Olympic Team Trials 2012 - THANK YOU

First and foremost, I sent all my congratulations out to those who won the 2012 Olympic Wrestling Team Trials this past weekend in Iowa City, IA. I will do whatever I can to help you as you represent out country with honor. I feel like we have a very strong team and are ready to shock the world and win the Olympics as a country. I next want to thank all of the businesses and family and friends that supported me financially and in spirit as I trained and competed in my attempt to make the Olympic Team.

I clearly fell short if you hadn't heard yet. I had a very disappointing tournament, but I was one of only ten wrestlers at my weight class that were given the opportunity to even try and make the Olympic team. I am not done with my career yet. I am young in this sport and ready to go back to the drawing board, fix some things, physically, technically, and mentally as I start my training for Rio in 2016. I am discouraged that I didn't compete to my best ability but I feel the ability and potential is there. I just have to take and do work and get there. 

I saw many things this weekend from my teammates and other wrestlers around the country that experienced the tournament as I did, with disappointment. Disappointment does not have to lead to depression, or despair, or regret, or retirement. I can lead to dedication, commitment, desire, and can make a person stronger in the long run. I believe this is what will come of my disappointment in Iowa City. I know in my heart I am better than what the fans saw this weekend. I know I have the ability and the determination to be the best in the world, it just won't be in 2012. 

I only ask my friends and family to continue to believe in me as you have this past couple years. I will always appreciate your support in all ways. Thank you again and GO TEAM USA!

Communicating with Foreigners!

I found myself thinking today, after a session of basketball with some South American teams, about how arrogant we are when we attempt to communicate with people in their native tongue. We speak in broken phrases and incorrect vernacular that we believe they should understand. If you think about it, in fact we are showing them just how unintelligent we really are. Yes, I know we are just giving it our best attempt at conversing but just imagine if we talked to each other with this broken grammar. It is an elementary english teacher's worst nightmare. I didn't realize how ridiculous I sounded until I began asking my friend if we could listen to music on his phone and the only words I could get out were, "Phone…uh…music….mmmm…listen….in sauna." It was as if I had lost my cognitive ability to put thoughts together into a sentence. He simply laughed and reminded me that he spoke the same language as me and I didn't have to break it down for him. It dawned on me that this is essentially how stupid we sound when we attempt to mix English and Spanish together incoherently into a phrase to get our message unsuccessfully across to someone who can't speak English. I have a very select vocabulary in Spanish from my 3 years of Spanish that ended when I was 16. This allows me more to understand than actually communicate this week with our friends from the south, but when they need to know what is happening I merely resort back to my caveman like phrasing of their language. I believe this will be the beginning of my very sincere attempt to learn a new language. As of now I think I'll probably try to start increasing my knowledge of the Spanish language since that is what I am presented with most frequently here in the United States but Russian is a language I really want to master because of our frequent trips to Russian speaking countries through wrestling. This revelation I have had today makes me really appreciate foreigners that can speak English so much more. I will never laugh at anyone ever again for their struggles to communicate with me because I'm sure my attempts to communicate in their language are just as bad! 

Sunkist

October 24, I wrestled in the Sunkist International Open. This whole weekend was a be trip and ordeal with many different obstacles. Moza Fay, Alicia Hubbard and I left Thursday morning for the long 12 hour drive from Colorado Springs to Tempe, AZ. Luckily my weight was fine Moza and Alicia were not quite as luck so they had to watch what they ate and drank the whole trip down. The three of us had great fortune as we found generous friends that allowed us to share their room to cut back on our costs. Thursday was reserved for travel but when we arrived in Tempe we did get a workout in at the Arizona State wrestling facility. Friday was a pretty simple day as we again got another workout in but Alicia had to weigh in along with the other women wrestlers and the Greco-Roman wrestlers that were competing that weekend. Saturday would be their tournament as the freestyle tournament was scheduled for Sunday. I watched very little of the Saturday action as I had to weigh in and eat. Moza, Chase Pami, JP O'Connor and myself filled ourselves with Olive Garden immediately following weigh in. We were ready to go the next day. The tournament started early but I had a bye for the first round, which placed me in the quarterfinals. I wrestled a young wrestler from Arizona State's college team and beat him 4-0, 7-0 in just two periods. My semifinal match would prove much tougher. I wrestled Brandon Halsey. Halsey has beaten in the past at last year's Dave Schultz Memorial. He would better me again in three periods by a score of 2-5, 2-1, 1-1. This would send me into the losers bracket and I would wrestle back hard. My next match was against Israel Silva from Mexico. I would beat him in three periods after I lost the first period in a clinch 0-1. I rebounded to win the next to periods 3-0, 3-0 and put myself in the 3rd place match. There I would meet defending NCAA Hwt champion David Zabriskie. This may have been the best match I wrestled all day. I showed good movement and solid defense in a two period win 2-0, 2-0. The third place finish was obviously lower that I would have liked but I think it is a good start since I hadn't wrestled in a tournament since February because of injuries. That night I would celebrate God's blessing me and my family with many good fortunes that weekend, but prepare myself as well for the 12 hour drive the next day. Monday we picked up a hitchhiker, Kelsey Campbell decided to ride back with us as her plane wasn't scheduled to leave until wednesday. The ride back was much harder that the drive there. We made it back safely and with determination to improve on our wrestling that weekend. Many of my friends and teammates wrestled at the tournament. The brackets and results can be found at this website 2010 Sunkist International Open results. Please take a look at them. I will have a couple more blogs up soon as I am trying to catch up from last month. Thanks for hanging in there as I am quite new to the social media scene. I hope everyone had a great Halloween! God Bless

Turf Toe

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. Today I am going to talk about how deceiving the label of turf toe. This small injury is very painful. True that can be played through but the simple name "Turf toe" just makes it seem like a jammed toe that should not effect performance but as I have learned over the last two weeks this is far from a simple jammed toe. I have continued to train and practice as if it wasn't there but trust me my mobility is affected and pain runs through my foot. It has come to the point that the athletic trainers have decided it best to put my foot in a walking boot so my toe can rest for the weekend. It looks stupid and is horrible to walk in, but it really is helping so I guess it is for the best. Basically this whole discussion is leading me to urge athletic trainers and medical staff to change the name of turf toe to something that better describes the pain people are really in when they have this injury. I offer any suggestions to be posted here and I will pass them on to the proper channels to try and change the name.

Helping Others

So I have always loved teaching others because of the joy they get when whatever I am teaching clicks in their head like that light bulb feeling I get when I finally understand that move I have been working on for months. It all started when I was in high school and began teaching swim lessons to little kids during the summer. It is still the best feeling I have ever had. When I am able to let go of a 6 year old and he/she floats on his/her back without my help, the smile on their face makes my heart and stomach jump for joy. Well, I miss it very much but I haven't had the chance to teach a swim lesson in almost 2 years now, but I have continued my joy of helping and teaching others. I continued with getting my undergraduate degree from Central Michigan University with a double major in Secondary Mathematics and Physical Education. Many steps along the way put me in the classroom and with children to help everyday but the next most rewarding experience for me was working with special needs students in a special physical education course. The first semester I was involved, I was assigned to a student who at one time was fully functional with no physical or mental impairments at all. The student suffered a closed head injury and will for the rest of his life be confined to a wheel chair with no verbal communication skills at all. At times, it was actually difficult to tell how much activity there was in the 18 year old's head. Now with this being a physical education class I was given the difficult task of creating physical activity for the student that could barely move his arms or legs on his own. The joy of working with the student really hit me when I became part of his emotions. To see the student cry because he was having a bad day or smile because he saw a pretty girl would make or break my day as well. That experience put me back in that course helping for the next 2 years as well as volunteering with the Special Olympics state summer games in Michigan. I have had thousands of other stories I could tell you all but those are two that have shaped my life. I still continue to help people today with anything I can. I have taken on three college math students and hope that I can make a difference in their education and/or life somehow. I live for those light bulb moments and so far my new students haven't disappointed. I cannot thank the people enough that have given me the opportunity to have these experience that have literally made me the hard working and caring person I am today. Just know that if you were there along the way you meant a lot in my life as well.

September

Just to keep everyone up to date on my training. With the World Championships in Moscow, Russia next weekend, team OTC coaching staff has left the country. I are still training back here in the Springs and will continue to work on getting better. There is no time to rest as Sunkist International is quickly approaching. I am concentrating very much on my conditioning right now as I work on technique as well. It is an uphill battle to get back in shape but I have never had more drive than I do right now. I am working on channelling that drive into training efficiently and improving. I will frequently keep you updated as I approach competitions and hopefully put a video blog up soon. If anyone has any questions for me feel free to email me at wynn.michalak@gmail.com.

Michalak Wrestling

This is my new blog website. I will try and make it very user friendly so everyone can keep up with my training, competing and life in between. Thanks everyone for supporting me and following me. Tell your friends about my new blog. You can also follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/wynner96 or on my new Facebook Fan Page at www.facebook.com/pages/Michalak-Wrestling. Once I figure it out I will also try to put up some video blogs.