An Evening with Oregon Pro Wrestling School
Squats, slams, and a kind of community I didn't expect
All action photos by the brilliant West Smith (aka @1800WESTSMITH).
TW: overexercising, body image
It’s 7pm on a Wednesday night. Outside, Portland is being very Portland: drizzling and chilly. It’s been dark for over two hours. Usually, I’d contently take this as a sign to stay the heck inside, maybe get crazy and make a cup of tea. But tonight, I’m at the Oregon Pro Wrestling School, watching a group of heaving, red-faced adults finish their set of 200 squats.
That’s not a typo. 200 squats. In a row.
And this is their warm up.
Feeling a little sheepish about my decision to wear jeans to a gym, I wander into the front office of the school, out of sight from the class now taking turns lunging back and forth across the wide floor (I’m sweating just thinking about it). There, I find granola bars, a plethora of Kirkland water bottles, and two of the biggest containers of Tylenol I’ve ever seen. One of them is empty and filled halfway with coins, like a swear jar for joint pain.
By the entrance, a small gallery of headshots lines the wall. I know enough about wrestling that I’m not surprised I recognize a few of the faces, but when I try to recall specific names, I come up blank. Hmmm … which pro wrestler does that hand gesture?
It takes me a moment, but then it dawns on me. The faces I recognize are less sweaty versions of the some of the students in the room right next to me. They are displayed like celebrities - an encouraging yet firm reminder that even when you have your picture on the wall, you have to keep showing up for squats.
There are messages like this all around the gym, some subtle, some very much the opposite. During the conditioning workout (there’s a ladder and jumping and push-ups), the school’s founder and longtime pro wrestler Ricky Gibson scribbles on a big whiteboard: “Nobody cares. Work harder.”
At first, I recoil. That’s so harsh. This is technically the beginner’s class. Cut them some slack, Ricky! Look at them!!! Jumping on a Wednesday!!!!!!
But soon it becomes clear that there’s a more uplifting message between the lines: “Nobody (but the people in the room) cares (yet). Work harder (because we know you can, and we’ll be here for you the whole way).”
I understand why Ricky wrote the short, snappy version. Way easier to remember that way.
I know Ricky Gibson as one half of the tag team Midnight Heat. (Yeah, I go to PNW wrestling shows, I’m very cool, okay?) He’s one of those people who seems to have more hours in a day than anyone else: traveling for shows, keeping in crazy good shape, and oh you know, running Oregon’s first and only wrestling school.
Hearing him talk about his students is absolutely delightful. He’s just so freaking proud.
I have to ask him about the OPWS’ first female graduate, Amira, because I saw her first match in Portland a few months ago and was immediately obsessed. Her arms! Her strength! She could tear me in half like a phone book. I even bought my first wrestling t-shirt because it had her picture on it, which apparently makes me a mark. Well, if that’s being a mark, then I don’t want to be right.
Ricky grins remembering her struggle during beginner’s classes. “I think she cried the first time she had to hit someone,” he says. “And now … last week she was on TV with AEW.” Trust me when I say being on AEW is a huge deal. Their show in Seattle was in the same arena where I saw Paul McCartney last year. Like of the Beatles.
Amira was on TV last week and tonight she’s doing lunges with the other students. Judging from her success, she’s not scared to hit people anymore.
”Seeing that is just as rewarding as doing it,” Ricky says, beaming.
I can tell he’s talking more about the self confidence than the violence.
When I lived in LA, I joined a kick-boxing gym for all the wrong reasons. We met three times a week at 7am and did so many of these same exercises I see in the wrestling school: the squats, lunges, conditioning. We punched bags and ducked and even had the same rubber man to practice jabs. The class was about the same size as the one I’m watching at the wrestling school tonight, but only women signed up.
None of us wanted to BE boxers. We weren’t thinking about ways to prevent injuries or the success of other people in the class.
Every 8 weeks, a “coach” used what looked like a giant pair of pliers to pinch our waists, arms, and legs to measure our body fat percentage. Mine dropped to what they called an “athletic” number and I smiled. That might’ve been the only day any of us encouraged each other — when we took “after” photos.
Once, I showed up at 7am and no one else was there. I got a one-on-one coaching session, like a movie star. About halfway through, my vision spotted and spun mid-workout. I was about to pass out, and the coach told me to go home and rest. Eventually, I couldn’t get through any of the classes. I wasn’t getting stronger, I was actually getting weaker. Worried I’d be called a quitter, I paid the membership for months after I stopped showing up.
Part of me wishes I’d been taking classes here instead.
The class shuffles into a room with the kind of equipment any wannabe wrestler could only dream of: weights, machines, and a full size ring — one that’s actually used by DEFY Wrestling when they are in town. Everyone hangs around the side of the ring, cheering each other on as one by one, they slam their bodies down onto the floor, practicing safe ways to fall in a match. Basically, they are getting ready to be the least amount of hurt when they are getting hurt.
It’s really loud. Every bang causes my body to seize up. My teeth ache from clenching, and I’m literally just standing here watching.
There’s an element of trust in the ring that I can’t wrap my little self-preservation-obsessed brain around. Students take Ricky’s notes fearlessly and pop up grinning when they tuck their elbows or avoid bonking their head. Some of them jump into the center happily, while others look like they just found out they’re contestants in Squid Games. But everyone does it.
When less experienced classmates take longer during their turn, there’s no impatient huffing and puffing. They genuinely want each other to succeed.
Between body slams (and flips - FLIPS!!), I ask one of the students why she thinks most people sign up for classes here. Her name is Emily, and she’s here two times a week until she gets the OK to graduate out of the beginner’s classes. Then, she can come as many as four times a week, which she’ll be doing in addition to the job and school work she already has. She’s 18, but I’m still amazed at her drive … and energy!
”Everyone here wants to be part of this [wrestling] world in some way,” she tells me. Her goal is to wrestle for WWE, which to me is like going to a tap dance class and saying you want to perform on Broadway. I love it.
I compliment her work in the ring and she admits she used to be terrified of these exercises. “I think I cried the first time,” she says (reminding me of Amira). “But everyone’s really encouraging …. You can’t help but become more confident.”
I can’t help but smile. She’s just so strong.