THE OLDEST SPORT

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 127, 22 February 1919, Page 8

THE OLDEST SPORT

A PLEA FOR WRESTLING "TWO SISTER ARTS" (From a Correspondent in the "Morning ■: Post/') . ' It is necessary to consider whether tyg shall h<ivQ .as much leisure for teamgames as wo had before the war. If the foundations of u newer imd better • -England are to be well'mid truly laid in the next ten .years, we shall all have to work harder than wo did in tlio past —so that it will he 'a good deal more difficult to get teams together and find time, even for one-day matches. It would Eeem to follow that what may ho called the man-to-man games will become much more popular than they have ever been before, among those who wish to keep physically and. mentally lit and—a result hardly attained by "constitutionals" or Swedish exercises—to'maintain a reserve of nerve power. Golf, of course, will gain'ground, though it is not so much a man-to-man game as a cosuiical diversion, in which the player is opposed not only by all the forces of Nature, but also by his own unconfessed pachology. • Boxing also is bound to become more and more popular as an aid to allround health, if only because it requires bo very little apparatus, and any spare room is a, suitable arena. But the finest exercise .of all—wrestling—is unfortunately neglected "at present, and there can Jw'no doubt tlnit the national physique

would be vastly improved if tins manly sport, the oldest of all and the most widely diffused, were to become once more a national game. . ' Time was when every Englishman was something, of <v wrestler, and as late as the days of. P.R.. wrestling, being an indispensable part of the "sweet science ..of; pugilism* entered into the education of .every Corinthian sportsman. Skill in wrestling decided the issue in many an historic fight with the raw 'tins; a ■ shattering cross-buttock oJ[ten took tlie steam out of a pugilist who was superior to his opponent at all other points . of ring-craft. The truth is that the sister arts of wrestling and fist .fighting ought- never to have been separated— | both are equally indispensable in tlie • all-in contests between man and man for hicli modern faxing is such nn artificial and inadequate preparation. Tjie writer, who lived for some years on tho frontiers of civilisation, found it necessary oil several occasions to take part in what is called a. "scrapping match" ' oiifc West, and lifid good reason to thank his stars that lie has 'acquired in his youth the rudiment? of catch-as-catch-can' wrestling—a : game which lias always been cultivated in his native county, Lancashire, which has -produced, and .still produces,'the cleverest and toughest wrestlers in the world. The knowledge of how to apply and use a "half "Nelson." to name but one of many ingenious devices, enables one to reduce a bigger and stronger maii, who is not content to make it a boxing bout, to uttei; impotence. That boxing and wrestling should be associat|ed is obvious .from the prevalence of clinching in professional', glove-fights at the National Sporting Club and elsewhere. Even a strong referee who'goes into the ring (the enly place where he can see all that is happening) finds it impossible to put a stop to clinching altogether. If, however, wrestling were permitted, the boxer who clinches to . avoid punishment Mould be getting out of the frying-pan into the fire by runiing- the risk of being "scattered all abroad" (as tlie Wigan miner said of i his. fall down the pit rfiaft) by a timely and vigorous throw. The point is that clinching. : though a i.uisance from the spectator's point of view, is a natural form of evasion now that in-fighting is inevitable, and a significant proof of the necessity "of wrestling in a struggle between liiah and man for physical supre- ' macy." Many years ago the writer found '-himself standing next'.to the famous heavy-weight boxer, Peter Tackson (a negro, it is true, but a "white man" in . his ideas of sport and sense of fair play), by the Grasmere Ring, and watching the work of certain renowned experts. sueli as Steadmnn and Lowden. in the' Cumberland and Westmorland.'stvle of wrestling. Jackson was delighted with, the power and nreoision of ihe competitors, and agreed with Ms neighbour in regretting that, wrestling was no longer a part of pugilism—not that he himself, as hp said with his tfustomary modesty, would have dine much, when the embracing began. And he admitted that wrestling, which develops all the internal muscles of the body, is in some respects a better health-creating exercise than boxing. Indeed, from that point of view its only-rival is rowing.

The Various Styles,

'As a means of -acquiring an all-round physique,- fortified within and without, there is nothing better than wrestling. No habitual wrestler ever suffered from dyspepsia; they know that to be a fact in Devon and Cornwall, as well as in Cumberland ' and Westmorland, Tho game, as the Japanese practitioners of Ju-Jitsu and Senmo insist, is a sover- ' eijgn lemedy for all forms of the inward malaise, which at its worst is known as hypochondriasis.. As a nation we do not ■pay sufficient attention to the invigorating development of the internal muscles :of-the lower body.' The robust health of ' old North-country and Westcountry wrestlers is a striking objectlesson. _ Moreover, the expert wrestler keeps his force ami skill far into middleage. The boxer begins to fall off rapidly after thirty—"gets on the' toboggan Rlyde," as the professional critics say— ■but-many. of. the, Northern and Western » champions have been as formidable at

fifty as they were in tho prime of their manhood. Finally, wrestling does not, as many snppose, require a ponderous, artificial muscular development. Speed is the -wrestler's best asset, and long, elastic, free-working ' muscles his most telling equipment. .... But which of the many competing systems of wrestling .should be adopted as our national pastime? Some of the riral codes can be Tilled out at once. The Graeco-Latin, for example, : which seems to l>e confined to fat. swag-bellied aliens, and such exoctic systems-as the .Swiss S.wingen and the Icelandic Glinka. These are but music-hall turns. As for the English varierits, all of which have something to teach worth learning, the , most inclusive is the best for hur pur- ] pose. Tho Devon and Cornwall style. ■ which requires a linen jacket and used to requiro special Itickinu shoos, has lost ground because the difficulty of ascertaining when a true throw has been made opens the'why to disputation. The Cumberland and Westmorland style is free from this objection, but the'scope of its tactics is too r arrow. .On the whole, the catch-as-:ateh-can style is most suitable to our purpose, seeing that everything eood in the other systems is helpful to the practitioner before or after he gets his ooponent to the iround. Of course, ground "wrestling is apt, to degenerate into an unpleasant business if one of the men engaged adopts foul ' methods. But tho same may he said of Rugby football, which can only be played aright by gentlemen. Given a spirit of sportsmanship on both sides, catch-as-catch-ean is a fne and refreshing epitome of all the wrestler's arts.