Mental and physical strength drive wrestlers in training
Wrestler Daniel Sherpa’s goal this season is to win the Western Mass Division 2 tournament at 144 pounds. His uncle, who actually wrestled for Amherst back when ARHS had a team, won the Western Mass division two years in a row, in the 135 and 140-pound weight classes.
“I want to keep the family legacy going, but I also want to improve my wrestling in general this season, as it helps a lot for mixed martial arts, which I wish to compete in after my high school career,” Sherps said.
The ARHS wrestling team is a co-op team with the Chinese Immersion School in Hadley, Mass. There are 20 people on the team total, and five are from ARHS. The head coach is Anthony Delvalle, and the assistant coach is Justen Perez.
They practice and have workouts at the Chinese Immersion School in Hadley, and there is a varsity and junior varsity team. They practice four days a week and have two matches a week. Sometimes the tournaments can be hours away.
ARHS senior Frank Partida said that although practices are not at ARHS, “they’re not far down the road.”
The captains of the team are Sherpa because “he has a great attitude at the tournaments,” and Simon Speek because “he is a great wrestler, knows the sport through and through, he teaches his teammates well,” said Partida.
For Sherpa, being a captain has changed the way he sees the sport. “I am now focused on uplifting my team and ensuring my teammates practice hard and compete to the fullest of their abilities, compared to when I wasn’t a captain and was just concerned about my own wrestling,” he said.
Wrestling is a very technical and physical sport that takes a lot of practice. You have to be in good shape; you can get hurt if you don’t know what you’re doing.
Sherpa said that wrestling has changed him for the better. “Since I’ve started wrestling, I’ve improved both my physical conditioning and my mental resilience,” he said. “I believe the sport is 25% physical and 75% mental.”
Sherpa said that a wrestling match is essentially a “one-on-one battle to show who is the most dominant, and when you’re wrestling a guy whose only goal is to pin and beat you, the match is going to be exhausting.”
In order to win, he said, “you have to have a stronger will than your opponent and push through the pain and exhaustion no matter what goes on in the match, and no matter how good your opponent is.”
Partida loves how wrestling keeps him “in good shape and healthy with something to look forward to at the end of the day.”
Throughout the season, the team bonds a lot from the long or short bus rides to tournaments and matches to on the mat in practice after School from 4:30-7, “that may seem long but they go by quickly,” said Pardida.
