Once what was so clear is now a heavy fog before me. Once the path seemed so obvious, now there is no path - just haze and confusion. Once within my grasp, now I reach out to emptiness and black. I could once see, but as the mist falls around me I am left lost and blind.
That's right blog fans, I've had to have laser eye surgery.......for the second time! Stupid eyes! Do they not know I'm meant to be making a huge wrestling comeback soon?! Well it turns out, no they do not! In fact I've been told I can't wrestle for a month. Worst start to a comeback ever!
Now before you start jumping on the feel sorry for JC Wagon, I must advise that I originally received laser eye surgery by my own choice and is for all sense and purposes a purely cosmetic procedure to avoid me having to wear glasses/contact lens anymore. I could only afford this because I was off working that highly paid job in the Caribbean I kept going on about (hey is anyone still on this wagon?). Unfortunately for me, however, it didn't work as well as it should have and I've had to have a slight adjustment.
Despite this minor delay, things have been going well. Here's a quick run down of what was going on prior to my eye surgery. I just hope that these fuzzy squiggles on my computer screen equal a coherent blog post.
Pump it up
I've found an awesome gym near where I'm staying. It's run by an ex body builder and has big heavy bulldozers of men throwing iron all over the place. Exactly the sort of gym and atmosphere I wanted.
My workouts currently consist of two sections; heavy compound lifting exercises to get me big and strong again and then I spend quite a bit of time doing flexibility and wrestling specific exercises (such as bridging - a bit like a gymnastics style crab to you non wrestling folks).
This flexibility and mobility stuff I criminally ignored back in the day, but it is so important if I want to be able to wrestle well. As a result of how I used to train I'm finding my strength and size is coming back quite easily, but it may take a little time before I'm doing Stretch Punches like Dhalsim from Street Fighter.
Enter Parisio Palace
I have at least managed to attend a few wrestling sessions before I got lasered. A wrestler I started out with years ago, whose stage name is Paul 'the Poison' Parisio, now runs a wrestling school by the name of Grapple in Leeds.
Paul has a good understanding of the older British technical style of wrestling. For those of you don't know, technical wrestling focuses on applying locks, holds and submissions to an opponent and reversals to the same. If any of you readers watched British wrestling back in the day a man like Johnny Saint is considered a good technical wrestler, a man like Big Daddy - not so much (but the Queen liked him so that's ok).
If I'm going to make it in any shape or form at wrestling I should be good at my National style of wrestling. It is part of where I am from and I should know how to do it well. I was not a bad technical wrestler as such, but it was generally my character and story telling that got me noticed in the past (those things are extremely important too by the way as will become evident in future blog posts I'm sure). As I attempt to re-build the house that is known as JC Thunder a bit of work is needed on the foundations first.
Ginger Beard Man
I've grown a beard! A glorious ginger beard (well more extended stubble if I'm honest) that makes my head hair look platinum blond in comparison! You might be asking how this helps me be a better wrestler. Well it definitely makes me look more rough and ready. Secondly facial hair does seem incredibly fashionable at the moment (I can here you laughing by the way - but this stuff is important to someone wanting to make money from the entertainment business!). Finally and perhaps most importantly it is really really cold in England! This thing at least keeps my face warm!
Get a job you bum!
Ok I'll try to keep this short as it goes against the whole ethos of this blog! On one hand, I am following my dream and transforming from a mild mannered accountant to a dynamic real life action hero by the name of JC Thunder. On the other hand I am a 30-year-old unemployed man living with his mum and step dad who seems to be too lazy to shave!
Initially I am going to need a source of income to support my wrestling habit and I should probably find a place of my own to live too! In my defence I have only been staying here two weeks and the way things are going both these issues should be resolved soon.
Right that's enough about silly normal life chat, now let's all have a think about what colour tights I'm going to wear.......
Final Thoughts
Annoying about the eye delay. However, it is a very short time in the grand scheme of things. Furthermore I should be back at the gym soon, which is really the first step anyway. It's not the worst thing in the world to focus on that for a few weeks before I hit the wrestling training hard. I do wonder what I'm going to write about in the next blog, but that is a challenge I'm willing to accept - I promise it won't be an entire blog about gymnastic style crabs!
Thanks for reading!
JCT