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Female wrestler captains her cause | RBV freshman incorporates judo in moves on mat

The San Diego Union - Tribune;

Dec 27, 2000; Whitelaw Reid;

As Canales prepared to spar, her male opponent had a huge smirk on his face.
But that didn't last long.

With one swift move, Canales had fellow freshman Andrew Nelson on the mat.
Nelson and teammates are now aware of that move -- not to mention many
others.

"I took her real seriously after that," said Nelson, who admitted he
initially took some grief from teammates for losing to a girl.

"The first couple of times they did (tease), until they went up against her
themselves," he said.

What Nelson and other teammates weren't aware of was that Canales has
competed in judo since 1993. She owns a second-degree brown belt and took
second place at the recent Junior Olympics in Oakland. She incorporates her
judo moves into wrestling.

"She has this one move where she gets locked up on your neck," explained
freshman Cesar Delcastillo, "and then she gets her leg in between your leg
and just throws you."

Teammates also weren't expecting Canales to be so fiery.

"She's not the average girl who just walks in and says, `I want to do a boys
sport,' " Longhorns coach Andre Bartlett said. "She's an athlete who's
cross-training to reinforce her judo skills. And she's a competitor."

Canales, who is hoping to compete in judo in the Olympics, says spontaneity
is her key.

"Most of the guys are stronger than me and can out-power me," said Canales,
who usually wrestles at 152 pounds. "I try and use technique to compensate,
or judo moves, or whatever comes to mind. It just flows."

Now Canales has everyone's attention -- and respect.

Just a week into the season, she was elected captain by her new teammates --
quite a testament considering she didn't know a single one of them before
the season began.

"I was never expecting that," Canales said. "I was totally surprised when
Coach Bartlett told me. The people and girls that I tell still can't believe
it."

Bartlett says it's a well-deserved honor.

"When everyone saw her score points on people, that really opened some
eyes," said Bartlett, who believes Canales has the potential to one day
wrestle for the varsity. "It gave them confidence in her and they voted for
her because they thought she'd be the best leader."

Senior Juan Mora wrestles on the varsity team but occasionally pokes his
head into the junior varsity practice. He has been impressed with Canales.

"She throws other guys around," Mora said. "She's a strong girl, and she
gets along well with all the other guys."

Canales' parents, Joe and Seresa, are supportive.

"I think this will give her an advantage when she goes back to competing
against girls," said Joe Canales. "This will sharpen her and help her focus
better."

Canales says she has felt intimidated only one time this season.

"There was this one guy from Scripps Ranch with big muscles," she said, "but
then I beat him."

Canales, who has won five of her nine matches, says she enjoys playing the
underdog.

"I like it when they look and laugh, and say, `She can't wrestle.' Our first
match at Vista I was going against a sophomore and all his teammates were
laughing at me.

"I lost to him, but afterward they said, `You can wrestle!' It felt great."

------------------------------------

For women, wrestling no longer hands-off sport

The Vancouver Sun

December 29, 2000

In a basement gym, two women in their 20s are wrestling each other on a mat.
Sweat mingles with sweat. Skin touches skin. They are one roiling mass of
flesh, curiously locked in mortal combat and tight embrace.

They grunt. They groan. They sweat. They're gonna kill each other, that's
for sure.

In another corner -- thud! --a wrestler is thrown to the ground.

The air in the gym smells like yesterday's socks.

Welcome to the world of women's wrestling, a hard-knock, no-mercy,
gut-churning kind of sport.

It's taking off in B.C., says Mike Jones, Simon Fraser University's
wrestling coach. "The growth is phenomenal." Girls started trading in their
ballet slippers for wrestling shoes in 1991. The sport started to
pick up steam in 1993, but he estimates there were only maybe 60 or 70
females at the junior high, high school or university level then. Now, he
says, there are around 1,000.

Mamas, your babies are growing up to be wrestlers.

But forget the busty-broad wrestlers you see on the boob tube courtesy of
the World Wrestling Federation.

These female wrestlers are savvy university students aiming to be doctors
and school guidance counsellors and such. The sport, they say, develops
steely minds as well as steely bodies. Wrestling is a fast game of chess
played on your feet, with attitude.

There is nothing butch about these feminine fighters. Thanks to
three-hour-a-day workouts, they are tidy bundles of physical perfection.
Strange creatures, these contortionists. Inside the ring, their fist-tight
bodies coil in fury. Outside, they unwind into sweetness, giggling like
school girls.

And they're good at what they do. So good that three young women from
the SFU wrestling club recently headed over to Victoria to help a bunch of
guys master the macho sport. The guys listened, too.

They used to feel unwelcome in the co-ed wrestling sessions in the
university gym. Now, they're just one of the guys, with whom they flirt,
wrestle and sweat.

Times, they sure are a'changing.

Meet three female wrestlers whom we met up with at the university wrestling
club.

Shannon Samler, 22, a kinesiology student at SFU from North Vancouver wants
to become a doctor. She's been wrestling since 1991.

"It feels pretty good. I feel confident with myself. And I was pretty good
at it. It has an individual aspect and a team aspect."

When her opponent is getting the better of her, "I'm thinking, 'Oh, no, I'm
down. I have to fight to come back. I've got to break this person down
mentally.' I have an intensity here, more so than in other sports. I feel
good after a hard workout. You've really pushed yourself.

"I think of myself as being a feminine person, but in a different way from
someone else. I try to be an independent woman, to be a strong woman. This
is part of how I'm strong.

"This is a contact, aggressive support. It's not for everyone. It's not for
people who don't feel comfortable being physical. You also have to be strong
mentally."

On wrestling with guys? "They're stronger. Guys move a lot more. Their
strength is different. They push me more."

Lyndsay Belisle, 23, is a waitress in a cafe.

Belisle, who grew up in Hazelton, has just completed her sports science
diploma at Douglas College. She is heading off next year to Capilano
College.

For Belisle, wrestling seemed like a natural thing to do. She has a brother
who is three years older than she is. "Touching, getting grabbed and roughed
up -- it didn't seem like anything new."

But she remembers wrestling in a match for the first time in Grade 12. "It
was awesome, an adrenaline rush. Sometimes it gets so intense.

"Everything about it is so unflattering. You have no make-up. No long nails.
You look like hell after a match. You feel so non-feminine. You have bruises
all over. But it doesn't matter. It really doesn't. "

A few months ago, Belisle decided to cut her hair. It was a difficult
decision. She was cutting off the one part of her that could be feminine in
the wrestling room.

Once it was cut, she felt liberated. "I don't have to worry about it now."

What about the female wrestlers in WWF? "Oh, my God, I just laugh. It's just
entertainment. It's hilarious how fake it is."

Her day begins at 4:30 a.m., when she begins exercising. At 7 a.m., she
switches into her working self, taking breakfast orders and making coffee in
the cafe. Then after work, the wrestler is back. She heads for the
university gym. Some days, she is dog tired.

So what keeps her going? "I'm pretty competitive, I guess."

Carol Huynh, 20, is a third-year psychology major at SFU.

A tiny pigtail sprouts near the top of Huynh's head. She wears sparkly nail
polish. She's a dragon on the wrestling mat.

She started wrestling when she was 15. Her older sister got her into it.

"Wrestling is an individual sport, much more so than, say, basketball. If
you do badly, you can't blame anyone else. It's up to you to make yourself
better.

"Wrestling is a mental sport. To be the best, you have to be great up here,"
she says pointing to her head.

"There is a lot you have to get over mentally. When you're down, you have to
think (of your opponent), 'No, no, you're not going to get this.' If you're
ahead, you have to defend it, to be really confident. In your thinking, you
have to be saying, 'I can score on this person."'

Looking out at her fellow female wrestlers in the ring, she said, "I'm proud
of them. They have the courage to do what they want to do without worrying
about what others are doing."

The first time she wrestled with a female, she didn't mind the touching,
"but it was awkward because I didn't know what to do." She caught on pretty
quickly.

Her older sister used to shy away from the wrestling gym at Simon Fraser
because the guys treated her like a second-class citizen.

"A lot has changed in five years," said Huynh. "Female wrestling is a coming
thing."