2011 Fargo Blog: Wrap-Up

David Terao – 2011 USAW Freestyle All-American

Congratulations to David Terao (Mid-Pacific, ’11), 119# Freestyle runner-up at the 2011 USAW Junior National Championships held in Fargo, ND.

2011 Fargo Blog: Part 10

Today is Wednesday, the 20th, and the first day of boys freestyle competition. The cadet boys will compete in freestyle while the girls partake in dual meet competition.

For the cadet boys, our day started with a 5:30 wake up and a short van ride to the Fargo Dome for weigh-ins. The weigh-in process went down exactly like Greco weigh-ins, except with more people.

After weigh-ins, we took a short trip to the dorms for breakfast and then returned to the Dome to warm-up. Wrestling started at 9:30 sharp.

Because they want everybody to finish wrestling at the same time, some of the emptier boy’s weight classes were skipped in the first round of wrestling. This meant that only weight classes 112-140 competed in the first round of competition. For the wrestlers, this meant that many of us got only one match in the first session (wrestling is split up into two sessions per day).

The girls on the other hand wrestled the entire session. Since they’re wrestling dual meets, only one girl can get a match at a time. Also, since we have multiple girls in some weight classes, not every girl gets a match each meet.

At the conclusion of the first session at about 1:00 p.m., we all returned to the dorms for lunch (the cafeteria is connected to the dormitories). After lunch, I decided to return to the dome early to get in a better warm-up before the mats were completely taken up by other teams. This proved to be a somewhat futile effort, because I had no one to warm-up with! I was the only team Hawaii boy that got there that early.

Wrestling resumed at 3:30. Losing my first match of the session got me eliminated from the tournament, so by about 4:30 my competition wrestling at Fargo was done. Unfortunately, the same was true for most of my cadet teammates. Those of us who were eliminated decided to use our new found free time to start trading our equipment with other teams.

The Fargo Dome doubles as a wrestling venue and a wrestling swap meet. Just outside the arena one can find singlets, shoes, warm-ups, fight shorts, basically any type of wrestling gear. Any item can be traded for anything. The market is a completely wrestler managed operation, which means prices can be haggled over for hours. It also means that an $80 dollar piece of clothing can be bought for $15 and vice versa. Kevin Corbett was able to buy a singlet for $10 and a box of Hawaiian Host chocolate covered macadamia nuts. Many Hawaii wrestlers are planning to trade away almost their entire wardrobe.

Over the past few days, many of the mainland wrestlers have asked to buy our Hawaii gear, sometimes right off of our backs. This leads many of us to the conclusion that our stuff will fetch a good sum of money if marketed correctly. Funny how Fargo brings out the economist in all of us.

For dinner, for lack of a better term, the girls and the cadets pigged out. Ice cream was the main entree for all of us. After dinner, my roommate Andrew Kahalewai and me ordered pizza from Pizza Hut. We got a meat lover’s pizza and downed it like it was nobody’s business. This angered some of the juniors, like Josh Rivera, who has to make weight tomorrow.

Andrew has been a great roommate. We have a lot in common. Like love of pizza.

Along with eating, many of the cadets decided to do laundry. We had to stay up late to watch our laundry, because earlier today, Chase Tantog’s shorts and shirt were stolen from the dryer. We have our suspicions about the culprits, but there’s really no way to be sure.

Many of us cadets are disappointed right now because we are leaving Fargo empty handed (no medals). But now we can devote our full energy to supporting the Juniors and Chaeden Grace-Reyes, the only cadet who is still competing (Dane Pestano could have continued on, but he had leave Fargo to compete in the Judo Nationals tomorrow).

Also, I’m definitely going to try and barter my gear for some “foreign goods,” as I like to call them.

Aloha,
Tyler Egami

2011 Fargo Blog: Part 9

Today is Tuesday, the 19th. Today the Junior boys wrestled their second day of Greco competition while the entire girls team competed in the junior girls freestyle tournament.

The day started with breakfast in the cafeteria. Many of us cadets, regardless of weight, ate a full breakfast, as it was probably going to be our last meal until weigh-ins .

Actually, the day started with all of us being rousted out of bed for some reason. I eventually found out it was because of a Tornado siren. I was too sleepy to be scared, so I don’t remember much of what happened, except that we had to go downstairs. After a little while, we were allowed to go back to our rooms and back to sleep.

After breakfast, we all headed to the Fargo dome to watch the remaining junior boys compete. Unfortunately, David Terao and Bryan Peralta were both eliminated from the tournament. David, in his first match, landed particularly had on his head, hindering him for the rest of that match and the one afterward. He’s fine now, but unfortunately the injury basically cost him his All-American status.

At 11:00, those of us not competing headed over to the Bison Arena for practice. It was a weight cutting practice for the cadets.

We got to practice in the NDSU wrestling room, which is great for cutting weight and, and, and, has no other redeeming qualities.

The NDSU wrestling room has become notorious among Fargo wrestlers for being deathly hot. When one walks into the room, it’s cool at first, and then you run into a wall of heat. The heat engulfs you and suffocates you while you stand still. The air is thick and humid, and smells of a thousand different sweaty bodies. There is no air circulation, so the stench of every wrestler that’s practiced in the room since the beginning of time hangs in the air. It is the quintessential wrestling room.

Melodrama aside, it is very hot in the room, which makes it perfect for cutting weight, just sitting down, a heavier wrestler could lose a pound in 10 minutes in that room. Practice was more of an open mat time than anything else. There was no coach present because they were too busy with the girl’s tournament. After a brief warm-up, we all just split up and drilled on our own, doing our best to drop the extra pounds put on the day before.

After practice, I returned to the dorms to sleep, as I was exhausted. Today was especially hot, making the trek back to the dorms somewhat difficult. Most of us still had a lot of weight to cut, and each of us has our own way to do it. It was so hot that all I had to do was sleep! After a 4 hour nap, I lost about 3 pounds. The oven like afternoon made it so that I was sweating puddles in my bed. That’s how hot it was.

At 7:00, we had another practice. By now, wrestling had finished for the day. Kaelynn Canyete, Mikaela Pico, Kuuleilani Lankford, Precious Jaramillo, Stephany-Sarara Mix, Libby Petrie, and Cassidy Oshiro all made All-American while Bree Rapoza won her second National Championship up here at Fargo. The girls rock! Cassidy rocks!

For the boys, practice consisted of light drilling if you were on weight, while those who had to cut did whatever they needed to get their weight down. This mostly meant running around the Bison Arena’s indoor track. For the girls, practice was a time to reflect on how much they had just eaten, and on what they were going to eat tomorrow.

Many of us cadets are very excited right now as tomorrow is the first day of freestyle competition. While everyone competed in Greco-Roman, Team Hawaii as a whole is really a freestyle focused team. Many of us expect to do a lot better tomorrow than we did in Greco competition. I guess you could say were pretty psyched.

The girls are full, the cadets are hungry (for food and competition), and the juniors are dreading the fact that they have to cut weight tomorrow. It looks to be a great day tomorrow, not only for the cadets but for the girls as well, who have the dual meet championships to look forward to.

Good luck to everybody.

Aloha,
Tyler Egami

2011 Fargo Blog: Part 8

Today is Monday, the 18th. I slept until 10:30 in the morning. Today was the first day of junior boys competition in Greco-Roman. Also today, Chaeden Grace-Reyes and Dane Pestano went through their second day of Greco-Roman wrestling.

My day, obviously, started pretty slow. I can’t comment much on what everybody else was doing since I woke up so late. I decided to just stay in the dorms until lunch came around, at about 12:00. This morning was somewhat of a “lazy Sunday” for me. A day late and my first one in months since I’ve had wrestling training every Sunday since May.

In the NDSU dorms, there really isn’t much to do. I actually spent most of the time just listening to music and doing my laundry. Honestly though, the rest time was very rejuvenating, as over the past few nights many of us have only been getting around 6 hours of sleep each night. This, combined with wrestling, can be quite taxing on one’s body. In fact, most people just sleep when not wrestling.

When we do our laundry, we have to make sure that we check on it every so often to make sure that no one steals our clothes. As Coach Rob puts it, “Hawaii gear tends to walk away when no one’s looking.” We haven’t had any thefts so far, but I think I saw some kids from another team scouting our dorms this afternoon, so one can never be too sure.

By lunch, Chaeden and Dane had both been eliminated from the tournament. This meant that the cadets could finally pig out as a whole. For lunch, many of us took part in the time honored tradition of gorging ourselves with as much food as possible

After lunch we all headed over to the Fargo Dome to watch the juniors wrestle. Many of the juniors made it past the mid day in the tournament, so there was still a lot of Hawaii wrestling to be watched. I noticed that generally, the junior wrestlers in the tournament were a lot more “cut” than the cadets. That leads me to believe that they are cutting weight more severely than the cadets. This is something for us older cadets to consider for next year as we move up an age group.

At the end of the day, Cassidy Oshiro, David Terao, and Bryan Peralta were still left in the tournament. Cassidy and David are both undefeated, with David being first overall in his weight class. Bryan faced some very stiff competition throughout the day and I think that he’s probably had the hardest run so far in the tournament. I’ve practiced with Cassidy, David and Bryan for the past year. I am really happy for them.

While the juniors wrestled and the cadets watched, the girls were cutting weight. The girls junior wrestling starts tomorrow and all of the girls, juniors and cadets, are competing. Like I said before, girls have a harder time cutting than boys, so they had to hold three practices today in order for the girls who are cutting hard to reach their respective weights. I give the girls major props for how hard they are working.

This reminds me; after our day of relaxation and gluttony, us cadets will have to suck weight tomorrow in order to make weight for our freestyle competition that starts on Wednesday. Personally, I think I’m going to bump up a weight, so this will not be a problem. I have a blurry memory from yesterday of my Dad ordering me to go up a weight class. Something about him not being able to understand what I was saying on the phone. I can’t remember. But for some of the other cadets, weight is about to become a real issue come tomorrow morning.

The mood amongst the boys is mixed right now. On one hand, many feel disappointed, as many of us did not reach our goal of placing in the tournament. But on the other hand, we feel excited for Cassidy, David and Bryan since all three are performing very well. Cassidy and David looking poised to take the national championships in their respective weights.

Overall, the day felt pretty slow to me. Now it’s time to get mentally prepared to cut weight. No more overeating/vegging. Darn it.

Aloha,
Tyler Egami

Bree Rapoza – 2011 National Champion

Congratulations to Bree Rapoza (Kamehameha – Kapalama ’13), 2011 USAW Cadet and Junior National Freestyle Champion. In the photo above, her award was presented by Team Hawaii Coach Dany Hedin.

Waking up in Fargo

Bode, our residence manager, speaks with the rich, lilting English of Nigeria.

Shortly after 4:00 AM this morning, Bode stood at the end of our hall on the first floor of the dorm urging us with his accented voice and his gesturing arms to move down to the basement quickly. Everyone complied. The tornado sirens drowned any conversation but in the background we could hear the low, angry, metallic rumble of something powerful outside in the heavy, hot, wet air — air so full of water and yet completely unwilling to give it up as rain.

Four floors of sweating wrestlers, most needing to pee, having just come from bed, all in slippers with no more on than gym shorts, their room keys on a lanyard nervously swaying on their necks, went quickly down the polished linoleum steps to the airless basement. There were too many people with no room to sit filling the common rooms and kitchen in the basement. Matt Oney and I happened to end up next to the one-seat restroom, a mixed blessing as many bladders needed to empty, including ours, but in the fast-forming line, we got to be first.

We could not move around to count heads in the shoulder-to-shoulder basement. Everyone was polite. There was no fear nor any anger at the unexpected early wake up.

Less than 10 minutes later Bode let us back upstairs. The low rumble in the sky became a thunderstorm of flashing lighting as the air let loose thick, slow-falling raindrops with no cooling effect.

Matt’s back in bed but he had to move his pillow because it is too hot in our room to close the window even though the rain splashes through the screen onto his mattress. The mattress would be wet from sweat if we closed the window so wet from rain seemed to be the least bad option of choice.

I’m too awake to go back too sleep. In a few hours, Cassidy Oshiro, David Terao, and Bryan Peralta take the mat on Day Two of the Junior GR tournament. Wins in the first round today will mean a medal. The Junior women get up at 5:30 AM to check weight before their 7:00 AM weigh in. They compete this afternoon.

Good morning, Fargo, ND.

2011 Fargo Blog: Part 7

Today is Sunday, the 17th, the first day of boys competition. The Team Hawaii Cadet Boys began our Greco-Roman tournament.

Coach Oney woke up all the cadet boys at about 5:30 in the morning. Everybody checked their weight, grabbed their singlets, and then jumped into a van to the Fargo Dome. Kahikina Tihada and Jonah Ramirez had to run a little extra in order to make weight.

Weigh-ins were held in the Fargo Dome. Credentials in hand, about 800 wrestlers were herded by weight class through a medical check, which was basically a skin check, and then the actual weigh-in. The whole process took about 40 minutes. It was extremely efficient. In Hawaii, the same type of process probably would’ve taken around three hours because of the large volume of wrestlers.

After weigh-ins, each cadet boy was given a banana and a small Gatorade. According to Coach Oney, the banana has all the necessary nutrients one would need coming off of a weight cut. The gatorade served to rehydrate our bodies after a long period of dehydration. I didn’t really notice any specific physical effects because I was just happy to be eating and drinking something.

After weigh-ins, we made our way to the cafeteria for breakfast. We were also given a meal plan for breakfast:

- Two pieces of toast, with peanut butter and jelly
- A glass of water, half a glass of milk, a glass of half juice and half water
- Either one serving of eggs or yogurt
- Whatever fruit was available (more bananas)

After breakfast, we returned to the Fargo Dome for a brief warm-up. We were basically allowed to warm up on our own because of the short amount of time we had.

The Fargo Dome is truly massive in terms of being a wrestling venue. Actually a football field, the main floor holds 23 full wrestling mats, with one special raised mat in the center of the arena.

It’s very cold in the dome, so sweats are a necessity for any wrestler who wants to get a sweat going before their match.

There are several food stands within the dome, including a Subway sandwich bar, a mini Dominoes Pizza, and a ColdStone Creamery.

Asics has its own booth set up especially for the tournament, with all of its wrestling products for sale at a special event discount (but somehow still very expensive). Most interesting is a new shoe that is on display. This yet to be released shoe, whose name I failed to remember, looks to be the official Asics Olympic shoe, as it is not set to be released until 2012. The only three color patterns offered are red, white and blue. The shoe is extremely light, and the tongue/lace portion of the shoe is more open than previous Aasics models. The grip portion of the shoe is also quite unique, but too hard to describe in writing.

Wrestling started promptly at 9:00 a.m. Those wrestling at the cadet level were (in order of ascending weight class) at 105 Brayden Akeo, at 112 Treylan Kobayashi, Isaac Diamond, Brendan Chang, and Kahikina Tihada, at 130 Jonah Ramirez and Bobby Kim, at 140 Andrew Kahalewai and me, at 152 Chaeden Grace-Reyes and Justin Taylor, and at 215 Dane Pestano.

I won’t go into results too much because as I understand it, they can all be found on TrackWrestling or TheMat.com. But by the end of the day, only Chaeden and Dane were still competing in the tournament.

Once I was eliminated the first thing I decided to do was eat. It felt really good to eat food again. I discovered today how much I value the flavors of Subway and how good they can be after a long period of not eating.

Others decided to go shopping. Personally, I think that the prices up here are somewhat ridiculous. T-shirts are all more expensive than $20. Sweaters and Jackets, start at $50. And if you’re feeling especially spendy, you can get your hands on a singlet for no less than $80 a piece. To me, the prices are ridiculous. I would much rather spend my money on food.

Once out of the tournament, the day lost most of its purpose for the cadet boys. Most of us either stuck around to watch those still wrestling, or returned to the dorms to eat and sleep.

At 8:00 p.m. a mandatory practice was held for the girls, with the boys being given the option of going. The girls, who wrestle on Tuesday, were mostly cutting weight in order to get themselves in range of their respective weight classes. This is necessary because unfortunately for them, it seems like the girls do not have the ability to lose substantial amounts of weight like the boys do the night before weigh-ins. Instead must take their weight down over a longer period of time.

I decided to attend the practice in order to work off some of what I’d eaten today. Most of us cadets are now completely focused on freestyle. Tonight’s practice served as a means for us to “get back into it,” so to speak. A lot of us are very rusty when comes to freestyle because we’ve been focusing on Greco for the entire week.

So that’s what happened today. I’d describe the mood right now as somber for most because of the general lack of success, but one could also say that although we’re bummed out about our wrestling, at least for a little while our stomachs are actually full.

Aloha,
Tyler Egami

P.S. – Sorry for no blog yesterday. I would try to write one, but the fact of the matter is, I really don’t remember much from yesterday other than the fact that I was cutting weight and also that the cadet girls did really well. Each of the cadet girls worked really hard and I think that all but one made All-American. Congrats to all of them on a great tournament. Huge congrats to Bree Rapoza, who can now add a Fargo national championship to her already impressive resume. Each and every girl, regardless of place, has worked EXTREMELY hard to get here and their team national championship is well earned. I am proud and humbled to call them my teammates.

South Dakota Pics

2011 Fargo Blog: Part 6

Today is Friday, the 15th. We traveled from South Dakota to Fargo. The anticipation is really high, especially for the Cadets, who are wrestling tomorrow and Sunday.

Our day started with a morning practice, once again with team Missouri. The practice was short and sweet. It was basically only drilling for about 70 minutes. Coach Mayhab, the Missouri coach, briefly explained each technique, then broke us up for drills.

The Missouri team is very large, much larger than that of team Hawaii. Even though we split the practice into two sessions, the practice was a little cramped. One session was for all the boys weighing 145 and below, and the other for the heavier boys. The girls had a practice completely to themselves.

After practice, we returned to the dorms to pack. I never really realized how messy my dorm was until I actually had to pack everything up again. I found myself reaching behind desks and searching every nook and cranny for some object of mine that might’ve slipped through the cracks. It was a very difficult process.

After we’d all finished packing, we all boarded the bus for Fargo. Before we left, the coaches passed out Subway sandwiches for all of us (only six inchers of course). Unlike before, we were all allowed to pick what type of sandwich we wanted. I chose a BLT. It was a moral dilemma. For about two seconds.

The bus ride to Fargo took about 31/2 hours. We spent the time watching some in-bus entertainment in the form of two movies; “She’s the Man” and “X-Men: First Class.”

Upon arriving in Fargo, or more precisely North Dakota State University, we got off the bus and walked to the Bison Arena, the NDSU training facility. The facility houses the wrestling room I talked about in a previous blog, an entire indoor track, a basketball court, and an empty pool. Now there are about eight wrestling mats laid out on the gym floor.

While the coaches got all of our paperwork in order, we were told to go wait in the stands, under the assumption that the process would only take a short amount of time. We arrived at the arena at about 3:20. We sat in the stands till about 6:00. It was funny how 4:00 practice turned into 5:00 practice, which turned into 6:00 dinner time. Eventually because of the hour, the coaches had to let us go eat without practicing before the dining room closed.

The NDSU dining room is a weight cutter’s worst nightmare. Along with the entrees, there is a sandwich, salad, drink, pastry, and ICE CREAM bar. The last two are the ones that I think really pained all of us. We couldn’t eat all that wonderful soft-served ice cream, with strawberry, chocolate, and caramel toppings, and a never-ending supply of whipped cream. It was so close, yet so far.

After dinner, we returned to the gym for an evening practice. The purpose of this practice was for the cadet girls to cut weight. They were led by Coach Ku’u in a weight cutting practice, while the boys and junior girls drilled. The practice lasted about an hour and a half. I’m not sure who, but as I understand it, some of the girls decided to bump up a weight because of the difficulty they were having with making their planned weight class.

Once practice finished, it was already pretty late so we all returned to the dorms. This time, the girls and boys are staying in separate buildings. I’m not sure about how the girls feel about this, but I’m pretty dang sure that most of the boys are extremely bummed.

Upon returning to our dorms, many of us went to do laundry. Unlike up at SDSU, the laundry is free here in Fargo, which makes it a lot easier because we no longer have to go searching for the special card that operates the washers. Also, we were issued the rest of our uniforms today. We were given two singlets (the same ones as last year), official team Hawaii MMA shorts, two shirts, a lanyard, and a water bottle.

That’s pretty much what we did today. The attitude up here is much more serious, not as laid back as it was in South Dakota. I anticipate being much more busy in the next few days and internet access is a lot more scarce up here. So, let me apologize in advanced for any late entries in the blog.

Aloha,
Tyler Egami

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