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The Vision Quest Podcast
A podcast about life, sports, and life in sports! Enjoy!
The Vision Quest Podcast
#105 A New Era in Wrestling: Katherine Shai's Inspiring Quest!
Katherine Shy challenges the traditional wrestling culture by advocating for a more intentional, mentally-focused approach to training. She emphasizes the importance of adapting coaching methods and creating an inclusive environment to empower athletes and elevate the sport as a whole.
• Exploration of Katherine's wrestling legacy and background
• Discussion on challenges faced by female wrestlers in traditional settings
• Importance of mental health and innovative training strategies
• Launching Lucha Fit to support athletes and coaches in evolving their practices
• Focus on video analysis and skill enhancement for competitive advantage
• Encouragement to build a more inclusive and supportive wrestling culture
Lucha Fit Twitter Link: https://x.com/LuchaFit
Lucha Fit Instagram Link: https://www.instagram.com/lucha.fit?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==
Lucha Fit Website Link: https://www.luchafit.com/
Appleton Tattoo Links
https://www.facebook.com/appletontattoo
https://www.instagram.com/mark_appletontattoo/
920 Hat Co. Links
https://920hatco.com/
https://www.instagram.com/920hatco/
https://www.facebook.com/920HatCo
It's not important. The intro is not important. We just need to get right to the facts, because we have a lot to talk about. We have a lot to talk about. We have a very special guest, and I'm actually this is probably a little different for me, because now you know, I've talked to a few of the female senior wrestlers, but we're talking to Lucha Fit, catherine Shy. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1:Get your name out there, yes, but you bring a different. You bring a different twist to it. Right, we're still going to talk about your whole story, but we just talked about before how I was kind of bringing up Eric Barnett and the Complete Wrestler and the things that you guys are bringing to the game now, and how you're changing the landscape of how wrestling can look and you're bringing more of a I guess, a psycho, psychological approach to it, you know, and and just healthier outlook to it. So, ladies and gentlemen, it's a vision quest podcast. We are joined by katherine shy and we are going to be starting out with hey man, where are you? Where are you from? Where are you from where?
Speaker 2:where do I, where am I from, where, where do I reside? So I'm, I am from California, from the Bay area is where. I grew up and I live in Denver now. So, I'll kind of like guide you through my, um, my background. That basically leads me to Denver, so, um, so, my, my wrestling journey starts with my dad. And hang on, we got a kid out here.
Speaker 1:Nice, that's fine, that's the whole part of this that's fine bring it the first time.
Speaker 2:Hey, my son comes in on like my mental performance calls. Uh, he came in when I was doing like the meditation portion with my athletes and I was like I muted myself and I was like get out, that's awesome. So if anyone wants, like they ideally had their eyes closed, but if you had your eyes open, you saw me like no, get out of here.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, my reality.
Speaker 2:Bring it, so we'll get into that too. So, yeah, okay, grew up in the Bay area.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:My dad went to the 56 and the 60 Olympic games freestyle and then Greco Oregon guy Lee Allen. Okay, and um, so my maiden name is Fulp Allen. My sister and I both wrestled my sister Sarah as well on the national team. Um, so a lot of this journey is like with my sister as well.
Speaker 2:We were mat yeah, we were just there on the mat, my dad, um, so my dad transitioned into coaching after the 60 games and because that was his greco, okay games. Because he, basically, because he broke his femur, uncle was like I thought he was dead.
Speaker 1:Oh, I can imagine yeah, yeah, we're not talking about cutting birch in the backyard, we're talking about cutting huge pine.
Speaker 2:Yeah I can't, I can't imagine so um so uh. So he transitioned into his coaching career and he was doing Greco, so he was the 1980 Olympic coach, a boycott year. Wow and he took a lot of world teams and they kind of structured a little different during then, like the Olympic coach.
Speaker 1:You know this game. You know this game, holy cow. Okay, because I mean just wow, okay, yeah, so your Olympic coach, keep going, sorry game. You know this game, holy cow? Okay, because I mean just wow, okay, yeah, so you're a little bit coach. Keep going. Sorry, I'm gonna. I'm amazed right now. This is crazy okay so, um.
Speaker 2:So during that time, like the whoever was, like the olympic coach would take, like all the world teams, so he was a coach throughout the 70s, um boycott year, and then in the 80s he so he was coaching at skyline college, which is a junior college, so coaching men's collegiate, and during the time he would teach um self-defense classes. He had a wrestling club and the women in who would join his self-defense classes he would say, hey, come join my wrestling club. And we know, at the time there was a women's world championship but team USA didn't send anybody. So late eighties my dad was like, hey, let's have a, you know, a, world team trials basically. So that was held in Vallejo, california, and so my dad and then simultaneously my mom were pretty heavy handed and growing girls wrestling in California and then in the nineties and in the early two thousands, so, um, so my sister and I got to be a part of that.
Speaker 2:We were very fortunate to grow up seeing adult women wrestle because we were at my dad's club. We would, um, you know, it was funny I was just reflecting on this just in the last two days how I didn't really grow up with like super structured, like kids club practices. Um, I started wrestling at about six and had my first competition, but one. I went to one and then, uh, it was like one a year kind of, and it started increasing more like fifth grade but I still didn't have like once or twice a week kids practices. Really it was very casual. I would like essentially like go to my dad's club practices.
Speaker 1:Sometimes there were kids there, sometimes there weren't, sometimes the the women would like bring their little kids, and so we'd yeah okay, so sometimes I'd wrestle with my sister, but she's three years older, so she was like much bigger, sure sure, yeah, but so I mean, even as you were little, were you still maybe wrestling someone that was maybe not your age, but they understood that you could. They need to take it easy with you but still wrestle around with them probably yeah, yeah, yeah for lack of a better term. You're, You're, um, uh, uh. I'm getting old.
Speaker 1:My brain, my brain is just going uh uh, sparring, a lot of sparring, or something like that, with someone that might be a little bigger or whatever you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Like, but I remember, and I remember like it not being very structured, you know, my son's sevens were kind of trying to figure out like where we want to, where you want him to be, you know, um, yeah, and how much structure right now, which that's like kind of part of my own theories on wrestling, yeah, and so, um, so not until middle school was it like actual season, uh, a season of practices, but by then I had a lot of, I had a lot of wrestling experience, um, going to different things, and I was just in.
Speaker 2:I was just in wrestling, pretty saturated in wrestling, but not like, not like today, like, don't mistaken that to be like, I'm going to practices all the time and competing all the time, no, just around the sport all the time.
Speaker 1:But you're around a really good part of it. Yeah, you know you get to see some really not and not that you knew it, but at the time, like you were taking in things that I me and Matt rats didn't. You know that kind of thing, so that. But I think a lot of what and what you're describing as far as, like you weren't doing regular practices, you weren't doing turn, you know you guys weren't going crazy trying to hit every duel. I noticed that a lot, especially with high-level athletic parents. You know your dad was crazy successful, did a lot of stuff at a high, high level of a very, very tough sport. And I noticed that with other coaches as well, like former NCAA All-American stuff like that. Let my kid do his thing Like they. Let you guys kind of feel it out if you don't like, you don't like it because they remember that you know, they remember that pressure of the competing and they still enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:But they're like I don't know if all my kids go through that yes yes, so they.
Speaker 1:I noticed that and so that's that's great though. So you came up number one around really really knowledgeable wrestling. You didn't know, you didn't have to know it, but you were just around it and took that in, and then, on top of that, you had no like there wasn't pressure for it. So it was really really fun. Did you notice that? You know, other kids were crying a lot and maybe you weren't, because you know it wasn't as much of a and you're kind of like hey.
Speaker 2:I wonder what's wrong with those guys. You know I had some awareness, especially as I got older. You know, like sure I definitely had some, some awareness of of those aspects and, um, it really, when high school came in because I didn't really like know where I would you know, california girls, high school was pretty established even when. So I went to high school um 2002 to to and I graduated 2006.
Speaker 2:I um as a family. My sister was wrestling boys varsity and as a family, we decided, hey, this like we're, we're advocating for all girls competition, and California has enough that I can compete every single weekend. My sister ended her senior year with a pretty bad knee injury from wrestling a kid who, yeah, and she was a very successful. She was very successful with the boys yeah and um, we were like this is kind of like not our path anymore and so I went all girls and I didn't really know, like, where I would stack up.
Speaker 2:So like, when I made it to finals of my first girls tournament, it was like, oh, okay, I actually like I'm pretty good, like I, I think I know this sport okay, so, um, so that that was, that was fun. That was lots of roller coasters. Um, in the high school so that was fun, that was lots of roller coasters in the high school world.
Speaker 1:What sticks out in your head, though, from youth? What was the biggest thing? Because you said you guys weren't going all over, but were you in some events or whatever. When you first did it, it kind of grabbed you, were you like yeah, I definitely like this.
Speaker 2:Middle school. Yeah, by middle school I was definitely investing a lot more time, more interest. I wanted to wrestle more girls and so I asked to go to the USGWA Nationals. My sister was going, so I went and wrestled middle school. How I did, I don't remember, not great, because I didn't have a good idea of like how to prepare myself for a big competition like that.
Speaker 2:And I'm sure some of those kids were training really hard. I wasn't in that like mode yet, even just personally. And then, um, like most of the time, I'm just like tagging onto things uh my big, my big trip was going into my freshman year in high school. My dad put on, my dad with a went as a coach and then, um, there was an organization that would do tours like world tours for wrestling.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Wayne, my gosh, what was his name? Forgetting his name, I just my dad decided to go as a coach. My sister went, like mostly high schoolers, and then I tagged along. So we went to Beijing, china. Oh nice 10 day tour Plus like dual meets with a Chinese team and practices. Wow, they beat me up.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, well, you went there, right. I mean that's the whole. I mean you didn't know that.
Speaker 2:I just continued to kind of like grab on to little, like those kinds of little opportunities and I was very fortunate being in that kind of an environment right right to be able to take advantage of stuff like that. So really like middle school, I started doing more and then high school was like, okay, this is like what I do. Um, I did other sports. I ran cross country, I swam that wasn't significant for me.
Speaker 1:I was gonna ask you that if you were like a two, three sport, you know kind of kind of kid but and honestly, the sports you're in, I mean you had the time anyways because there were different seasons, right.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm. Yes.
Speaker 1:Plus running. Yeah, running is beautiful for wrestling.
Speaker 2:Loved cross country for wrestling. I did it middle school, nice, actually, through college. We don't need to go there. I wasn't like a college runner, I went to Any soccer, any soccer. No, oh dude, I I never did soccer man the first time I played soccer was indoors at the Olympic Training Center, lucky on the walls. So I was like cool, this is fun yeah, I played out there a couple times.
Speaker 2:It's very, very nice out there and during that time, like going to more camps, taking advantage of going to girls camps. The first time I went out to the center I was like 16 or 17. So just you know I'm finding the opportunities getting. So then I went to. We'll try to wrap this part up, because now we're getting, we're taking, I don't know we haven't even got to the senior level.
Speaker 1:Nope, nope, that's, that's the point. So OK, just point. So okay, just a heads up, and we may even have some comments here.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're getting comments. Can I see that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So Joe made a comment here. He goes I'm here for you. Oh, I see, see, denver, denver, yeah. And then my fellow countryman, wrestle Madness. We all get along. We're all this little chasm of a community. It's fantastic. So that's the whole point here. Everybody gets to hear you've done podcasts, I've heard them. We get a little deeper. Gary Mayhem and I went for almost three hours.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, he's got a fascinating life story so oh yeah, well, so do you, and that's the thing, especially coming up to lucha fit. I know we're not going to spend forever on all the other stuff, but so a little, a little more of the high school level here. What the camps and stuff were you? What were some of the tougher competitions you went to in high school? That maybe opened your eyes a little bit more than the next one yeah, um, nationals.
Speaker 2:Okay, um, I got to go on a second, uh international tour. I'm trying to remember how we kind of how that came about, but that was to austria. So I did a competition austria and then we stayed and did a camp. I had a slew of wrestlers who were still around for a long time. I know that Deanna Betterman was on that trip. Deanna was on that trip. Who else was? There's a few others that haven't stuck around, but a lot of those girls were like they. They stayed on the circuit for a long time. Yeah, um, nationals, going to usgwa nationals as a high schooler in the high school division, not middle school, um, that, those one that was big, starting to compete at senior at the u S open. So at the time, how old were you? 16.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:Not common anymore, not what we do anymore.
Speaker 1:That's why I asked.
Speaker 2:That's why I was like especially because, um, now you know, there's so many high school opportunities now, like you know, at senior national that the U type of uh yeah there's like the showcase now for high schoolers, right for girls, and then the boys have something else you at the us open, the us open.
Speaker 1:I know the girl. I think the girls have their own division the girls have the show 15 and the boys it's called something else, I think oh, I don't know what the boys have, but I know is it because like liam's and u17 stuff like okay okay, things like that.
Speaker 2:You're 23 and then seniors for boys, so yeah so really because, because it's like you for me, like I know the route that I'm going, like I see my sister doing that route. She was three years older than me, so I got to see kind of like her doing the college route and doing all the senior level competition and really it was kind of like the moment you had an opportunity to wrestle the women at the highest level, you did it.
Speaker 2:So a bunch of high schoolers would wrestle at the U S open at 16, the moment you could qualify.
Speaker 1:So so that, oh yeah, To me that's all I mean. I know the dangers, but mean, to me that's all I mean.
Speaker 2:I know the dangers, but to me that's like all right, that's awesome, it's wild, right. I wish I could like find those matches. I don't, I don't think I mean I bet you I'm we might have some of them recorded, because we have a lot uh and we like, but I haven't been able to take them out, but so I think, I would think that eventually back then you would think track wrestling would have had those on.
Speaker 2:I don't think that was a thing. No no, I don't remember when that started. Yeah, I don't think so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but anyways. So the high school portion was, you know, as far as the strategic, you guys are just out trying to compete as hard as you could with the toughest women in the country that you could. So when you guys are training, was it in high school when you really started to learn Because I think you were obviously going 16 and going to the senior level you guys were learning some training methods that most high school kids didn't learn. So were you learning how to cycle through and get ready for a tournament then at that point in high school?
Speaker 2:I don't think super well. Well, I think it was more like take opportunities, um, because when fargo would come around, which was like another pretty significant one. Um, I always had a lot of fear around like overtraining during that time, because I'd been training so much, yeah. So for me I realized, you know, later I was like, okay, I wasn't training the way I needed to in order to be prepared for fargo yeah, that was a good lesson for me. I think um I was always in the mix, but um all american.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, okay but I just wasn't where I wanted to be once fargo came around. But so that was a good lesson of starting to learn like, oh, how do I actually cycle? Well, how do I take time off so that I could actually like train hard for Fargo? I was always just like I'm already so tired.
Speaker 2:I get it, I totally get it and then I went to Menlo college, so that's where my dad was coaching, so he started the program in 2001. My sister graduated and attended like within the first few years, and so then I got to be there with my sister for a year and then she left for the Olympic training center, so, um, so I did four years at Menlo College. That was when it was like we were very in sync with senior level route. So we start off the season probably with Sunkist Open, sunkist International. We'd have some like college tournaments or like some dual meets like, and then really truly like we had, we had um nationals. I was um fourth, my freshman year. I lost my sister in semis. A wrestler, dang it, nick. Wait, yeah, that was rough. Um, then, I think my sophomore year, I think I was third, I'd lost to jessica medina in semis okay and then and then junior senior year.
Speaker 2:I won, did your sister?
Speaker 1:win it then. So you did lose to the champion. Okay, you got that. You got that, that's okay. That's okay, right, yep.
Speaker 2:Exactly. And so it's still even that college season like it's still for us like built into world team trials. So then as soon as school was done in May, I would go spend a month at the Olympic Training Center getting ready for world team trials.
Speaker 1:So you guys had your mind on the money, man. Yeah, you guys said you were. Well, that's the other thing I want to ask you that dynamic with your dad being coach, how was that?
Speaker 2:I think it was pretty awesome.
Speaker 1:And my dad's.
Speaker 2:My dad was very different than most coaches, very more soft-spoken, more and and my dad was in his uh, you know, 60s, 70s. He passed in 2012 and um, so he kind of was in his wise man era, so um way more wise. And all my, all my teammates like we're all such good friends are my college teammates and so at the time they were like I don't get it, I don't get what coach is saying, you know.
Speaker 2:And now they're like coach was so wise, like father figure and it really brought us all together like that's cool um, it would sit, so it was a pretty special group that yeah, that I had at menlo college, some some names that people will know if you watch the ufc a little bit, a little bit carlos yes so she was my college teammate, nice um ashley evan smith, who's been a little bit like out of the circuit for a while now.
Speaker 1:Can't say I remember that one.
Speaker 2:Because Carla just like kind of just made her like last retirement fight and stuff.
Speaker 1:Oh, really Okay, Okay, yep.
Speaker 2:And then, who, oh, oh, oh, who's on the? Oh? No, Don't worry, there's a lot of men who are Menlo College and have fought in the UFC. Okay.
Speaker 1:I've been fighting all day long.
Speaker 2:Sorry guys, I'm so sorry, can't hate on her. Don't hate on her.
Speaker 1:I'll find you.
Speaker 2:Look up Menlo College UFC and you'll find who I'm talking about All of them, yep. Anyways. So yeah, so did the, so did the did the college route and then went to the Olympic training center.
Speaker 1:So what with the college route? Because I can't remember, as far as the women's circuit back then, as far as college went, what were their national championships for you guys back then?
Speaker 2:And where?
Speaker 1:where were those held?
Speaker 2:So it was just held at the different colleges. I mean, it was a pretty small circuit, it was called the WCWA.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:It was a coalition of all the coaches and leaders who built those programs and they put it together. Who built those programs and they put it together. So the WCWA shifted even just recently, within the last five years. So now we would have Menlo's at NAIA school, so we would have been part of NAIA, which Menlo is now moving to D23 or something.
Speaker 1:So yeah, only because of people like you. Right, bringing it up.
Speaker 2:Bringing it up, that's right man so that was the only like college nationals we didn't have, like now there's.
Speaker 1:Now they're divided up yeah, that's why I was wondering, as far as just the, how that landscape has changed. Yeah, yeah so they.
Speaker 2:They kind of dissolved the WCWA and those NAIA NCAA there's another organization.
Speaker 1:They kind of took those over and made it official NCAA takes everything over.
Speaker 2:Well, it hasn't yet right. We don't have a nationals yet Not yet no. We had a nationals. We had a nationals every year, but still it was a portion of it, but it was still accumulation. It was always building for World Team Trials. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I know you guys always had it. I just couldn't remember exactly how they ran it because I know I read something about it a while back on the internet. But, like you said, it was just different back then. But so we, now we get into the senior. Now you've been overseas, so you've had the experience going overseas and you wound up going into the senior level having that much of that much experience. So with that being under your belt, it was all. It wasn't new to you, right? It was just a different, you know different tournament name and you're going in?
Speaker 1:were you still seeing some of the same girls that you were wrestling at the college level coming back through where there are a lot of retirements?
Speaker 2:oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, like the same group all the way through, like even oh really oh, yeah, yeah yeah, that get boring well, it can get a little tedious because you're like and then you all end up in the same room at the olympic training center and battling for the same spots and they're like be a team, team usa, and you're like it's hard, it's hard, yeah, no, I going um. I had a lot of that experience. I had made um a junior Pan Am team, so like you, 20. Yep.
Speaker 1:I read that Um and I won.
Speaker 2:So I won junior Pan Ams Nice. Uh, got to go to Venezuela, that was fun. And then both my sister and I made university world. So it was a little different and it was like a different organization who ran that. So I won University Worlds. So that was like during my college years.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:So I was going in with a lot of like good international experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So when I got to the training center I was dealing with a pretty nasty elbow injury, going into world team trials, age group world team trials so like basically trying to make another u23 team I'm going to use the same terminology as now, but it was university worlds yep coming in as like the retainer reigning world champion, and then I lost my first round. Well, I didn't lose, I got, I got injured, but yeah, I got taken over very awkwardly. It was like awkwardly over almost like a half fireman's and I posted and then I just like rolled out and was like screaming so my ucl tour and we tried to reach. So then, and then I moved to the olympic training center and we tried to rehab and it's like you know, we have the best care, we have the best care in the world. It's really the professionals are amazing. So we did as best we could to get me ready for world team trials and I was a mess Like I.
Speaker 2:Just I couldn't compete. I was taped every day. I then got like an ankle injury, an ankle injury. I have an article on Lucha Fit about this experience. People really look for this article because there's not a lot of information about Tommy John surgery. Oh yeah Well it's all baseball.
Speaker 1:You're going to baseball forums for that one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so if you want to learn more about my experience, I write that whole thing. I have a whole injury section on LutraFit about that.
Speaker 1:LutraFitcom. Lutrafitcom yes.
Speaker 2:So I had that surgery and then I spent the next year because that was 2010. So I spent, or no? Yeah, that was 2010. So I spent 2010 to 2011 rehabbing. I feel like I didn't have as much time. Maybe my timeline, I'm not laughing at your injury.
Speaker 1:I'm laughing at the background, that's all.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:No, no, I could hear the kids in the background.
Speaker 2:Oh, can you hear the? Oh, I thought you meant this background.
Speaker 1:No, I'm smiling, it's hilarious.
Speaker 2:That's my two year old. I'm not smiling at your injury, just just saying that's my little two-year-old that's awesome um, so, yeah, so rehab the injury and at the same time, I was needing to move up to 55 kilos.
Speaker 1:So for those who didn't know?
Speaker 2:when women's wrestling was first introduced, we had four weight classes. Oh what? So I couldn't go down to 48 kilos, like 105. I mostly wrestled my college career at like 112. And then the next weight up is 55 kilos 121. So I had to work. So I had to work on I love that stuff. That's great. Um, I had to like get significantly bigger so I did the craziest amount of squats and weightlifting you could ever imagine. Like my whole life was in the weight room Cause I was.
Speaker 2:I had my big old brace on and all I did was try to get bigger and I'd never really been able to like gain a lot of weight over the years. Yeah, for me right so yeah.
Speaker 2:So then I um, I got myself ready, got myself bigger, so I'm wrestling 55 kilos. I was like everyone's so big um and um got myself ready foric trials and for 2012, and so that was like it was pretty significant for me, because now all of a sudden I I felt like I was kind of behind and I didn't have all this time. I didn't have like a four-year cycle get ready.
Speaker 2:My now my second Olympic trials cause. I competed at the 2008 Olympic trials, I also at 55 kilos, and I was very small, for I was underweight and but and I was still actually underweight by 2012 too. So I I proved to myself how well I could prepare myself for something big. So, like what you were bringing up, like how to prepare yourself well. Well, I went from like injury and being out and not competing to like getting a couple things in and figuring out and then competing, the best I ever had.
Speaker 2:Because I had made national teams at a non-olympic weight, but at the time it was not considered that only top two was right. So I was like in the mix, I was third but I wasn't treated like national team, which was a little frustrating. Now it's not even the case. Now there's even top four, like we're, you know. You mean like we're like, yeah, like these wrestlers are badass, it's not just the number one, it's not just the number two, it's not just the number three, like yeah, right um, so it was like even more slim pickings for resources and for, just like, even recognition.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean like, oh, who are you? You're third at the non-olympic way. Who cares, right? Yep, um. So it was the first time 2012 olympic trials. I lost to kelsey campbell in the finals, who beat holland, maroulis, um and went on to represent, and so I lost, lost to kelsey and uh, and I made my first national team at an olympic weight yeah so to me it really proved like, oh no, I'm actually in the, the mix, really in the mix, and there are some like very tough women, yeah, I wait so.
Speaker 2:So then then the cycle goes in. 2012 was a pretty tough year for me. Going into that Olympic trials, like just within a month before we had a pretty big scare with my dad. He went into the hospital, was having issues, my sister and I flew out and we just like were with him.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to kind of like deal with. You know, oh, does he go on hospice? Does he do this? And this is just weeks before Olympic trials, so he didn't attend Olympic trials in 2012. He coached us in the quarter in 2008. Um, so then this is becomes this dynamic of like who's my coach and who's in my corner and all sorts of things, and that's kind of, that's kind of a big part of what I do. Now. You know, yeah, um, because the so, then so. Then he ended up passing. So Olympic trials is usually like May, june, probably May it may have been April, May I would say April, May, somewhere in there.
Speaker 2:It's gotten a little earlier in the years.
Speaker 1:Usually it's the US Open and then the Olympic trials. I think are usually after. Some crazy setup like that or whatever, but I'm not willing. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, my dad ended up passing um in June of 2012. So after Olympic trials, um, so we just like spent a lot of time at home and and with my mom and um, so that was a hard definitely a hard time for our family and um did you think about not wrestling anymore?
Speaker 1:Was that ever a thought in your head? Oh yeah, oh yeah, because, then because like you talked about having him coaching you in the corner for so long you know forever.
Speaker 1:I mean forever, the. I mean I, I can't imagine in high school he was, was your coach in high school. No, so all the way through. So that that's tough. I mean just. I mean thinking about just as a parent in general, losing a parent, and then that parents, the person that's being a corner, that's, that's a, that's a. That's a tough gig right there, man.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah, and didn't really realize like how much the foundation of, like my family structure, yeah, was intertwined with my wrestling. Now my sister was retired. She retired right before 2012. She was also third 2004 and third in 2008. So she had just retired right before 2012. Another, another kind of injury that she was like I think I'm done.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it was just me, and so this was like I think I'm done, yeah, um. So it was just me, and so this was like a tough transition and um, going in 2012, we usually have like a non-olympic worlds, so it was like go back to that non-olympic weight catholic, and go win. This is your time.
Speaker 2:I had other people telling me that and I was like you don't understand, like I don't even know where my head of space is at, like my dad. I don't know what wrestling is to me right now, so I wrestled. It was meh, like if I was in a different place, I think that would have been my time to like move into that position and start, you know, make a world team. And yeah, that would have been the time. But I, I just 2012 was a really tough 2013. It was really tough, like just trying to figure out who I am and like what are. What do I want to do?
Speaker 1:For sure that's tough. I mean that's, that's a rough road, and I mean just coming out and even think, like you just said, like it was just I'm the only one competing now, so it's, did your, did your sister jump in your corner?
Speaker 2:Has she always been in your corner with your dad too? You did jump in my corner here and there, but by then, um, she got married in 2013 and was living in virginia, so she kind of like was doing her life, yeah, yeah so.
Speaker 2:so that cycle like started off pretty rocky. And then I want to say I think it was like 2013 or 2014. We had Seiko Yamamoto, who came in and was an assistant coach at the Olympic Training Center. And Seiko Yamamoto is a multi time Japanese world champion, an amazing person all around, like just one of my, like a dear friend and a amazing mentor. And I latched onto Seiko cause I was like I don't, I don't have like a coach. I don't like, I was just kind of drowning in, like I just train all the time, like, and I wasn't really like improving dramatically, like I wanted to. Um, so I have felt like I had a lot of years at the training center that I was just trying to figure out where I am and what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:Kind of drifting around figuring it out.
Speaker 2:When you're stuck in the number two and number three spot, it's really tough. That's where I was. The difficult part about living and training at the Olympic training center is like your coaches are helping you every day and they're not the ones in your corner so they can't really be like fully the ones who are like here's the strategy of how you're going to win. Like I didn't. I wasn't talking, I was just going to practices training as hard as I could.
Speaker 2:You know, and not seeing the results, and then, like you're just kind of like what do I do? This is the best place for us Women's rest, like female wrestlers to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's going on? Yeah?
Speaker 2:Yeah so. So when Sago came, I really like latched onto her and she really helped me develop my style, especially as a lanky wrestler. I'm about five seven and never felt like anyone was like coaching my style very well. Um, it was kind of like they coached for like that compact, explosive wrestler and I was like every time I get under I'm getting extended, like I don't really understand. Seiko helped me understand wrestling mechanics in a whole new way and it fueled like everything from there. I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing and it made me fall in love with wrestling again.
Speaker 1:Nice, oh good.
Speaker 2:And so started kind of feeling that energy again and going into 2015,. I couldn't even tell you about 2014 right now. I'd have to even like look back and be like where did I go? What'd I do? Like I was going on tours. We're training, you know, we're, we're sure I was going to. We're doing all the things.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And 2015 was like things were really coming together. I was like putting those things into place that Seiko had taught me. So I was second at the at the French Grand Prix. Then there was another I think there was another competition in between there. I had like a lot of things back to back, and then we were in Mongolia and I was in the finals for the Mongolian open. Yep Okay and all of a sudden, I'm like wrestling the finals and I just like drop.
Speaker 2:I took a shot and I just dropped and I go to the corner of the 32nd break and Terry's like what happened? Terry's down here. I don't know, I don't know, I can't like even walk my foot now, like I don't know what's going on. So then struggle through the like second period. I think I was only down by like a takedown. Um, I ended up losing that match, hobbled off, and luckily we had a trainer who was like really, really knowledgeable and she's like I think this is, uh, a lens frank fracture.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Heard of that thing. I know Kyle Dake had the same thing, angel Escobedo had the same thing, because I talked with those guys about it Okay. So pretty much like right away, went and had surgery.
Speaker 1:Okay. So what did they have to do for that surgery though? Cause I know we've met with Angel down in Indiana for for a recruitment trip, but he didn't get too far into it. So what did they have to do?
Speaker 2:So what they do is they take a plate and they take screws and it's like like the, the tiny little ligaments in between your big toe.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And, like the next toe has separated and torn and you can't repair those tiny ligaments, so they take a big metal thing and they screw it in to like the bone so that it fuses back together. Yeah, so you have that for six weeks. So I couldn't walk for six weeks.
Speaker 1:I had a knee like a sprain, I was going to say, okay, all right, you couldn't do anything on it for six weeks at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for me it was after like some serious success and I think, even going to that season I had like I think I was second at the NYC and then I went to Russia and had a really good competition and like it was just like things were coming, yeah, yeah, um. And now I'm like out again, second surgery, um so six weeks no walking so this is my whole summer, 2015 summer, yep, um.
Speaker 2:And then I basically had to learn how to walk, how to shoot, how to, how to run like how to shoot, how to how to run like, how to shoot, so that you're, like foot can move, like this again.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep.
Speaker 2:And then, and then they take it, take it out.
Speaker 1:Really. Yeah, so but then now, now is that, is that considered like another surgery, then removing that and then the recovery time kind of gets added on? Yeah, I don't remember the recovery time kind of gets added on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't remember the recovery time being too bad for that, it was more like the superficial, like the surface area.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, okay, gotcha man, that sounds rough With soccer. I've rolled and done a lot to my ankles and had feet, injuries especially. You know you're talking about how you have to roll on it at the position thing and can't hold a position or anything like that. If you're, if you're not rehabbing correctly, because once your stance is different, now everything's different. Now you're going to go through and retrain differently, you know. But yeah, I would assume, obviously, like you're talking about the doctors out there, especially at the Olympiclympic training center I mean, what was how rigorous?
Speaker 2:was the rehab for that, as far as just kind of going through day to day every day, was it like I mean, anytime I've rehabbed anything, it's yeah, you're doing something every day because otherwise like you're not, you're not just like sitting out, you live at the olympic training center.
Speaker 2:You're not just like hanging out, right, you're going. You're essentially going every day. Maybe there's a few you know days here or there that you have off, but like, maybe you're doing soft tissue work, maybe you're in rehab, maybe you're doing things on your own, maybe I'm rehabbing. Something else that needed like every day you get attention, no matter what. You're giving yourself something, um, because then there's conditioning. So then I'm doing like other conditioning and doing my weight training.
Speaker 2:I'm doing, I'm going into sports psych and I'm doing, uh, mindfulness meditation or sessions with my sports psychologist. So it's always something um, especially 2015, like we're going into olympic year, you, so I had less than six months to get myself rehab, like like on the mat, and then you know you're like gotta get yourself ready and competition ready and all those things. But that 2012 experience showed me that, like I like, I know how to get shit done Like I get myself ready and prepared for competition.
Speaker 2:I know what that needs to look like. I know know how hard I need to train. I know what it needs to feel like. So 2016, I was like okay, I'm really. I got myself ready, I had, I. I wrestled the best I'd ever wrestled um was your doubt so like?
Speaker 1:because I noticed liam had to have knee surgery when he was in surgery not not in the surgery, but like you've just gotten done, he was in rehab, things like that. He was super down because he couldn't do anything right. Super down as soon as he was I mean the moment, the moment he was released to be able to do something like it was almost like he overdid what he was supposed to do because he he needed to out. Did you find that because you're talking about meditation and things like that did you find that that helped keep you through a lot of what you're not necessarily just a hard time, but even once you bounce back, it was like you were like boom, right back at it. Didn't even matter that it happened.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I write a lot about this. I have a couple articles about. I'm falling behind in wrestling why you're not getting back on the mat properly. So some of the biggest mistakes that athletes make first is they think that they need to go through this emotional and sure. Yes, you need to express your emotions. If you're sad, it's hard, sad and yeah it's hard. Okay, yep, but it's almost like you do it, you give it more justice because you're like look, I'm depressed because I can't get on like no, you gotta like swallow your pride a little bit and you gotta be like well, now I do something else.
Speaker 2:Doesn't mean that this was easy, like I literally one day was like kicking my scooter because I was so angry. Okay, so bear with me, I mean like yeah, it doesn't mean sunshine and roses and I was like I know exactly what I want to do and it's all great, no, no, no, yeah, yeah. This Yep.
Speaker 2:But I was like it doesn't matter, like what I want to do, there's a plan here, so what can? I do over and over every day. I had something I had to to do could do whatever. Yeah, like I couldn't, I hand fought with coaches on the wall, with my knee on a chair nice I didn't need to do anything about my foot like, but I was able to lay in against the wall and have Anderson fight me like this. Let's hand fight Okay.
Speaker 2:Awesome, that's awesome, there's always something, always, always, always, something that you can do.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:And I did everything that I could do without disrupting the process, because the process is the most important thing with the rehab.
Speaker 1:So I don't mess with that as a as a coach. So I coach, I coach soccer, but like just having cause. I played on the national team and things like that when I was younger with soccer, so knowing what the injury process and rolling my ankles so that was what I told him as well was. He was 45 minutes out of surgery and he was in the weight room right and I was like I'm all for doing whatever you can to make sure that you're still in it, because you should, because a lot of kids now they get an injury.
Speaker 1:What happens is it's not the doctors necessarily I'm going to go ahead and blame mom and dad. Mom and dad, you need to take it easy, you need this, you need to stay here. They can take it easy while still staying in condition, somewhat of condition on the side, because there's always, like you said, you're hand fighting, you're sitting with your leg up or whatever and just doing this and hand fighting, whereas you know, like with soccer I mean there's plenty I could be doing If I was going to just sit there and do the inside of my foot while I'm sitting on a chair, I can pass a ball like that.
Speaker 1:You know just little things to keep things going right and not just to be stank. So it's, it's, it's. It's impressive again, the whole lucha fit thing as far as what with the articles that I've seen so far, and not not only just encouraging as a coach but also helping that process as far as the healing process, knowing that if you have a kid that's out, yeah, you know you want them to take it easy, but include them still in something to keep them, because it's also a part of up here, it's the mental side.
Speaker 2:So that's yes, yes, yeah, yeah. For coaches who have those kids injured on the side, hey, what do you feel like you can do today? Upper body, lower. You know like okay, okay, cool. Then I'm going to give you five exercises to do. You've got to do them over and over, and when they're just sitting there, you just encourage them again, again. You're like, hey, remember you got to keep going. I don't take it personal, you know like.
Speaker 1:Right, right, that's right, do it.
Speaker 2:You know I'm like come on, yeah, don't forget, you're doing this.
Speaker 1:Yep, that's right.
Speaker 2:Yes, there's a lot of ways to include your injured athletes in the process, Even like I need you as a timer right now because, you are going to be watching the match now they're engaged I always have a secret agenda it keeps it, and it's a good one, because it's keeping their brain going still, yes, just within the parameters of what they're supposed to be doing anyways.
Speaker 2:So yes, keep them and keep them engaged. Keep them involved, keep them on there when they want to be like, oh, I can't do anything, I'll just go home. You're like no, no, you have to come each day, like it's still, you're still part of your job.
Speaker 1:You come in, I've got tasks for you.
Speaker 2:You've got workouts to do um. You know, you can even have them like write out their own workout right.
Speaker 1:Yes, and that was something that I noticed that I think josh had some of these kids do a few times, like some. They got some pretty significant injuries.
Speaker 1:They're going to be out for a while right, yeah but I mean, as a parent and I'm sending my kid to a club like that I'd rather just keep him going too, and josh was proactive about that as far as like, hey, you know, you can still come over here and run, uh, run my phone, or come over here and once you run the radio, just whatever it is, so they can still be there yeah some of the kids will leave a little earlier or whatever.
Speaker 1:But you know rehab things like that, or just they didn't want to just sit on the side anymore. But coaches are beginning because of things like what you have, they are continuing to like improve with how the mental side of things work in the practice room and not just in competition right Because obviously going through getting into your senior level. That's what you know helped get you through and obviously led you into this. But where did you wind up?
Speaker 2:what were some of the the bigger um gains that you made after that injury. Um, well, I mean, really I didn't have a lot of time to compete, um, trying to remember what I was able to do, I mean, obviously it was like qualifying myself for um olympic trials was like the myself for um Olympic trials was like the first step, um, and that can be like that can be really rocky and rough when you're just getting back into things. You know. So, yeah, so that was like the task was be healthy, get that, get that checked off the list, move on. Um, so, um, um. So I didn't have like a ton of time to be able to compete, okay, um, but I was still like able to get myself ready and I and I was like this is the best I'd ever wrestled.
Speaker 2:So um and I had, so like I, sarah hildenbrand and I had been going back and forth um and I wrestled her at like one of my first competitions back and it was the first time I lost to her and I was like so it's uh, look at that, sorry. Then we wrestled at schultz. So I got to wrestle the schultz and I won the schultz.
Speaker 1:So that was okay, one that is now be coming back.
Speaker 2:When the schultz wrestled sarah in finals beat her in finals yep tight match, really tight match. And then I had her first round olympic trials and like any any wrestler, experienced wrestler who knows like one of their toughest opponents is they have first round. You're like okay, so that was a big the game. There was like the mental prep, like yep, really, really over and over, reset myself a hundred to like a hundred times to get myself ready to like be in a state to compete with someone else who's very high level um and I came in and I tacked her and it was like it was just, I was like who am I right now?
Speaker 2:like it was a very out of body experience because we just had a tough match at Schultz. So it just like shows the mental prep, because I couldn't tell you that. It was like all these other things I did and I grinded harder it was like the mental prep. It was the focus. It was the focus, it was the intentionality around my training that helped me make those shifts and I had no idea they were there. I didn't know they were coming. That's what's really cool about the sport Right.
Speaker 2:And then I had Helen, and semis had a good match with Helen. First time she'd cut down to 53 kilos. It was very up in the air whether she'd make weight the first time she even made weight. So it was like, oh okay, she's here, you know just kind of have to deal with. So I lost to Helen in semis and made my way back to third and in the third place spot still an alternate. I've never lost to the runner-up, They'll always be, on the end Yep.
Speaker 2:And then I I took time off, my husband was. We were kind of ready to like transition. We've been married for two years. His job was ready to transition, so we moved it to Denver, up here, okay.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And I was like I don't know. I like I'm not feeling, I don't want to go wrestle at world team trials. I don't really know what I want to do. I needed a shoulder surgery. My shoulder had been really nagging me for years.
Speaker 1:Did the shoulder happen with the elbow?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Okay, it was like a lot of overuse, a lot of really bad wrestling position Like, oh you can, especially in high school. I would be like you canmbar me or like half nelson me to the ends of the earth and I'll never turn so I like and then getting underneath and letting people crank on my shoulders something that I work on with with my wrestlers a lot yeah so they're not in the same position intense wear and tear like.
Speaker 2:So I don't know when my labrum, my shoulder, had torn, but it was, it's been torn, and it was daily maintenance too, on top of my major injuries that I'd had.
Speaker 1:There's so many little things so I I can feel free on that one because I had the same thing in my right. I didn't have surgery because I was like I'm 45, I'm not worth fixing anymore. But Mine came from pulling a bow. I got it about fifth one and I had to literally let go of the string because it hurt so much, like right in here. It was so intense.
Speaker 1:But I had always dealt with leg injuries. I was soccer, I didn't have a lot up here, you guys had a lot everywhere as far as wrestling and I wrestled up until my junior year but I did not go through what you guys went through. But my legs I'll tell you what. Right now I'm really starting to pay the price. But the upper body injuries I never realized how incapacitated I'd be without being able to use an arm. You know things like that and you guys were dealing with that constantly. So obviously you dealt with it and kind of went on with it and you competed with it. Now I would have pushed out and probably wouldn't have competed with it, because that's just how I am.
Speaker 2:It was a lot of years with that injury, yeah, yeah, and I just was like I've had enough, I don't even think I can do this anymore. So I went in and had surgery and had it all repaired, yeah, and then was kind of commuting down to Colorado Springs for rehab and I was also pregnant during that time. Not letting not letting anyone know because I didn't want to lose, like, my access to the training center we had no policy training center.
Speaker 2:we had no policy and I was like, oh, darn terry steiner, like I can't go to camp right now because, because I'm, you know still trying to get paid and whatever services. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I was like, oh well, I've got the shoulder surgery so I'm coming to camp like a day you know yeah, hanging out hanging, just hanging out. You know, I like my trainer and Terry like pretty far in.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So then I was like, by the way, I'm pregnant.
Speaker 1:It was kind of hard to hide at that point.
Speaker 2:It was kind of where I was like I think my trainer is going to see when I like, go into my sports bra to get treatment. That maybe. What is this?
Speaker 1:Just wear some bigger sweatpants. You know that kind of thing yeah. Whatever it's going over that way, it's like oh, I'm just different.
Speaker 2:That's all yeah, yeah, that's fun, but you played the game.
Speaker 1:You played that, I don't blame you.
Speaker 2:You played the game yes, yes yeah, I didn't know I didn't know right, um and so, uh. So yeah, I had my son in 2017 and I hadn't didn't really have plans of like returning to wrestling, because I was like that's mom life now. So I was not like training to compete again, I was just rehabbing my shoulder, okay, um and then yeah.
Speaker 2:And then, um, yeah, yeah, and then I started kind of getting the itch again the next year and started, started and I wanted to like be involved in wrestling in denver anyways. So I was trying to find like where can I just like hop in a room, where could I like wrestle with somebody, uh, doing some jujitsu? Oh nice, because that's where you can actually find like female partners who are adults. And um, and then started like I, my husband finally was like okay, you're going to this practice again so yeah, are you trying to wrestle again?
Speaker 2:I was like no, no, I'm not, you know, just, I just you know rumors yeah I didn't know, I just wasn't ready to admit it. And he was kind of like you need to make this choice. And I'm, like I'm terrified to say yes, I want to do this because I know what that means for us and our family and the sacrifices you guys have to make.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And now we have a little one. So, and then and then it was the absolute best possible thing I think, as a family, we could have ever done was to have me come back and wrestle. I mean, this is like it was. It was just such an incredible journey to come back and I wanted to come back with a completely. I was like, if such an incredible journey to come back and I wanted to come back with a completely, I was like, if I'm coming back to wrestling, I'm coming back with a different mindset. I'm not, you know, I'm not coming in thinking, okay, here's katherine, number two, number three, like I have to just shift into who I want to be in order to be the olympian that I'd like to be, yeah, to be the world olympic medalist, and um, so it was like ridding myself of a lot of old programming of what wrestling should be, uh, like the way I grind and how hard and like can I work smarter? Um, so this journey. So I like first competed again in 2019.
Speaker 2:I found a mma gym in denver who had a female owner and also she's an MMA fighter. It became my home and I, like what I wanted to manifest was somewhere that I could bring my son and he could just run around. I could have him with me because he was. I started training with them full time because I was battling around, but I was committed to being with them full time. We made this partnership like right around his first birthday.
Speaker 1:So, um, I love this cycle, by the way. We started out with your dad, with you being around all of it, and now your child is going to be around.
Speaker 2:That's awesome.
Speaker 1:I love that, that's the best circle ever.
Speaker 2:Full circle moment. So, so, um, and then I competed for the first time in 2019 at the schultz on the train center that was a mess. I was like it's gonna go so great, it was a little rough really really like discouraged me and then, and then I started just like putting it together, I went to, I went to, I went to Japan for 20 days.
Speaker 1:Yeah, left him home.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I went and trained in Japan for two 20 days at the same university where Kaori Icho was coaching. She was working on her return. She was trying to make the 2020 team. That was so awesome. That was really really cool. Then I came back. I went from my terrible debut at the Schultz to finals at the US Open, which was really awesome. It was just fun, and then from there I won world team trials and then that qualified me for Final X.
Speaker 1:Final X I had.
Speaker 2:Sarah in Final X, and then it was just like that mental challenge and all those things of like yeah, these women have been wrestling for the last. This is 2019, right I stopped in 2016 yeah, yeah so the last three years try it all over again the last three years, these women have built.
Speaker 2:So there's just um, it's just a testament to like, no matter where you are in the place of your career or who you've wrestled in the past and who you beat. You know, last time we wrestled I attacked her. Right now, here I am losing to her at final acts. But you know what like the this is um, it's such a tough sport and it's also a sport of like you can make the progresses and you can. You can keep building and and even for like sarah and her career right like. She talks about the challenges that she went through for the like the two cycles like yep for sure I know, I understand, I get what she's talking about, you know also part of that journey for her.
Speaker 2:you know, like we're also intertwined. It's really cool, um, I mean like when it comes to like Helen and Adeline Vicki Anthony, like those, those women started competing in high school, like they're just a couple of years behind me and we've known each other since high school. So like that's when at the beginning you're like, have they stuck around? And I'm like, yes, yes, they have.
Speaker 1:Yes, We've known each other all for decades now. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Same faces, yeah. So really, what was cool about this whole experience was I figured out how to do it on my own. I took the skills that I learned from the training center and, even though there was a lot of rough patches and I really think I was there too long in some ways and not I didn't have like the coaching. I didn't have like the coaching. That like not saying that the coaching wasn't great, it was the structure of not having a coach guiding me through this process. My, my ability to improve after coming back for three years of semi-retirement was fast.
Speaker 2:It was really fast to go from not training, not training, not training at all, to back on the mat and in final X, like just figuring those things out. It's, it's, it was just cool to experience, it was really cool to experience.
Speaker 1:And then that's a good way to go. Oh, final X, man, that's, I mean I. I came in. I've never been to a final X. I've never I've watched on TV you were wrestling on the map.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean and it was the first time I started seeing women portrayed a little differently in the media. The way women celebrated, like that's a whole nother conversation, but like it is the first time, yeah. The first time I like really celebrated a match was in that third and my third place match at the 2016 Olympic trials and I was like really, I had this pretty wild, exciting match for it to make that national team spot and I just like celebrated like I never had before.
Speaker 2:It was a really significant moment for me. And then, after that, seeing images, videos of the women celebrating, it was because we'd been in this mode of like well, I deserve to be here and I'm stoic and I have no emotions.
Speaker 1:I saw it across the board were you guys getting backlash for having celebrations? Were there people saying no I don't think. I don't think there should be. I mean, obviously we're okay with the guys doing it, why can't everybody? Yeah but it was just kind of a stigma you guys had as far as it was.
Speaker 2:It was kind of just like we have to be like stoic sure we're still earning our right to be here. We can't just express.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, nope, yep, I know what you're saying. Yep, exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:So I started seeing the women do that more. I saw final X and I'm like, ooh, this is exciting, like women are being featured more. So it was really cool to be a part of a final X.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Um and to, to just you know all the different components of it. It was really, it was really really cool, um, so it was fun. That made it fun to like come back and be a part of new, new events I'd never been a part of.
Speaker 1:Did you have your family there? For that? Were they in attendance, my husband was in my corner. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:And my son was there with my mom Cool and my son was there with my mom Cool. And also during this time my mom started getting involved in USA Wrestling, so she got on the board for USA Wrestling.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And then she picked up some committees and some chairs of some committees and then all of a sudden she's like like I'm running as second vice president of usa wrestling and then all of a sudden this last year she is now first vice president of usa wrestling under bruce bomb gardner.
Speaker 1:so wow, family you are just rolling into wrestling you guys are in it. That's awesome that's.
Speaker 2:We're in it deep.
Speaker 1:That's really cool. Well, and that's, I think, honestly, if there, I think a lot of families would really like to do that in ways to be able to be that involved. But I mean, you guys have so many ties to just great wrestling from the past that it only makes sense that your mom would do that. It, does it just made sense, that's cool.
Speaker 2:That's really cool. She has played a huge part in getting the right people the right resources and why girls wrestling has been sanctioning the way it has.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:Because they formed a committee to do that High five to mom she's over there watching the kids right now. Nice, so Awesome. Come on thanks, yep, yep. So um, awesome, come on, thanks, yep, yep, so yeah. So I mean I'm I'm very proud, very proud of my family and the legacy they've built. My sister's been integral in virginia helping, helping with virginia girls wrestling um. They've gotten a lot of pushback and I thought you were wearing Virginia.
Speaker 1:Yes my son's coming to Virginia oh nice, my sister's in Virginia.
Speaker 2:She was the women's director for many, many years so women's wrestling yes no, no, we can't do that.
Speaker 1:so yeah, so yes, no, no, we can't do that. So um very cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so uh, uh, yeah. Then we had like COVID year.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The C word. Yeah, um. And that year gave me like it was really cool because I lost. Well, it was uncool because I lost access to all my coaches.
Speaker 1:Yeah, training center.
Speaker 2:Couldn't go see the national team coaches. My others, my other team, my other team behind the team that. That we kind of started working together. I think maybe it was after the U S open. I forget when we started, but Troy Nickerson at UNC. So I was after the U S open, I forget when we started, but um, troy Nickerson at UNC.
Speaker 1:So I was there Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so no, that grew really well, so. So they were like in my corner I'd get up to Greeley as much as I could. Um and um, so. So I had this awesome crew and then, all of a sudden, COVID was like nope, you can't, like I couldn't go see Troy, I couldn't go down the training center. That was rough. Um, so it was me and my husband in like the basement or at high schools that we could get into, and it was rough.
Speaker 1:Rough.
Speaker 2:Rough. And my husband wrestled in college. So we met at menlo college and he was wrestling there, okay, and has a wrestling background and um. So oh, you guys, just but not like senior level, like not like, so we're just trying to yeah, we're trying to kind of figure it out together, but it made us really form like a deeper partnership for sure. Um, it was my corner at Olympic trials, along with Troy and um, yeah, it was emotional. It was emotional, uh, tournament. Um lost in the finals of the mini tournament.
Speaker 2:Yeah, lost in the finals of the mini tournament. Yeah and yeah, not exactly where I wanted that to finish, but there was a lot in that year. Yeah, yeah, there was a lot in that year and honestly, I'm very grateful for my return to wrestling, what I was able to do and how it catapulted me into what I'm doing now with lucha fit so now we get into that later right, right.
Speaker 1:so with the with, with that transition going from competition into, I would say, now, more of the coach slash mindset, cause there's a it's a wide variety of things that you guys cover on each of it. So what was? Was that a COVID? Was that spawned from COVID? Kind of hanging around, sitting around thinking, you know, we don't have this in wrestling, you know? Was it kind of like that?
Speaker 2:So I started well, my sister and I had started full balance wrestling like a blog slash. Hey, maybe you want to sponsor these athletes. I don't know how we were hoping people would find us. I don't know beginnings of of influencer world. Like we started youtube, okay, I was like we were doing those things, yeah, before, yeah, um, and so we had written some, some blogs broke a lot of ground. We did.
Speaker 1:We'll say that you guys broke a lot of ground, man.
Speaker 2:Good job.
Speaker 2:And then 2017, when I was pregnant with my son, my husband and I sat down and we're like, let's transform full-ballon wrestling into something else, because I didn't know if I was going to wrestle again. Okay, so we transformed it and he came up with the name Lucha Fit. So Lucha is to wrestle to, to struggle, to fight, um, and we kind of the idea originally was kind of like we want, like the lay person, to see wrestling as a way, like could wrestling be wrestling fitness, and so that's kind of where that name evolved and it's just, it's stuck, it's it's worse. You know, I didn't want it to be like so wrestling like you know, like that it didn't. I couldn't, you know, maybe pull in some non wrestlers to that world.
Speaker 1:So that that was the thing that I always thought about is with jujitsu rooms. You always knew wrestling guys went in there because they wanted to learn something different, right, it was just something to be able to compete, whether they got older or whatever. You don't hear the opposite. You don't hear a wrestling room like just a kid coming in to do like stance and motion kind of stuff because it tired him out and he got a good workout for it, right. Like nothing like that where it's always wrestlers went in there because they're training to compete and they're doing this and they're trying to get ready for this wasn't just really just kind of exercise, right. So expound on that a little bit as far as how you guys kind of came into that yeah, I think you're.
Speaker 2:You're kind of like spot on there with, like our thought process on it. Okay, um, I, I want more people to access and be interested and be around wrestling. I don't want it to be this exclusive club that you can only get into if you've, like, checked off certain boxes or you're tough enough or you've cut enough weight or whatever the case may be that we qualify someone being like a tough wrestler. And so you know right now, like a lot of women are getting into jujitsu, a lot of women ask me can I would love to learn wrestling like? I think that that's an entry, you know, into the possibility of getting more people around wrestling, casually wrestling it is possible. I love that reese humphrey's been talking a lot about this casual wrestling, the weekend warrior wrestler like, and it's there's a way to do it.
Speaker 1:There is.
Speaker 2:There's a way to do it without it being grind. I call it the head bashing. I recently spoke about this on Instagram and TikTok about your grandpa's war story, where you're like oh, in my days I wrestled like this and I'll bond you with the football jersey, uh-huh. And you're like, and then I would have the other piece to this is that I would have and now we're getting off the topic of like, why lose your fit?
Speaker 1:But yeah, we'll get back. We'll get back if you want, but we'll bring it back. I would have female wrestlers who come in and they would like tell me about what their coaches would like say and do and I was like okay, you did say something about this the other day, yeah, yeah, and I was like okay, that's interesting, like yep, would that help you like wrestle?
Speaker 2:you know, and I can't give, I can't give you like a specific example you're fine, I feel like we all know what I'm talking about correct um, oh, they would like make us like we wouldn't. We wouldn't all do the right thing, and then we'd all do sprints yep like so you never learned it are you showing it properly? Yeah, yeah, to me. I'm like, if they're not doing it right, I'm probably not teaching it well enough.
Speaker 1:Correct.
Speaker 2:Yep. So this is the stuff that I'm like starting to talk about where and people are definitely resistant. They're like a little uncomfortable with that, which is fine.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, because it touches a nerve on sometimes. It doesn't allow them then to continue on with what they're doing because it's a, it's a better thought number one, it might make them have to do a little extra work and be proactive and probably being more mindful about coaching, because you can tear, I mean coaching soccer. I've seen kids get destroyed just because they're playing on the jv team. You know like you're and you're. You didn't even like demote them. We just they just needed to be helpful for jv for a weekend, right, and just kids are losing their minds. Now you have coaches that are going to sit there and browbeat them because they don't know how to do you know like a burpee properly? Did you show them how to do it the right way? Because there's probably someone probably thinks of burpees something else yeah, they could have learned in a different way, right?
Speaker 2:so yeah, like you said, kind of understand your athlete a little bit, yeah, yeah and coming back into wrestling, I was in a lot of rooms in denver and there's places that, like I was, like I'll never go back because the way they were coaching, the way they were speaking to the kids.
Speaker 2:There were things like I just have. I have a high standard of what I think is okay, what's not okay. So it's not everyone's standard and that's fine, and I think that there's like a time in the place for different things. And sometimes there's coaches who are like fighting success and I'm kind of like and I might not agree with it, but that's life, right. But we know that we have this pretty, pretty strong culture issue around wrestling.
Speaker 2:We know that it's very ingrained in us and the mission with Lucha Fit. You know I've written a lot of content for athletes and I really want to shift my focus to coaches. Like I want to be able to reach more coaches who then reach the athletes and say this is how we do things. Now, you know, one great example is I was in a room a room that I was in a lot, and I stayed around, had good partners, but they were like oh, last week they're all doing all the kids were doing sprawls. Ok, listen. Like I was like I'm not doing this right now because I do my sprawls. I do them efficiently, like in my 30s, like wrestling again, so I don't need to do like a thousand. Um, I gotta do them right. But I but I take that theory down to that. Uh, to the younger athletes too, right, they're like last time we did like 400 sprawls and I was like, okay, well, you guys just started and so I was like I think I asked how many of you guys doing?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, last time they did like 400.
Speaker 1:And I was like okay, we just started and all of them look terrible.
Speaker 2:I haven't seen one good sprawl and I was just watching them and they got up to like 100 and something and I was like because we're so obsessed with the work. Yeah the grind.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:The volume, yep, as long as it's more volume, and you sweat it hard and the heat was turned on and you had your sweatpants on. Then you got work done. No, they all look like garbage.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:And the other thing.
Speaker 2:The other thing, not quantity man as I speak about this, I know that I'm going to get a lot of pushback about um, which I have, about um making wrestling like not tough, like oh, if I take that out, if I don't have kids, do 200. Oh, yeah, yeah, oh then what are you talking about? Like you're trying to make wrestling not as tough, because wrestling is a tough sport, and then what I say to that is like you guys have no clue the type of training and conditioning and work I've put into this sport.
Speaker 1:Right, right.
Speaker 2:If I took you through a session and I was like here we go, this is how we're going to drill, this is how we're going to spar, this is how we're going to stay mentally focused the whole time, you would be shot. And then the conditioning I have you do after the conditioning that I did in Japan.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, some of these veteran tough people within wrestling would be shocked yeah, okay, would be shocked yeah okay, would be shocked, maybe, like my body is gonna fall apart, not because like more like from the fatigue, like the intensity, like yeah um, not because you've been beat up william's gone through some of those iowa workouts.
Speaker 1:I thought I was gonna die just watching like, for I was like you guys are nuts.
Speaker 2:Our camp going into 2012 and 2016 was in Iowa.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:So I did those stadiums, y'all, I did those stadiums. I know what it feels like to do the stadiums and then sprint. No, I've done that.
Speaker 1:I was forced into a badger camp my sophomore year with my brother. It was probably one of the worst camps, didn't? No, I've done that. I was forced into a badger camp my sophomore year with my brother and I. It was probably one of the worst camps that I had. We were running with guys that are backup camp randall not cool, um, because I again, I was a soccer player.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wasn't made for doing well, you knew how to run, for sure, I know how to run and I and I loved wrestling.
Speaker 1:It was fun, but it was not there. It was I was. That was soccer, like Going through that camp, and now you're talking about running. Oh my God, I didn't want to think about it. That's torture.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So basically, through these experiences that I have now detailed over the last hour, I have figured out how to make it more efficient, make wrestling a little more efficient, make your training a little more efficient, how to be intentional, how to do it in a short amount of time because you are coming out of surgery.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:How to peak yourself for a big moment like Olympic trials.
Speaker 1:I think that's the one that's missing the most, especially from younger kids in high school up to college is peaking. You hear about them talking about it, right, but you never really see someone through that process correctly. So I think that's a huge one. That I noticed on the website as well was the whole peaking subject goes. Ah, yeah, because it's just weird, because everyone's different, right. Everyone's got a different vibe, different mojo that they wind up getting at certain times. So it's awesome that you're doing that in a perspective where someone can grab that. They sound pretty pissed. We'll be done pretty soon. I don't want to make the kids yeah, we're wrapping up soon. But so with the evolution of what you went through and then coming up to lucha fit, where, where what's the what is your, I guess, mission statement to be able to going forward with it yeah, yeah, um, really okay.
Speaker 2:So the the mission is to reach hundreds of thousands of athletes, coaches and parents to create serious culture change within wrestling, to get those three groups to start thinking really intentionally about their training instead of just what they think wrestling is. Um, I, I want to like educate as many within the wrestling world as I possibly can. Um, so, right right now, um, you know, I've, right now, you know, I've got a course on Lucia Fit. That's all about video analysis. Okay, so, instead of the old traditional like, I'll watch a YouTube video and there was a cool move and I thought that was cool, so I tried to like, I started trying it in practice. Yeah, I'm teaching you and taking you through how to like break down video. I create a whole process on it. That's one that I've been implementing in my old video, and I was like if I had looked at it from these lens you know, from this lens how cool I would have like figured out, you know, like the simplest things of like oh, I was in a front headlock multiple times.
Speaker 2:I thought that this match was all about when I lost in this position. It was really about the front headlock, you know, like something like that. I was in there five times, I scored twice. I should have scored the three other times, or why did I not? Okay, so we'll look. So we're breaking down, and that's just one example of many, and I have you break it down for yourself. Um, opponent study and elite level study.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And then as a coach, you can do the same thing Like how do I want to, how would I break down my wrestlers, how would I break down their competitors, how do I study elite level, study in the elite level wrestlers, and then start bringing that back into the, into the room, so starting. That's you know kind of where I'm buzzing right now, because it came out of.
Speaker 2:it came out of COVID that did um because my husband and I were like studying video like crazy. I'd never liked video before. I was like always very frustrated with watching my own video. So, um, and we he helped me like figure out a way to actually study it, to be productive and not frustrated all the time. So so we, we created this course because we're like let's take this knowledge, let's like put it out there. So we've we've had coaches. I went and taught this system to beat the streets, LA, which was really really incredible, and teach it in person was super fun. So it's an online on your own course. Basically, you need to go. Okay, you have to go. Yeah, we probably should. We probably should wrap it up. That's the mission. I have tons of free articles I'm writing constantly.
Speaker 1:Say that again. You guys have video on there too.
Speaker 2:I have some different video, but more on my social.
Speaker 1:It's an easier platform.
Speaker 2:Right now, I do have a youtube channel and I link to it, like I have a way to help, a helpful way to see, like how you should warm up and cool down in between matches and energy manage. Okay, um, and that's on my youtube channel, but it's also like in the article um so I've got a lot of and I'm out, I'm figuring out like the next steps here, you know, of what coaches want, what's the next steps?
Speaker 1:You put some feelers out. I saw that the other day, yep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that coaches are getting the resources they need. I am. I actually have a survey. Anyone can reach out to me. I have a survey that I'm putting out so that I can hear that feedback from coaches and I can learn, like, what's what's going to be, what's going to be the right way to that? Coaches want to like, learn this information. What are the exact things they want to learn and what's yeah, what's really going to motivate them to keep learning? I don't want to keep learning. I don't want it to be boring, right, right.
Speaker 1:It's great you've got the coaches on the side of that as well, not just the athletes. That's great that you have something not only to help the coaches along, but you're helping the coaches as far as just better themselves, as far as furthering their coaching as well. Yeah, because it's different now. I mean things are changing.
Speaker 2:So you guys are, you're helping them evolve yes, things are changing rapidly and and wrestling. Like I, I clearly love this sport. Um, I feel really deep into it, even if I'm critical, even if I'm critical about the culture. Um, it's not personal, don't take it personal it's the whole, it's to help change.
Speaker 1:It's to help change.
Speaker 2:I mean, really it is yeah, like somebody commented on tiktok and they're like don't talk down to people, and I was like no okay, I'm not really talking down, I'm just talking very passionately about something that I felt like was an athlete safety thing. Sure, okay, you know some people want a gentle approach whatever whatever, but we need to like.
Speaker 2:We need to be up front with these things and be like are we okay with this as we see as normal? Are we normalizing it and saying it's totally cool, let's just treat these athletes this way, especially high schoolers? Are we just afraid of the truth? Like you said, they have to have change when they confront it.
Speaker 1:That's scary, yeah yeah, it is, it is. I mean, that's the hardest part, I think, is just, I mean, just being an old guy, you know there's certain things that I don't like and there's certain things I don't change. Sometimes those things have to change in order for things to get better. So you, gotta suck it up.
Speaker 1:you know we're gonna let you go because I think your kid's gonna murder you in the middle of the night If you don't get going pretty soon. But, catherine, it's been a very great time here talking with you. You took forever with us. I appreciate that. Thank you Everybody. Go check out lucha fitcom. Check out all of the possibilities that there are on there for coaches, athletes. I mean changing the game. Hopefully we can help you down the line here. I know Joe and I are trying to work on a couple of things.
Speaker 1:Hopefully it's all worked out with that too. So let's keep that going, let's keep changing this wrestling game and let's make this a better place. You got any shout outs at the end? Here, your kids.
Speaker 2:Shout out to my kids. Shout out to my husband if he's watching, because he's actually in Boston right now. Shout out to anyone that I've who's watching or watches this in the future that I have worked with, um, because you guys are always the people like anyone that I've ever worked with or gone to a camp or clinic or whatever. If you've attended with, you know me being there. Everything that I collect, all the information I collect from those moments I use for Lucha Fit, like everything's fueling that future. So come subscribe, because there's gonna be so many new things coming and, um, it's just exciting, it's, it's all new. Wrestling has never seen this before. So, um, jump on the train awesome luchafitcom check.
Speaker 1:Check it out everybody. We appreciate you hanging out, catherine especially. Thank you for hanging out with us. I only need you for a minute right when we're done, so I'm going to end this right now. People go check out LuchaFitcom Peace.
