both your hands and your feet are pretty complicated and I guessed that I wasn't going to remember much of what they were teaching me when it came my turn to fight. I told them that I would really like a trial fight just to get an idea of what I was letting myself in for and they agreed to that. I was aware that I was the only competitor who was completely new to Cornish wrestling, and also I am sure I was the oldest of all the competitors so I felt that I really did need to get an idea of what I had let myself in for before going into the ring.

I nipped back to my car to fetch my shorts while one of my instructors who was about my size and weight but much younger went to fetch me a wrestling jacket. We went to the changing tent and I took my watch off (obviously) and quickly stripped to my underpants and got my shorts on then my instructor placed the wrestliing jacket over my head and helped my arms into the sleeves. We went to a patch of grass a little away from the crowd that was gathering then we shook hands which is the way you signal you are ready to wrestle. My first practice fight started very gently but I soon found myself almost instinctively attempting to unballance the instructor by tripping his legs with my bare feet and grasping and pulling his jacket at the collar, I was enjoying it a lot but soon realalised that it is quite hard work, it helps to be fit. I am sure the instructor was being gentle with me and giving me some easy chances but i did manage to have him on the ground a couple of times and he also had me down a few times. The fight pauses when a competitor is on the ground - there is no 'ground work' allowed. The instuctor said that he thought I had done ok considering I was so new to it, but he also said that he hoped for my sake that I would not be drawn against too good a wrestler for my first fight.

The wrestling tournament had now started so I joined a group of the other competitors watching the action in the ring. No one said 'what's an old guy like you doing here?' I felt I was accepted as a competitor right away so I think this would be an easy sport to get into, but you would do well to be younger, fitter and stronger than I am these days. The first fights were in the junior group, basically kids, both males and females. It seems that females have to wrestle in the same classes as males, I dont think there are women's classes. Some of the young kids wrestled enthusiastically but a few were perhaps a bit too young for it and didnt quite seem able to work out what they were expected to do in front of all the spectators. Once the wrestling started there was a fair crowd of spectators standing in front of the marque or sitting on the benches round the ring. I am not sure how many spectators - maybe as many as a couple of hundred or so. I think the various officials running the event were pretty well all ex-competitors and I was told that the guy giving a comentary over the loudspeaker system had been Cornish champion in his day.

When they started the adult novices fights I knew that it would be my turn within an hour at the most. Watching the first novices I realised that the fighting in the ring could be pretty intense. I guessed that I had little chance of getting through to the second level of the tournament, but I reckoned that if I were picked against an oponent similar size to me I mght at least be able to survive a four minute round.

Other than in the juniors class there was only one female in the competition, a feisty lass in her twenties. She was picked against a male considerably bigger than herself and she put all she had into her fight but lost fairly decisively. I felt sorry for her since she had really tried and I felt that had she been picked against me I could have given her a much more even fight. While one fight is taking place the commentator gives out the names of the next pair over the loudspeaker system, so you only get a few minutes notice that you are about to fight and since I did not know peoples names I had no idea who I had been picked against. I certainly felt nervous as I stepped into the ring, but also quite determined to do the best I could. At first there was no sighn of my opponent, I had to stand there waiting while someone went to look for him and perhaps drag him out of the refreshment tent! Then when he finally appeared I was shocked - he seemed about a foot taller than me, well perhaps not quite that much, but he was a massive guy with arms that looked as strong as my legs and firm muscel everywhere. He had entered the novices class since he had little experience at the Cornish style of wrestling, at least that's what he said, but I learnt later that he was known as an expert at various other forms of martial arts, espeicially MMA. Oh shit !!

We shook hands and grasped each other's jacket collars, I remember having to reach quite high just to get my hands up to the collar of his jacket. A couple of seconds later the world seemed to spin round - the sky was not where it should be, nor was the ground where it should be. I landed heavily and although I instinctively tried to keep my head from hitting the ground the back of my head did hit the ground rather hard. Thankfullly it had rained recently and the turf was softer than it might have been in dry weather. I forced myself to get up off the ground right away, but I was dazed and unsteady on my feet. I may have been close to being knocked unconcious but I wouldn't know since that has never happened to me before. All I could think of at that moment was that somehow I must keep fighting, to death if need be. I was about to reach forward to shake hands with the opponent so as to re-start the fight but the referree stepped in and said to me, "wait, you are allowed a break to recover before you go on" So I stopped and collected my thoughts a bit. I hoped the bump on my head was not too serious and I was aware that there was somethng not quite right around my right ribs, but adrenalin was masking the pain. Then I started to think sensibly, I realised that if I carried on I was only going to get thrown around like a rag doll and possibly get seriously hurt, also I was not going to be able to put up enough of a fight to be worth the spectators watching. So I turned to the referree and said 'I am sorry but I dont think there is much point in me carrying on with this" As I left the ring I heard the commentator over the loudspeaker system explain that I was a complete novice and that I had been brave to give it a go. Then there was a ripple of applause from the crowd, I am not sure whether that was for me or my oponent or both of us.

I went to get a nice cup of tea from the refreshment tent, by now I realised the right side of my chest was hurting. I was not sure if it was crushed / cracked / bruised ribs, whatever you call it, or a muscel strain, or both. I have hurt my ribs a couple of times in my life, not because of wrestling but once from a fall from about 10 feet and once from tripping over a tree root while out jogging in the woods and going full pelt downhill. I reckoned this time it was not as bad as on those previous occasions so I guessed that I would get over it within perhaps a week or two, I hoped so anyway. I sipped my tea then went over to my erstwhile opponent. We shook hands and grinned at each other. He said he had not known that I was a complete novice, he said that when he saw that I was older than himself he thought that I must be someone with years of experience at Cornish wrestling whereas he was new to that particular style. Hence he thought he had better go in hard at the start to knock the fight out of me before I could use any clever moves on him! He was sympathetic and there was no hard feeling between us.

It was considerable consolation to me that in the next stage of the novices tounament the guy that had beaten me finished off his next oponent in much the same way that he had finished me off. His oponent this time was younger and probably stronger and more experienced than me but even so within a few seconds of the fight starting he got whirled round through the air and smashed down on his back. This time all four 'points' on his back hit the ground together and in Cornish wrestling that ends the fight immediately. (the 'points' are your shoulder blades and two points each side of your spine just above your buttocks - throws are scored according to how many points hit the ground) He won the novices class, then automatically entered the any weight contest. He didnt seem to get really serious competition until the final stages of the tournament when he was up against fighters who were well trained in the Cornish style. His final fight was with a smaller but strong and very experienced opponent and the fight went into extra time, after which it was one fall each and so the fight continued until one wrestler touched any body part other than his feet on the ground. If I recall correctly it was that same guy who wrote me off so effortlessly in the novices class that actually won the any weight prize. I have to say that it didn't seem quite right to me that a trained MMA fighter could enter the novices class on the basis that he hadn't done a lot of Cornish style wrestling, then proceed to make mincemeat of the genuine novices before going on to win the tournament.

My instructor came up to me and sympathised saying that I had been unlucky to be drawn against someone so much bigger and stronger than myself. He pointed out that in the novices class you could be drawn against someone of any size, whereas in the weight classes you would only need to fight people of similar weight to yourself. He said that he was sorry I had travelled some way to the event and not actually got much wrestling so he asked me if I would like to wrestle a bit with himself. I agreed immediately since I was also sorry my wrestling had ended so quickly. We went a little away from the crowd and started to wrestle. However, I found that I had no strength in the right side of my body so had to tell him that I was feeling a bit sore, but would like to fight another time.

After that I got dressed and joined the spectators on the viewing benches. The benches were quite full but someone gave me a smile and people shuffled along to make a space for me to sit. I got chatting to a few of the nearby spectators - everyone seemed freindly and sympathetic having seen what had happened to me. Maybe it was my own silly fault though!

I watched the tournament right through to the end and found it fascinating. There is no way that this could be considered 'erotic wrestling' or 'gay wrestling' or 'pro-wrestling' - it is a competitive sport that is keenly contested in the far south west peninsular of the UK and it requires skill, strength and agility. But I would say that if you enjoy seeing athletic bodies with muscel and sinew straining to win a fight, then you might well enjoy Cornish wrestling as a spectator. The bare feet, shorts and loose fitting jackets that often ride up over the shoulders allow a reasonable display of flesh. Most of the adult competitors are in their 20's or 30's. Some are stocky and tough, some are a bit overweight but still strong, others, espeicially in the lighter weight classes, are lean and gym trained. One thing I would say is that it seemed to me a far better spectacle when I was watching from the ringside than when I watched it on U tube. Cornish wrestling does not seem to have a good internet presence.

I hope that I will be able to go along again as a spectator but I am not sure it would be sensible for me to enter again as a competitor. Had I lived in Cornwall and discovered this sport in my '20's I think I could have become really keen on it and I might have done reasonably well in a light weight class. However, its not really a sport for someone to take up in their mid 60's. A pity since as a competitor rather than a mere spectator I really did feel part of that event, and overal it was a memorable day for me. The bruised ribs and strained muscels will recover and be forgotten but I expect I will always remember the excitement of actually taking part.

The pasties in the refreshment tent were also good!

I would say that I have scaled down my wrestling activities over the past few months, the reason being at least in part due to having got injured at one of the Grapevine meetings that I attended the best part of a year ago. Generally I do enjoy these meetings, indeed they are what got me interested in wrestling to begin with. On this occasion I wrestled with a young fit fast moving wrestler. Nothing wrong with that of course and I don't think we were too much mismatched since I was a bit taller and heavier. But at one point he accidentally wrenched my elbow in a direction it is not supposed to bend (sideways). I don't think he even realised it was happening since it seems that he was trapping my arm fully extended at the elbow only in order to restrain me so that he could apply some kind of a pressure hold to my neck. It was my neck that was his target, not the arm, so perhaps he was less aware of what was happening to the arm and because the elbow was fully extended it was vulnerable. Given a chance, I do try to try to keep my arms partly bent at the elbow when wrestling. He actually wasn't succeeding in hurting my neck very much at all but I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my elbow and instinctively screamed 'stop', but I guess the damage was already done. It is not a serious injury, at least not in the overall scale of things. Months later I don't notice it most of the time, but if I do strenuous exercise with that arm, say digging with a spade, (or of course any competitive or semi-competitive wrestling) I soon start to feel it again.

Why am I writing this - just to urge people to play safely with this wrestling game. Assuming that neither of you want to get injured (who does), submission holds must be applied gently, at least to begin with, to allow the opponent to 'tap out' if he needs to. If it is the kind of hold that could potentially cause immediate injury, e.g. bending a joint the wrong way, then both wrestlers should recognise that the point is won once the hold is applied, there is no need to actually apply significant force against the joint. It' a sport like tennis or snooker or whatever, the idea is to score points, not maim or kill the other guy. Once the opponent realises he is in a submission hold that would injure him if applied harder, he should tap out. I guess there are also some kinds of holds where discomfort/pain is felt well before there is a risk of injury. Perhaps I have a masochist streak since I quite like that kind of hold since you don't necessarily have to tap out immediately. In that situation it is probably ok for the other wrestler to slowly increase the pressure on you while you feel a little pain and he can enjoy seeing you struggle helplessly trying in vain to counter the hold. I enjoy that situation whether it is me in the hold or applying the hold, but even so I don't think you should go too far with it.

John

My previous blog entries have described some of the group wrestling meetings I have attended, the most recent being in 2011. The situation with regard to these meetings has changed somewhat since then, so here is my attempt at an update. I wouldnt want people to read my blog then waste their time making a journey to attend a meeting that no longer happens.

This is the situation to the best of my knowledge, but living in an out of the way part of the UK I dont get to these kind of meetings as often as I would like to, so do correct me if you know better:

The Grapevine group is still going strong and I can recommend their meetings - they are generally advertised on the events section at Meetfighters.com. My experience is mainly of the Grapevine meetings held at Alverston near Stratford on Avon. I have very recently heard (Oct 2012) that Grapevine may not be able to use this venue for future meetings. I understand that they are looking for an alternative place to meet, presumably in roughly the same part of the world. If anyone has any sugestions for this I expect Dave (Mattworker on this website) would be pleased to hear about them.

Although my own experience is of the Alverston meetings, I think that the events at the other venues are fairly similar. I havent yet been to the Manchester venue and Dave tells me that is a bit more of a free for all since wrestling takes place on several mats simulaneously, whereas there is only a single mat in use at the other venues.

You generally do meet freindly people at Grapevine and some of them gather for a pub meal after the Alveston meetings which I think is nice. After you have just spent an afternoon near naked and in sweaty combat with each other its slightly strange, but at the same time rather pleasant, to find oneself with the same group of guys tidily dressed and chatting about the weather or whatever in a smart village pub! The range of wrestling ability at Grapevine is quite wide, so is the age range for that matter. Most of us wrestle enthusiastically at the Grapevine meetings, but most of us are not all that strong or skilled wrestlers (perhaps I will get a thrashing next time I attend for saying that) If you are a complete beginner you will be welcome and I expect someone will give you some gentle rounds to get you started, or if you prefer I expect you would be welcome to just sit and watch others wrestle while you decide if its something you want to try yourself. If you are an expert, perhaps someone who has actually had some proper training in Judo/Jujutso etc., do also come along and show us how it should be done. We normally wrestle for submissions at Grapevine and we normally wrestle timed three minute rounds, our matches being just one round. This seems to work well, keeping the matches really short encourages participants to wrestle to their best of their ability to try to get a submission before the three minutes is up. Three minutes of hard wrestling is quite enough to leave most of us glad of a rest before another match - I guess some of us are not as fit as we would like to be. Of course, quite a few of these short matches end without a submission but that doesent matter since you can challenge your oponent to another match(s) later in the afternoon. Many of us choose to wear skimpy style swimming trunks to wrestle at Grapevine, but if you prefer you can wear a wrestling singlet or shorts and vest, or other light sportswear. For footwear, preference seems to be equally divided between proper wrestling boots and bare feet. I like to have my feet bare for wrestling, perhaps a slight fetish thing, and this is no problem when wrestling booted wrestlers. It may not be obvious to the uninitiated, but those dangerous looking wrestling boots are actually soft material so they wont injure another wrestlers skin. Although Grapevine meetings are for gay/bi guys, and most of us do take off most of our cloths to wrestle, dont imagine that these meetings are gay sex orgies - Grapevine meetings are primarily about wrestling as a sport, even though our mostly untutored struggles on the mat are somewhat far removed from the Olympic standard of wrestling. However, I cant deny that I, for one, do find it rather nice, as I sit waiting my turn on the mat, to watch sweaty bodies struggling against each other - muscels taught and straining, sometimes a crotch inadvertently thrust against a crotch or into a face, or a lightly clad arse raised high and nicely spread .....

The Queens Park Wrestlers meetings that were held at the Playpit venue in London dont seem to be happening any more, at least I cannot find any mention of them on the internet. A pity since I enjoyed the one QPW meeting that I attended. We had some good wrestling and the 'seedy' nature of the venue was certainly very conducive to a bit of gentle erotic fun after everyone felt they had done enough wrestling.

Iain Scotts meetings at Grove Park in SE London have definitely finished, for the foreseeable future at least. A great shame, but due to matters beyond Iain's control there was no way that these meetings could have continued. My thanks to Iain for the huge effort he made and the fun I had when I managed to get to Grove Park on half a dozen or so occasions.

I am not sure if the wrestling evenings at the Eagle are still going, and if they are how much actual wrestling takes place, can anyone confirm? From my experience when I last attended there were mats set out but no one seemed interested in wrestling except me, and its not something you can do on your own. Most of those present seemed to have come to drink and socialise at the bar, so very different to the Eagle wrestling evening I described in an earlier post here.

During a trip to London back in March this year I managed to get along to Queens Park Wrestlers. As a Google seach will reveal, this is an informal wrestling evening held once each month in Islington, just to the north of the most central part of London. The premises are, as I understand it, mainly intended as a place where gay and bi men can both socialise and enjoy sex, however the facilities are also well suited to smallish group meetings for competitive wrestling or for wrestling instruction. There is a wrestling mat and adjacent seating space for at least a couple of dozen people spectating or waiting their turn to wrestle. The mat area was well lit. Water and soft drinks were available which is good since competitive wrestling can be dehydrating. Considering the normal usage of the venue, it is perhaps not surprising that the venue is also suitable for the kind of apres wrestling activities some of us like to indulge in, there are small shady holes where you can do these activities in private, or more open spaces if that is your preference. There are also some video films running that may help you get started if you really have no idea how to go about those activities!

If you look at the QPW webpage you will probably imagine that these are quite formally structured wrestling evenings - the web page talks about a special set of wrestling rules and competitive wrestling with timed rounds, referrees, judges etc. However, at least on the one evening that I have managed to get along, the reality was a lot less organised than implied by the webpage. On the evening I was there, five people turned up prepared to wrestle, and about the same number came as spectators, but three of the spectators soon seemed to lose interest and disappeared into the night. A couple of helpful guys on the door welcomed us and collected the modest entrance fee, then put our cloths safe once we had striped to trunks or shorts or whatever. From then on we were left to do whatever we felt appropriate. The wrestlers included myself and two other guys I knew from the 'Speedo Wrestlers' meetings, plus a guy who had never ever wrestled before and a guy who had done very little. By chance, the three of us who had done at least some wrestling were all roughly the same kind of size and strength and I had some good competitive rounds with the other two as well as some very gentle wrestling with the beginners. One of the experienced guys was pretty knowledgeable about wrestling technique and he gave tuition to the beginners, using me as a 'rag doll' for some of the demonstrations. I think the two novices may have been somewhat anxious and one said at the beginining that he was worried about getting injured. I hope that they enjoyed the experience and that we managed to show them that submission wrestling can be competitive without being unduly dangerous.

I certainly enjoyed the evening that I went along to QPW, and I didnt mind the rather small attendance. I have to caveat that by saying that I have no idea whether or not that particular evening was typical of all the QPW evenings. I remember that some months ago I wrote in glowing terms about a wrestling evening at the Eagle venue but I have subsequently heard that the evening I attended may not have been typical of some of the more recent evenings. Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with the more recent evenings, maybe they are just different in style, I couldnt really comment further without more personel experience.

How well these kind of meetings work out does depend on who happens to turn up and how the wrestling develops during the evening. Its not going to be much of a wrestling evening if the mats remain unused for most of the time. It does help if wrestlers are willing to challenge each other to get on the mats, even if that means wrestling with people they dont know from outside the meeting. Also helps if people are willing to help beginners get into it, either by giving them tuition or by giving them suitable introductory matches.

Incidentally, for those that are not aware of it, the 'Speedo Wrestlers' meetings that I referred to above are no longer happening, at least not for the foreseeable future.