Playing to win?

In my earlier years, I trained and competed in freestyle wrestling. While I was never at the caliber to compete on the Olympic stage, I did have several national medals under my belt (or tights aka singlet). While I did train hard, much of my success stemmed from a lack of a strong standard of wrestling in this country as Australia hasn’t had an Olympic medallist since the 1940s.

I had a love/hate relationship with wrestling. I loved the strength and confidence the sport gave me by forcing my body and mind to grow and adapt. I loved the attention I received from those who commented on the way I fought or admired what I could do. I loved my coaches and peers for investing so much time, effort and belief into me. I loved developing many of the leadership qualities I use today.

There are also many things I didn’t like. I hated the thought of feeling worthless whenever I lost a match. I hated believing I had let down my coaches and peers when I didn’t win. I hated carrying injuries year round. I hated feeling like a robot whose sole purpose was to train, eat and sleep all day, everyday, in the lead up to a big event. All great disciplines require discipline from its disciples and wrestling is no exception.

A wrestling match consists of two competitors fighting it out on a mat trying to win by either pinning their opponent’s shoulders to the mat or dominating their opponent on the scoreboard by performing a variety of varying weighted moves on the opponent which the referee will award according to degree of difficulty. Each competitor has the same tools to use at their disposal, each can only rely on themselves to finish victorious, each can only blame themselves if found in defeat. One of the brilliant things about wrestling is strength doesn’t equal victory. While wrestlers are well known for having inhuman strength and tenacity, other key attributes such as speed, flexibility, knowledge, fitness, aggression, mental toughness, execution and many other factors make up the pedigree in a winning formula. Even one’s personality plays into the style of wrestler. Wrestling is a beautiful symphony of will, wit and power between two people.

Wrestling is also very transparent and leaves little to no room for ambiguity. You either win or lose. There is no interpretation of who won by a judges decision like in some sports where victories are decided by the judges spectating. If you believe one technique is more efficient than another then you try it and it will either work or not work. As you get more proficient at it, the move should then work on higher skilled adversaries. When it stops working, you figure out what the problem is and continue. Another amazing aspect of wrestling is you can have a beginner paired with a world champion and the two could have a good match. The beginner could try their hardest while the world champion could safely nullify the beginner’s attacks and bring the match to a close. Each person could walk away with their head held high. Great opportunities for development, bonds of friendship and pride are built in this very fashion.

I don’t know if I had a competitive nature before I found wrestling but I know that for much of my adult life I still feel just as competitive about almost everything I do. You want to see who can finish writing this brief faster? challenge accepted! You want to see who can get more people into the building without activating alarms? challenge accepted! I love challenges and I love to win! What has changed since my days on the mat, as I’ve gotten older and balder, is I now also enjoy defeat. I enjoy seeing the achievement and delight on the face of the person who has won. I enjoy finding newly discovered strategies that may help me get the upper hand, next time. Whilst the circumstances and prizes I play for are now different, I also feel that everyone is no longer a threat or my competition as I once did. I now see the value of others winning because as they rise, so too will I if I continue surrounding myself with successful people. Motivational speaker and author Simon Sinek gives a great talk on the infinite game. I hope this is an example of what he’s speaking about.

PDR