Wrestling

“ Wrestling is a form of personal encounter which in antiquity reached a high development, and which, although now more known and practised as athletics of the body than of the soul, has certain special disciplinary capacities in its various forms. It represents the most primitive type of the struggle of unarmed and unprotected man with man. ”

“ Now, my brethren, are wrestling matches a proper way of keeping God’s feasts? That is the question we have to answer.
The object of wrestling and of all other athletic sports is to strengthen men’s bodies, and to teach them to use their strength readily, to keep their tempers, to endure fatigue and pain. These are all noble ends, my brethren. God gives us few more valuable gifts than strength of body, and courage, and endurance—to you labouring men they are beyond all price. ”

“ Not content with this glowing eulogium on a sport long dear to Cumberland and Westmorland, and as emphatic as any ever uttered on the Swifts at Carlisle, the enthusiastic baronet goes on to say:—
"No doubt but Wrestling, which does not only employ and exercise the Hands, Feet, and all other Parts of human [Pg xxx] Frame, may well be stiled both an Art and Science; however, I will do my endeavour, both Hip and Thigh, that Wrestling shall be no more look'd upon by the Diligent as a Mystery." ”

“ The men spring at each other like a pair of savage fighting dogs and the contest is settled before you know it. There is none of that straining to get a certain hold, or to break one, which is so characteristic of our style of wrestling, and you never see the contestants writhing in deadly embrace upon the floor. The vanquished need not necessarily be thrown at all, though often he is. ”

“ Old and young regarded wrestling science, wrestling distinction and strength, with keen relish. The Sunday following victory, the champion might be seen marching to church, decorated with the belt, and on the Sunday following showing off at another neighbouring church. ”

“ There was present His Highness the Lord Protector, many of his privy council, and divers eminent gentlemen, to whose view was presented great agility of body and most neat and exquisite wrestling at every meeting of one with the other, which was ordered with such dexterity, that it was to show more the strength, vigour, and nimbleness of their bodies, than to endanger their persons. ”

“ Indeed, our readers generally will, we imagine, be apt to consider the Eastern wrestling amusement no better than something akin to our mediæval barbarism. Certainly, nothing in athletics can be considered more strikingly different, than one of our quick scientific harmless bouts, as distinguished from the butting or tupping, the pushing and hauling, the rough tumbling about, and clumsy finale, in which victory is mainly due to overpowering strength and weight. ”

“ He compares him to wrestlers, boxers, and runners in the public games. Have you ever seen two strong men wrestling? How their muscles harden into knots, and their veins swell full as if they would burst! ”

“ I had often heard tell of and read accounts about wrestling, but this was the first time I had ever witnessed an encounter in the old English sport, if sport it could be called, where two strong men, one far bigger and heavier than the other, swayed to and fro, heaving, straining, and doing all they could to throw one another.
There was a dead silence on the deck, and passengers, skipper, and sailors all bent forward, eagerly watching the encounter, but not one with such earnestness as I, who fully expected to see Gunson flung heavily. ”

“ Then the wrestlers begin their play. Their wrestling does not seem like ours, but there are blows (given) , so severe as to break teeth, and put out eyes, and disfigure faces, so much so that here and there men are carried off speechless by their friends; they give one another fine falls too. ”

“ The wrestling is carried on, as a rule, good-temperedly; but when done by professionals for reward, awkward tricks are employed, such as suddenly thrusting the fingers into the eye of the adversary, and others still more dangerous. ”

“ Whoever understands Wrestling, will ne'er call the Out-Play a safe and secure Play; besides the Inn-Play will sooner secure a Man's Person, when Playing at Sharps, than the Out, which ought to encourage Gentlemen to learn to wrestle. ”

“ Occasionally one or two men from each circle would stand up and go through the wild but elegant figures of the Bedouin dances, whilst groups of pretty and timid girls, collected in knots round the walls of the house, watched with the deepest interest the wrestling matches of their lovers or brothers, and joined loudly in the plaudits which crowned a successful competitor with the full-blown honours of championship. ”

“ In order that the statement just made may not be misunderstood, it is repeated: the wrestling game at present is like the chariot race in a circus—the performers are hired men and the race is only a sham. ”

“ Wrestling was a favourite exercise of the Japanese samurai from the earliest time. When first heard of historically, two decades before the commencement of the Christian era, it presents itself simply as the art of applying one's strength to the best advantage for the destruction of an enemy. ”

“ Will.—In the schools of the wrestling master, when a boy falls he is bidden to get up again, and to go on wrestling day by day till he has acquired strength; and we must do the same, and not be like those poor wretches who, after one failure, suffer themselves to be swept along as by a torrent. ”

“ NORTH COUNTRY SPORTS AND PASTIMES. Wrestling and Wrestlers: Biographical Sketches of Celebrated Athletes of the Northern Ring; TO WHICH IS ADDED Notes on Bull and Badger Baiting. BY JACOB ROBINSON AND SIDNEY GILPIN. Of all the athletic amusements of the people, Wrestling is beyond doubt the best.—Christopher North. ”

“ Well, wrestling's his forte—and he can break the back of any man he gets his arms round—and the rest's a mixture of boxing, ju-jitsu, and la savate, which, as you know, is kicking. Yes, he's a dirty tighter, though it's precious rarely that it comes to what you could call a fight. ”

“ This intolerant anathema did not put a stop to the practice of Wrestling, on fine summer evenings, at [Pg 3] nearly all the villages of Cumberland and Westmorland—a practice, we opine, less detrimental to the formation of a good rural peasantry than loitering about or brawling in village ale-houses. It was, however, upwards of a century and a half after, before back-hold wrestling assumed the importance it has attained. A passing notice of doings in the ring, in a long ago period, may nevertheless be interesting. ”

“ The fact is, wrestling is an ancient and honorable calling in Japan, and goes back to the sun goddess. She had a brother once who used to annoy her by killing wild animals and tossing them into her backyard. ”

“ A middle-agedp. 27 man in a short mantle, or chlamys, with a rod or wand in his hand, is watching and directing the exercises of the boys, generally a wrestling-match. We know also, from the pentathlon being once introduced at Olympia for boys, that its five exercises were those in which they were usually trained—leaping, running, throwing the discus, the spear, and wrestling. For elder boys, boxing and the pancratium were doubtless added, if they meant to train for public competitions, but ordinary gentlemen’s sons would never undergo this special training and its hardships. ”

“ An ardent temper, and the buoyancy of youthful spirits, no doubt gave considerable zest to the sports, and my memory fondly recalls, and dwells with peculiar delight, on the hours which I have spent amidst happy villagers engaged in these rustic scenes of innocent amusement. I will also venture to assert, that amongst the peasantry assembled on the village green, not only Weightman, Cass, Abbot, Wright, and the Dobsons of Cliburn, but even Mr. Litt himself, imbibed his earliest knowledge of the rudiments of wrestling. ”

“ Wrestling, hitting, and kicking are employed; the style of wrestling is hazardous; victory is usually obtained by strangling; biting and gouging are alone prohibited. The prohibition of gouging and biting is evidently a quotation from the actual rules of Olympia. ”

“ Therefore I say that wrestling, inasmuch as it is a severe trial of strength, temper, and endurance, may be, and ought to be, one of many right and proper ways of rejoicing before God at these feasts. And I say to any man who has [300] strength for it, and can keep his temper, and carries away no vain or proud thoughts if he wins, and no angry or revengeful thoughts if he loses, play by all means. ”

“ But skillful, clever wrestling—like a professional. Why, I hadn’t a show. He didn’t hurt me a bit, but he just, well, he just sort of set me on one side. Then, as you say, he did know, even in the dark, just where he wanted to get to—and he got there. ”

“ I suppose there are more unsettled points in wrestling, or it is harder to see whether the men are playing fair, for the crowd was much more excited now than at the backsword play, a hundred voices shouting to the umpires every moment to stop this or that practice. Besides, the kicking, which is allowed at elbow and collar wrestling, makes it look brutal very often ”

“ And although at first the spectators shouted their disapproval of manifest violations of rule, yet when they saw that the blood of both combatants was up, and that they were resolved on something more serious than a wrestling match, they were quite prepared to encourage the new direction taken, for to them the greater the violence employed and the greater the danger to life and limb in those engaged, the more acute was their pleasure, and the more interesting the sport. ”

“ Indeed, one of the commands of the papyrus implies that it was lawful to take a grip between an opponent’s legs, or round the thigh. [661] In wrestling groups which represent the heave we sometimes see a wrestler trying to save himself by seizing the other’s legs. Perhaps we may recognize as a wrestling scene a group which occurs on an Etruscan tomb. [662] One man has lifted another on to his shoulder, with his right arm clasped round his right thigh, and his left hand holding his right hand. He may intend to throw him, or he may merely be carrying him. ”

“ This is one of those ancient customs still persevered in, after its object and intention, and even the meaning of it, have become quite obsolete. Among the amusements of the common people, wrestling deserves mention, as being still in frequent use. ”

“ Not less popular than the fencing are the boxing and wrestling exercises. The first year men are assembled in classes and given instruction in boxing in the guard, footwork, parries, simple direct leads and counters. Similarly in wrestling, the simple holds, resultant falls, and the breaks for the simple holds are all taught.
It is not, however, to the regular class work that one must go to judge of the grip that these manly sports have upon the cadets. ”

“ The broadside designers also devoted some attention to the wrestler, who was a favourite caterer for the amusement of the public, but their training in the traditional art canons had rendered them unfit to appreciate the grand display of muscular force, that often revealed itself beneath the hide of the athlete, and as they could make nothing of the heavy features and elephantine limbs of their model, the few studies of the wrestling arena that have reached us have little attraction for the art collector. ”

“ The wrestlers in the celebrated Florentine marble group, represented in Fig. 128, are in this position. This wrestling on the ground, however, only took place in the boys’ gymnastic school, and afterwards in the public contests of Pancratiasts (see below, page 296) , and professional athletes; in the great contests and the Pentathlon only standing wrestling was allowed. The mode in which the wrestlers began the combat has been clearly described by several writers, and often represented on monuments. ”

“ Wrestling, again, was among the most popular sports, and one of those which gave most trouble to coroners. The two great wrestling matches in 1222 between the citizens of London and the suburbans ended in a riot which assumed almost the dignity of a rebellion. Fatal wrestling-bouts, like fatal games of chess, are among the stock incidents of medieval romance ”

“ And they who seek to win the crown of victory by strength of body and in a regular wrestling match, harden their limbs by daily practice in the wrestling school, foster their endurance, and accustom themselves to hard work. ”

“ Do you not see the wrestling-masters in the practising grounds, who, after countless contests having obtained exemption from wrestling on account of their age, sit outside the lines by the side of the dust and shout to those who are wrestling inside, telling one to grasp a hand, or drag a leg, or seize upon the back, and by many other directions of that kind, saying, “if you do so and so you will easily throw your antagonist,” they are of the greatest service to their pupils? ”

“ There was a third sort of wrestling, called Ἀκροχειρισμὸς, from the Athletæ's using only their hands in it, without taking hold of the body, as in the other kinds; and this exercise served as a prelude to the greater combat. It consisted in intermingling their fingers, and in squeezing them with all their force; in pushing one another, by joining the palms of their hands together; in twisting their fingers, wrists, and other joints of the arm, without the assistance of any other member; and the victory was his, who obliged his opponent to ask quarter. ”

“ WRESTLING, is a wanton combat, or engagement between two unarmed persons, who exert all their strength and dexterity to throw each other on the ground.
Wrestling was in great repute among the ancients; but, with the modern nations, it is seldom practised. ”

“ All men receive instruction in wrestling in class, but like the other sports, its devotees must repair for extra instruction to Mr. Jenkins during recreation hours. It is in this time that men practice for their class teams, one for each of the following weights: unlimited, heavy, light heavy, middle, welter, light, and feather. The four class teams meet each other successively to wrestle for the class championship. ”