SLC - Day 3
I wake up early because there's no chance in hell I'm waking up late today. Go through the motions of getting breakfast, mailing friends and family to keep them updated, and exercising, before I'm out infront of the hotel waiting to be picked up. I'm about half way through Hey Jude by the time the van rolls up.
"Jack?"
"Yeah."
"Hop on in."
From the videos I've seen online I know it's Jake. I jump into the backseat with two other guys who're planning on training this weekend. We get the introductions out of the way before settling into some wrestling related banter. We're only talking for a few minutes before the person in the passengers seat speaks and I nearly jump out of my skin when he does. It's Billy. He has a very distinctive voice so there was no mistaking him. I didn't even realise he was in the car because as I was picked up, I looked past him to speak to Jake. Luckily I didn't jump out of my skin, or in my seat. We make it to the gym shortly after, get changed, and wait for training to begin. The first day is going to be based around stand up wrestling. In other words, taking the opponent down to the floor as well as getting back to your feet from the ground. After one or two familiar moves, we get into some not so familiar territory. This training was worth the travel.
We break around the three hour mark to eat lunch and note down what we'd gone over (because the camp was more about introducing you to the moves and you drill them at a later date, that way we covered more ground with the same amount of time). It's during this time Billy comes up to me and tells me to grab a partner so he can teach me a move that might've been worth this whole trip alone, the double underhook suplex. For anyone not familiar with wrestling, why are you reading a blog entitled Grapple Days? (I'm kidding, please keep reading) No, for people who aren't so acquainted with wrestling, the double underhook suplex is Billy's signature move. His "finisher," to use the modern vernacular. Taught to him by an Greco-Roman wrestling gold medalist, who actually used the throw to win the gold medal. Needless to say, there's a pedigree to this move and I was so appreciative to be shown it because I'd mentioned it to Billy in passing, and never thought twice that he'd actually teach how to do it. I get my hands in the right position, step in, and over the guy goes. Okay, that felt too easy for me to be doing it right. Billy says that's it, but he got it as good as he did because he drilled it for a week, on all different body types, tall guys, short guys, wide guys, thin guys, etc. Just that move, over and over for a week straight, and if I want to get good at it, I'm going to have to practise it in a similar fashion. I make a mental note of that for when I get back to England, and ask "Billy, what's the heaviest I should be looking at to suplex?"
"About twice your bodyweight," he says. Okay, that's over three hundred pounds... no wonder the suplex felt so easy on someone my own weight.
After being taught two more, equally nice, new suplexs, we're back in the full group and going over more moves. Honestly, me trying to describe and breakdown why this training was good, will become tedious and unreadable, so you'll have to take my word for it. It was very good training.
I'd done about 8 to 9 hours of training by the time we wrapped up the first day. I made an arrangement to hang out with a couple of the guys and got drove back to the hotel. I'm tired, primarily because I woke up earlier than usual and I'd been lacking a source of coffee all day. I flick the coffee maker in my room on and jump into a much needed shower. Clean and armed with caffine I sit at the table by the door and begin to write up notes from today. I fell asleep on the table after the first page.
I wake up to a knock at my door. Thank god I got dressed after my shower. It's the guys from training. We head out and look downtown for somewhere to eat, which ment we walked around looking for a place that does good ribs, quit, and went to the nearest place that sold something appealing. Over chinese food and sandwiches, I acted like the moron of a tourist I'd become these last few days and asked how much exactly is a dime (because there's no number on a dime to actually tell you how much it's worth. It's not like a quarter, where it's obviously a quarter of a dollar). My ignorance was not taunted but it did lead us onto all the other uses of dime in American slang, which brought us to British slang and swears too. I'd just like to state now, that cockney rhyming slang is hilarious when you have to explain the concept out loud.
"So, you rhyme what you mean with something else. Dog and bone becomes phone, right? But only dog and bone can mean phone, you can't just rhyme phone with anything."
What kind of country comes up with a concept like that?
In the next post it's back to the mats with Billy for some ground work.
Jack G.
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