TABC takes pride in its vast array of clubs and teams, which range from intellectual clubs to athletic teams and beyond. But there’s one team that I think needs to be changed or stopped: the wrestling team.
We live in a very violent world. Our movies, TV shows, books and video-games are often filled with violence. TV shows and movies are killing characters in the most gruesome and gory ways. Our books depict gore and macabre. Our video-games allow for the player to be an assassin. Even the most “innocent” games contain violence. For example, Super Mario Bros. depicts a man fighting his way through tasks, killing creatures, so that he can rescue his girlfriend who was kidnapped by an evil monster, who Mario must then kill. Another example: my little brother was playing a math game on the computer, where the point of the game was to click the car which had the correct answer to the question. Whenever he got the correct answer a canon would blow up the car. Even in the world of journalism there is an old adage that says “if it bleeds it leads.” Interest in NASCAR spikes up to 22% after a gory explosion and injury. What a violent world indeed. Another such violent thing is wrestling.
The point of wrestling is to, well, wrestle. We already have enough violence in our society. We don’t need more. We don’t need a sport that glorifies fighting and knocking another person to the ground. It's immoral to promote and glorify such fighting. In fact after learning that this article was to be written, one wrestler even threatened to “crush me.”
And yes, there are other games that can have violence in them. Take hockey, for example. Hockey is known for fights breaking out and for teeth and players being knocked out. But hockey (while certainly not the ideal sport) is a better sport than wrestling, because the point of hockey isn’t to fight. Sure, as a result of the competitive atmosphere, fights break out, but the object of the game isn’t to beat up other players. The objective in hockey is to get the puck or ball into the goal. This is different from wrestling, where the entire point of the sport is to get the other person on the ground in a violent way.
Learning self-defense can be helpful. But I do not believe wrestling adequately teaches self-defense. The wrestlers learn how to fight “humanely” that is, beginning with a handshake and with a referee, rules, a soft mat below, etc. Should a wrestler be confronted in a dark alley, there will be no referee, no rules, and no soft mat. There will be no handshake before such a wrestling match begins. There will be out-of-bounds attacks. The wrestling team is not teaching self defense for a practical situation.
The other problem with wrestling is the body shaming. We live in a society that glorifies a perfectly slim and muscular body, while shaming heavy-set people. It’s disturbing, as there really is no reason for physical fitness and appearance to play any role in most of our society. But that's the world we live in.
The wrestling team shares similar views. Wrestlers, while not forced, often eat less food, albeit healthier ones, instead of foods that they are more fond of. They forgo less healthy foods that are not significant enough to damage a healthy lifestyle, because of peer pressure and a negative view of moving to a higher weight class. Towards the end of the season, near the Wittenberg wrestling tournament, switching weight classes is viewed very negatively. Wrestling promotes the idea that gaining a mere three pounds is bad. This is not true. Gaining two pounds is not a bad thing. It’s not a crime to gain two pounds. Being a larger person is not a crime.
And I’m not saying that being healthy is a bad thing. Maimonides was a big supporter of a healthy lifestyle. Being healthy is good. Being intimidated into being healthy and obsessive health and exercise can be damaging.
I propose that the club gets changed to being a fitness/exercise club, perhaps with some wrestling used every once in while as an exercise.