This pic from Sunday says it all. Not everyone earned a gold, silver or bronze medal at Club Physical 2025 Auckland Wrestling Championship.

But at a time where conflicts span from the horror we are witness to in Gaza to the bombings of schools and hospitals in Ukraine, wouldn’t it be great if we could all focus our countries on sport, not war?

Wars are most often dictated by egotistical politicians in an office, safe, hundreds of kilometres away from the actions they initiate.

As an alternative, sport has a wonderful way of channelling our energy, emotions and sometimes frustration, into positive physical action. We get to throw everything into the challenge for a brief time only. Then we learn to exhibit a discipline of fairness and sportsmanship in the celebration of wins and losses. We live to compete another day.

Some have asked, ‘What made Club Physical decide to provide wrestling classes?’. Well, this actually started not long after a seven-year-old Brahm asked, “Dad, can I please learn to wrestle?”.  Nothing eventuated. The request was put down as the whim of a young kid. Then a month later, he asked again. His mum and I realised, this guy was serious. So, we did some detective work and sought out a tiny little group of five kids training with a parent coach in the dingy, dark basement of the New Lynn rugby club. With only two-weeks training Brahm competed in the North Island Championship.

It quickly became obvious that we needed to find a coach who was a wrestler and set about the quest. Later, in need of a training venue, we decided to hold the wrestling classes at the gym. That was twenty-years ago. Then around 19 years ago, Wrestling NZ were looking for someone to run the Auckland Championship and we put up our hands. Club Physical has been running the huge event ever since.

What we’ve found is that wrestling gives you an incredible base of fitness, agility and core strength, more-so than most other sports including rugby, judo and Jiu jitsu. The training builds a valuable ‘foundation’ to help the athlete excel in other disciplines while building self-confidence and resilience. One important thing in common with all of these experiences is that after the fact, there is always the feeling and sense of deep satisfaction, warmth and of friendships. 

Staying with the self-defence theme, Club Physical began to offer boxing for skills and fitness. Now offering these classes as a group session, or even, one-on-one training sessions with Amir, Jarrod, Brahm or Ayisha.

Wouldn’t you agree that physical training, competition and sport are superior solutions to going to war? I hope the idea catches on.

This week’s newsletter can be found here