#11 -- Olympic Games in Merida

A month ago, the P.E. teachers at my school asked me to be a chaperone on a field trip and (this melted my heart) to teach the kids how to wrestle.  The field trip took us on a grueling 2-hour-early-morning-scream-filled-bus ride to Merida, a city full of Roman ruins.  The occasion was a series of Olympic-style games, with more than 20 high schools from Extremadura participating, all of the events in the middle of a millenia-old ampitheater.  We took part in three different competitions -- pentathalon, races, and wrestling.  And they chose me to be the wrestling coach.

Before we even left for the field trip, I tried to teach the kids some basic moves.  It went horribly.  The hand control exercise degraded into a slap fight, and the half-nelson turned into fish flopping around on the mat.  Their actual matches went only slightly better.  Spanish 'wrestling' is worlds apart from any other kind of recognized wrestling in the universe-- it reminded me of a mixture of judo, sumo, and dirt-bike racing.  Points were rewarded just for pushing the opponent out of the circle. So, everyone turned into freight trains, sprinting recklessly at each other in head-on clashes that were determined more by momentum than skill.  My kids won a couple of matches, but only because of a stubborn Spanish inheritance that never lets them back down.

Unos chavales

We did better in the other events, winning 2nd place in one of the races and the pentathalon.  In spite of the relentless sun and the grueling 16-hour day, I had fun.  It was a good way to connect with the students outside of school, and to see yet another facet of Spanish life.  We dressed up in Roman togas and sandals, and all of the competitors marched through the ampitheater in a giant opening parade.  Watching the wrestling and the races, I suddenly became nostalgic for the childhood days of sports, where competition carried absolute weight and you didn't realize how you were the center of the spectator's attention.  In only 4 years my point of view has completely reversed.  Reality takes on a new meaning and you realize that the view from the outside, although less exciting, is wider and deeper.  It affords you a glimpse out of the corner of your eye where you see, unexpecting, that you are just participating in yet a bigger game.  It is sublter, equally as unimportant, and based on the same rigid web of imaginary rules.  Except in these Olympics, the Spanish kids shouting and playing are immersed and oblivious to the illusion.  It was refreshing, at least for a day, to share in this mutual excitement.