This is a picture of my dog Strider (named after Aragorn son of Arathorn II, heir of Isildur) and I; my sister Brett knitted the hats.

This weekend after our dual with Nebraska Omaha the team came to my house in Lincoln and watched UFC 94 St. Pierre vs. Penn. Which turned out to be the second biggest attraction next to the chili that my Mom cooked for us (it seems to have become the post match food of the year). The UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championships) is very popular amongst wrestlers because wrestling is a huge part of it and just because we like any type of one on one competition that involves grappling. Georges St. Pierre (GSP) is one of my favorite fighters and he had probably the biggest challenge of his career in defending his title belt against B.J. Penn the champ in the weight division below him. If you haven't heard yet GSP dominated and solidified himself as one of the best pound for pound fighters ever. I like watching GSP fight because he is so entertaining, but the real reason that he is one of my favorite fighters is because of his attitude towards fighting. I was watching a pre-fight interview, and one thing that I found really interesting was St. Pierre's reason for fighting. He said that he fights for himself, because he loves the sport and he has a desire to compete. I found this really interesting because it is very different from a lot of the reasons that other fighters give i.e. for the fans, or the adrenaline rush, or the money.

I guess my reasons for wrestling are a little different but I respect GSP's honesty and humility. I would say that I wrestle for God's glory and for my teammates, or at least this is what I want to wrestler for. I will definitely admit that I sometimes wrestle for selfish reasons, reasons that I am not proud of, sometimes I wrestle because I want people to recognize me or think that I am somebody because of what I have accomplished on the wrestling mat. When I step back and think about what I really value in life I realize that these are not the reasons I should be wrestling. God, family, and friends are the things that are most important to me, or at least the things that I try to make most important to me, and so this is why I wrestle. I believe God has placed me where I am for a reason and blessed me with some awesome people for a reason; and this is why I wrestle, so that win or lose, God will be glorified in my effort and attitude. Now as basically everything in my life is, it is definitely a work in progress, something I know I will never have perfected but something I always need to work on.

This leads me to the last thing I want to write about. We dualed the number one ranked team in DII this weekend, our in-state rivals Nebraska-Omaha. We fought hard but lost the dual, and I lost by a technical fall (a margin of 15 points) to the number one ranked wrestler at my weight. I was thinking to myself after the dual how embarrassing it was to get my rump handed to me in front of a packed house and on T.V. (it was broadcast on our local T.V. station). As I watched the fights that night with my teammates and thought more about it, I realized that I had absolutely no reason to be embarrassed. I respect anyone who is willing to step out on a mat against another opponent and put it on the line. As my dad would say, this is what makes the sport of wrestling so personal; it is just you and the other guy. In my opinion it takes a ton of courage to be a wrestler, to go through grueling workouts, to make weight, to get beat up, and to test yourself against another man. To me it doesn't matter if you are undefeated or defeated on the season, I respect you for putting your body and mind to the test and stepping out where there is nowhere to hide. Well I can see that I have already rambled on long enough as usual, hopefully I haven't gotten too philosophical (thanks dad), so I will end it with a poem from Gandalf the Grey,

"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by frost."

-GTG FOTR-

This is a link to the video of my teammate Paul doing a backflip off our chin-up bar and then hanging from his toes (tales of which you heard of in my first blog)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shg1xoY-JE4