Half Nelsons and Headlocks
Two young wrestling Club Members recently wrapped up another winning season on the mat.
Kazuho Kawashima pulls a black athletic sock over his heavily bandaged right ankle. It’s been just a week since surgeons inserted a screw in the top of the high school senior’s foot to pin together his ankle.
The captain of St Mary’s International School wrestling team rolled his ankle during a practice last December, but he didn’t realize he had a double fracture until the end of the season in mid-February.
It was a season in which the Club Member went undefeated while leading his team to an unprecedented five tournament titles, earning Kawashima Far East Outstanding Wrestler of the Year.
“In a sense, I am relieved it is over. No more cutting weight [and] two- hour practices, six days a week,” says the 18-year-old. “Looking back, the hard work I put in paid off in the end.” Kawashima’s teammate and fellow Club Member Rio Lemkuil, 16, was the Far East tournament champion in the 115-pound (52 kilo) weight class.
A sophomore, Lemkuil lost his first match of the season a week before the tournament. He overcame the same opponent in the finals with an ankle lace. He says he owes his victory in part to Kawashima’s advice to take deep breaths before each bout.
“It was basically muscle memory from practice,” Lemkuil says about his winning move. “I thought I could do it, so I just went for it and it worked out pretty well.” High school wrestling is a form of freestyle wrestling, which, along with Greco-Roman wrestling, is contested at the Olympic Games. Lemkuil says he was inspired by the older wrestlers to take up the sport. Kawashima started wrestling his freshman year after he was cut from the basketball team.
“The wrestlers on the team were so tough and really kind of intimidating,” says Kawashima. “I wanted to be like that.” Kawashima’s sophomore year, he lost only three times, all to the same senior.
That was his last taste of defeat, as he racked up a perfect 34-0 record his junior and senior years. “I hate losing,” he says.
This year, Kawashima wrestled in the 148-pound (67 kilogram) weight class, considered the toughest division in the Far East district, which includes 15 schools across Japan and South Korea. He says he is mulling options to wrestle in college in the United States this fall.
In his final career bout at the Far East tournament, Kawashima faced the same wrestler he defeated in 20 seconds at the Kanto final. In the second period, Kawashima was able to cross his opponent’s ankles, rope his arm through his legs and roll him across the mat for a winning leg lace move.
“Winning in wrestling, you can’t compare to any sport,” Kawashima says. “You are in a whole other world.”
Words Nick Narigon
Image Benjamin Parks
