Calmer Thoughts....

This entry is cross-posted from DonnaRose.com:

I'll tell you something...I slept well last night. I'm also still on east coast time as I was up and moving before 6am here. After the temporary insanity of the past few weeks I've got some readjusting to do.

The good news is that I'm not nearly as sore or mentally and physically exhausted as I found myself to be last night. I'll admit to being a bit surprised by that, but nobody (even me, I think) really realizes the energy and focus that went into doing what I did in Cleveland. It would be easy to trivialize it but sometimes there are tests we set for ourselves and for some reason this was one for me.

After I won on Friday night I was scheduled to face the #1 ranked US wrestler in the weight class. Her name is Iris Smith, and she's a 5-time US freestyle champion. Her resume of accomplishments in the sport is extensive is extensive and I can't tell you how much I respect her for all she's done.

In 2005 she was written up as the USOC Athlete of the month:

Smith (Colorado Springs, Colo.) won a gold medal at 72kg/158.5 lbs. at the World Wrestling Championships, the most important international event of the year, Sept. 30 in Budapest, Hungary. Smith scored a major upset in the gold-medal finals, defeating five-time World champion Kyoko Hamaguchi of Japan, 3-1, 1-1, 1-0. Smith was the only U.S. woman wrestler to win a World gold medal this year and became only the fourth U.S. woman wrestler ever to win a World title on her way to leading the United States to a strong third-place finish in the team standings at the World Championships.

Smith won four matches on the way to her historic win. In her first bout, Smith stopped Stanka Zlateva of Bulgaria, 3-1, 1-0. In the quarterfinals, Smith stopped Angnieska Wieczczek of Poland, 2-0, 6-0. She also had a strong semifinal win over Anita Schaetzle of Germany, 3-1, 2-0.

Smith was competing in her second World Championships. She is a member of the U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program.

She was featured as a US Olympian in a PSA all about sportsmanship:



Anyway - competing at this event involves competing against elite athletes like Iris. And for someone of my unique circumstance at this stage of life to compete against her is more of an honor than anything. Someone asked me if I was nervous stepping out there with her and the answer was "of course not". All I can do is my best, and given the circumstances that's what I did.

The irony is that, despite her amazing list of achievements, if you type "iris smith wrestling" into Google (there are over 300,000 hits) number 8 on that list right now is the video of our match from Saturday morning.



Wrestling Videos on Flowrestling

Admittedly, it wasn't much of a match for her and it's a little embarrassing to watch myself do this. But, I left with my pride (and my face!) intact. Until this weekend I had never wrestled another woman on a mat. Now I've competed with some of the best. The question I need to ask myself is whether I want to do it again or whether I'm done. Honestly, I don't have that answer yet.

On the bright side Chloe got some good video from the match on Friday night which is much more flattering. I hope to share that here sometime soon as well.

Speaking of more flattering, they did a brief video shoot at the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce Dinner in Washington DC last November and recently posted it online:



Needless to say, I'm much more in my comfort zone sipping Cosmo's, talking about LGBT Business issues, and wearing a gown than I am on the mat these days. Still, I think the combination of the two demonstrates a remarkable range of skills. :-)