A little bit of cultural difference

I wasn't exactly backed into coaching the Beit Dany Greco Roman team at the Cup of Israel last weekend. After all, I was planning to go watch anyway, and I knew I'd have to do a little bit of coaching to help out. Still, it was only Thursday night that Boris told me I'd be coaching the team, as he'd be busy reffing. Also, I learned that the tournament would be a team event, a dual meet tournament, rather than an individual contest. "It'll be done by two or three," he told me, sounding a reassuring note. A hollow one, but ne'ertheless reassuring. I received instructions to show up in my team-issued black warmup suit at 10, when the tournament was slated to start.

This blog is about a big difference between Israeli and American wrestling mentalities, but it should first be noted what we share in common. It seems no matter where a wrestling tournament takes place, certain rules will hold in place: 1. The tournament will start late. The greco roman mat did not kick in until 11 am, and considering there were only two mats and twice as many greco teams as freestyle teams, this was a nuisance. On a related note, 2. The bracketing and scheduling will be awkward. Beit Dany was in a pool of five teams, while the other pool had four teams. As such we'd have two extra rounds. Logic dictates that our pool should have been the first to wrestle. Logic was ignored. 3. Wrestlers will be jogging around the mat and half-heartedly warming up with headphones in their cauliflower-inflated ears and a mildly tough look on their face. This was a little toned down here but still refreshing to see. 4. There will be only a few women at the tournament, and they will look disproportionally attractive due to the ratio of males to females. Here they looked more Russian than in America (though obviously not than in Russia), but all the same held true to the rule.

The tournament was officially run in Hebrew, but whenever the announcer really wanted to get a coach's attention, she knew to speak in Russian. Most of the yelling from the stands, the cheering, the berating of referees, and the coaching was done in Russian. Veritably, the wrestling community in Israel is founded on Russian (and some Georgian) immigrants, and as such is bound to certain linguistic and stylistic issues.

Ahh, but the wrestling itself? Just fine. Beit Dany showed off with Assa Beersheeva first. Our lineup was a fortified one - Boris's two sons, former national champs, gave us a guaranteed two wins at 74 and 84 KGs, our 55 KG wrestler Ithiel had his biggest battle with the scale, as he received forfeits in all of our pool matches. That meant we had to win one of the other four weight classes (there are only seven in total). Against Assa, a forfeit at 60 KG was enough, but we had another card to play: our American heavyweight.

Dusty first showed up to our club in the middle of October. On the phone he kind of sounded like a pud, and I wasn't expecting much from him; likely, he was just a kid who made aliyah that had wrestled in high school or something. As I waited for him during that practice, the same day that we had received physicals, I wondered if he would be worth my missing out on warmups.

The first thing that impressed me about Dusty was his size; nearly six feet and quite wide. It's not all sculpted at this point, but at the very least, Dusty wasn't a pipsqueak. Considering that at most practices to date I was the biggest guy in the room, at the least he'd provide a new, big partner for me. At just over 100 KG, he had about 60-70 pounds on me.

He filled out some paperwork and we made small talk. "Did you go to Duke?" he asked, noticing the ubiquitous logo on my shorts (or my t-shirt, and it could have been one of five different pairs or t-shirts - ahh, the perks of college athletics). I answered that I did, and he said he went to UNC, and confirmed that he wrestled there, and all of a sudden I put it together: in the 2002-2003 season, he had a back and forth with a teammate of mine, Tom Cass. Cass, a 5th year senior who I as a true freshman palled around with and to some degree looked up to at the time, scored a memorable 7-3 decision over Dusty at the dual meet. The match was notable for Tom scoring back points off a move we had just worked on in practice that week (a sit-out counter involving a crossface pancake - basically, Tom threw his bicep into Dusty's face and flattened him).

I mentioned this match to Dusty. For some strange reason, his recollection of the match was fuzzy; instead, he first recalled beating Tom 7-1 at the ACC tournament later that year. Funny. Dusty also didn't recall that we beat UNC the next time, our only dual meet win over UNC since 1973 - Dusty left the team earlier that year. (Also, I later remembered that Dusty avenged another loss at the tournament and went on to be the OW of the tournament. So I guess that explains it...)

Anyway, Dusty started coming to practice regularly. It had been five years since he wrestled, but with some Duke-UNC camaraderie (can I mention here that I was 7-2 career against UNC, and both losses were to one kid my 4th year? Or 9-0 against my rivals in high school? And that I'm awesome? Ok, thanks), he learned how to handle greco and worked himself back into shape. Boris realized his opportunity and signed Dusty, an Israeli citizen, up for the oncoming cup. There was a slight problem involving Dusty's plans to go home for the winter, but after some ticket juggling and $175, everything was all set, and the Beit Dany lineup had a trump card.

Now, that digression was a vital one to explain and defend my actions to follow. We sent Dusty out against Assa to make sure he got a match in, and he did well, winning something like 4-0, 2-1. I've gone into detail about the rules in freestyle vs. folkstyle, and greco is even more confusing, but I got a feel for it here. Basically, each period is divided into two: one minute in neutral (i.e. standing) and one minute in par terre (on the mat). The second minute is also divided in two, so that each guy gets a turn on top. There's a set of tiebreakers and rules to ensure that no more time is needed. I had it figured out by the end of the day.

Seeing as I was still learning the specifics of the rules, however, it may not be surprising that my "coaching" duties consisted mostly toweling our wrestler off in between periods. I would yell in Russian or English, pending the wrestler and his command of each language. Probably, I was yelling out foolish or simple terms when I coached in Russian, things like, "Behind, behind!"

Still, we kept winning. Assa Beersheeva was an easy 6-1 triumph in matches won. Hapoel Beersheeva tested us a little bit more, but we clinched a 4-2 win before deciding not to send Dusty out. We were resting him for later, I presumed. Next we romped through a thin Akko team, and when Nazareth decided they'd rather go home than wrestle us, we were all set for an easy berth in the finals against the favored squad from Rehovot.

Nazareth's forfeit and the scheduling quirks meant we had to wait about an hour or two before the finals. It was 3:30, which wasn't so late, but signified a large chunk of our day in anticipating this final. Rehovot was the team to beat, but surely Hapoel Beit Dany (our full name), the little team that could, would offer up a strong fight. Right?

Ithiel wrestled his first match of the day. He had to run all night before to make the weight class, 57 KG (with a +2 KG allowance from 55), and was quite fat, happy, and relaxed by the time this match rolled around. His was a vital match to win, a toss-up that we needed to poach to have a good shot at the dual meet.

So naturally, it didn't go so well. In the first period he went scoreless on his feet but lost in the par terre position handily. The second period didn't even go that well: he gave up points on his feet that limited his chances of making the comeback. And so, we started off the match down 1-0. Surely a base from which to launch that strong fight, right?

Well, except Boris had other ideas. Convinced we had no shot at the dual meet - our 66 and 96 were either not very good or somewhat hurt, 60 was a toss up, and their HVY was considered a monster - Boris decided to forfeit the rest of the way. "Our task was completed," he said before the match, and I only now realized to what degree he meant it.

Now, I've never been confused for a super-intense, win-at-all-costs, winning is all there is type. At least not among wrestling people. I'm competitive, but a lifetime of competing, winning, and losing has shown me that there is more to winning, that winning doesn't solve everything, and that you can't always win. Basically, life has taught me platitudes.

Still, given a chance to wrestle, and a berth in the finals, and the noble duty of fair competition that we were meant to rise to, throwing in the towel would be an atrocious move. Or so I thought. And this time, instead of keeping my thoughts to myself, I started to share my thoughts. With increasing volume.

"Why isn't Jacob wrestling?" I demanded to know of Boris.
"He's injured, his leg hurts," Boris said with a smile, unaware of the fury he was about to unleash.
"Injury? Are you kidding, what injury? He should wrestle!"
Needless to say, my line of persuasion was not very effective. We forfeited at Jacob's weight, and then at the next four weights. Faced with an unresponsive audience, I took the only path I saw left to ensure that at least Dusty, after a great hassle to enter the tournament and rejigger his winter schedule and everything, would get to wrestle a second match. I raised my voice.

"This is cowardly! This is pathetic, this is terrible!" I started yelling.
"Why should he wrestle?" Boris responded. "He'll get hurt, he'll embarrass himself in front of his girlfriend."
"But he's leaving tomorrow, let him wrestle! I'm ashamed to do this!"
"He won't win, why should he wrestle? What shame?"

This dialog went on in the center of the gym, in loud tones. No more wrestling was to be done that day, so around us people started to pick up the mats and wrap up the tournament. And there I was, in black warm up pants and a red shirt the senior director of Israel wrestling had given me, with a fu manchu gracing my face and long hair atop my head, screaming in accented Russian at my coach, calling him a coward. I would have called him worse things too, but I had presence of mind to avoid swearing. Also, I wasn't quite sure how to say, "You're a pussy" in Russian. My curse word knowledge isn't that exact, and I feared I'd hit too high or too low in level.

The argument drew in more than just Boris. His sons explained to me in English that I didn't understand how things worked here. I countered in Russian that Israel was tiny and America huge, and as such our wrestlers are better, and that their mentality was screwy. I started making outlandish claims about how Dusty would win the match. I pulled very few punches.

Our prospective opponent heard our arguing and, being a sportsmen and on the appearance a nice guy, he was more than willing to wrestle Dusty. Their team had no problem with it. A ref had no problem with it. And all of a sudden, over the protests of Boris and that senior director, we started the match.

I've worn egg on my face, proverbially and literally, many times before. It's not a new feeling for me, although that doesn't keep it from being unpleasant. And while I'm sure that my stand was the right one, I wore just a little bit of egg on my face in the corner for that match.

Dusty's opponent appeared legit: a head taller and a good deal wider and stronger, the big man from Rehovot could move, and was a greco guy by specialty, not one month of training. Dusty, meanwhile, brought his American can-do attitude, the frame of a 184 pounder (to translate, 84 KG, and while Dusty weighed around 100 KG, the weight class went up to 120 KG, meaning he was giving up around 40 pounds), and some mildly poofy hair to the proceedings. So while he fought ok on his feet, he conceded points in both periods, meaning he had to go on the bottom in par terre first both times. And both times, par terre involved the following sequence: 1. Dusty goes on hands and knees in a table position. 2. Opponent stands besides Dusty, leans over, and locks his hands around Dusty's waist in a reverse gut wrench lock (such that the two were facing opposite directions). 3. Referee blows whistle as soon as opponent locks. 4. As soon as referee blows whistle, opponent lifts Dusty and throws him over his own head, resulting in five points. 5. Period ends by dual criteria of five point move and six point lead.

So yes, Dusty lost. Quite handily. And on one of those big throws, I worried about him getting hurt, and how maybe he didn't really want to wrestle in this match and I backed him into it, and his girlfriend didn't see why he should wrestle, and I'd just stained my reputation in the Israel wrestling community, and oy-voy-voy, what a balagan! But then he landed, and things were ok.

In fact, while it was a weird and tense situation, no harm ultimately was done (well, maybe to my reputation, but we'll see). We stood on the podium for second proudly, took a bunch of pictures at the next few practices, and made up. Ok, Boris did call me out at the beginning of Sunday's practice, saying, "Ze lo tov, ze balagan," or in translation, "That was no good, that was a mess." When the coach reprimands you in a language you don't really speak, it's not great. But, I argued with him again and we moved on. And Ithiel and another guy agreed that the lesson taught was a bad one. So maybe not all of Israel is lost under this pragmatic mentality, and I've just effected a change that will turn the country around. Or maybe I just looked silly again.


p.s. I should also add that Saturday night, after thinking I had let off all my steam, I attended our school's holiday party. I had a great time, but then we went to an Irish bar* in Herzliya (which I again refer to as possessing the feel of a New England 'burb with San Diego weather), and I got all antsy and pouty** and proceeded to go into the mall where the bar was at and buy two CDs*** from Tower Records****. So some steam still there, until we went to a dance club in Tel Aviv and danced off the anxiety, to video performances of "Hung Up On You," and "Sexy Back", the latter of which prompted my favorite male colleague to remark that, "Say what you want about him; Justin Timberlake gets a lot of good pussy." Fun times.

*Want to know what Israel, America, Moscow, China, Madrid, and just about every other place in the world have in common? They have Irish bars. Wonder why I didn't want to go to one?

** I didn't share any stories from Madrid, mainly because there weren't any great ones: it was mostly a time of resting and catching up with Ben. But for Thanksgiving, Ben and Liz hosted a party Friday night. The party was fine (I worked on my bad Spanish), but notable because I was designated wine bottle opener early on, until I broke the third bottle. How? As I successfully opened it, I tugged with such force that the wine bottle flew out of my hand. It fell on the floor. It broke. Sigh.
But also, this footnote is to mention that some of the time at the party, I went into Ben's room and read essays by Borges from Labyrinths. I got a little tired of the Wii-centered party, especially when it was conducted in Spanish and devolved to creating Wii characters for each person at the party.
Liz was concerned about my behavior and implored Ben to talk to me or entertain me. "Don't worry," he said, recalling perhaps my Great Gatsby reading during grad parties on Long Island, or perhaps my D. H. Lawrence browsing at a New Year's party last year in an uber-ritzy Columbus Circle penthouse apartment. "That's what Dan does at parties."

*** Bjork's Debut, which I know, and Lou Reed's Berlin, which I've only heard about. 90 shekels, which is about $23 these days.

**** Bankrupt in the U.S., still around in pricey suburban Israeli malls and Istanbul's airport.