Galhardo, Morales, Zangrandi and Figueira

Well, I decided to go to Corporal. The association has its own premises, tidy, in quiet colors, on Conselheiro Nébias avenue. The place is busy, though it's Sunday. Wrestlers in all colors, ages, shapes e sizes. Playful, serious, all kinds of mood you can imagine. Young, older ones, children. I ask about Mr. Costa and the answer takes me through the training room, among wrestlers training their moves, end up in a reasonably large room, with a sole desk. On the wall, portraits of wrestlers in action. I noticed the knots the opponents fell prey of. Across from the portraits, the computer, the fax, the telephone and the window with cups, trophies, prizes won in competitions as an association. And, of course, Mr. Costa, smiling upon my arrival.

"Well, I see you have recovered fast", he said, still smiling, asking me to sit down.

"I haven't recovered yet, Mr. Costa."
 
Not even the reply could fade his smile away, something I found to be positive. I told him I found the description of the young wrestlers' problems rather vague and obscure. Said it was normal that the children had episodes of excessive self-demand and self-indulgence; however it depended a lot on the ambient created and expectations we had on their performance.

"When I asked you about how the training happened, I was less than sure whether I made myself clear. I was asking you about these expectations on their performances in competitions."
 
He has another long pause, like the ones I've almost gotten used to seeing. And said the expectations were not very different from the ones found in any other wrestling association.

"What is expected from them, Miss Grisam, is that they do their best. Winning is important. No one goes about any activity to fail, that's clear. But there are things that are beyond our control, so, in such circumstances what remains for the wrestlers is the feeling of having done their best, independent of any result. Courage is not only winning, it is looking at both adversary and adversity without any fear."
 
I said I considered this point of view rather positive. Asked him if he had any idea what interpretation the young wrestlers had from these expectations. He said it was a very personal and intimate subject. I replied it was this very subject what had dragged him to my house. And that it was what we had to find. Something was telling me I wouldn't take long to find out anyway. I asked Mr. Costa to introduce me to the wrestlers. He said he would, but only after the practice. He wouldn't disturb their concentration on the practice, besides it wouldn't take long to finish. It was alright with me, we stayed there some more time, talking about wrestling, politics, economy, whatever occurred to us.

During the conversation, many times it seemed to me Mr. Costa had something more to say than just politics or who'd win the elections for the presidency this year. Then I paused, waiting to see if anything else was coming, to see that he could use the moment to speak freely, but there was nothing. He was looking at me, I was looking at him. I decided to break the spell. This is how I am. I read the pauses and elbow people to see if they talk. No one gives me anything for free. No one opens archives to me. I've got to delve alone into what I want to know.

"Do you want to tell me anything you still didn't tell me, Mr. Costa? Because this is the impression you have made since you first came to visit me at home to talk about your wrestlers."
 
He then paused again. As a 14k modem, slowly downloading information. Then, at last, after a pause that seemed to never reach the end, talked.

"Miss Grisam, the boys are trying hard, that's the least I can say about them. But I've been thinking about discontinuing this young team. Been thinking of keeping only the older fighters."
 
He must have read my expression very quickly, because he soon started to justify his position, "I think they've got a great, great potential, but so far I haven't seen any collective prize they managed to bring to this association."
 
"Oh, yes, here we go, back - how could I forget about it - to the opposing contrasts, victory versus defeat."
 
I tried to shock, managed to make him embarrassed for a while. He was looking at me, kind of astonished. For some time he couldn't think of anything interesting to say. At last, he said he was not getting any more sponsoring from any store if the kids remained only as individual talents in championships and tournaments.

"As a matter of fact, no sporting goods store is willing to sponsor a team that hasn't become a team; that still hasn't produced any convincing colective results in tournaments."
 
I didn't say a word. I understand nothing about this sponsoring stuff and the expectation the shoppers would have for the teams they sponsored. But I found the demand for a colective trophy was a bit too specific to be true. I asked myself if this was how sponsoring deals were made. And asked Mr. Costa too.

"Well, who knows what's on these people's minds anyway?", he said after one of his notorious long pauses. Besides the usual pause, the impression the question disturbed him more than what I'd consider normal.

Five sharp. I can tell by the noise in the practice hall the pratice was over now. Mr. Costa got out for some seconds, returned and sat back at his desk.

"I told them to come here", he said and smiled. I took advantage of one more pause to ask him if the kids already knew about his intentions to discontinue the young team. He said they didn't. I asked him not to tell them anything about it for the time being. A creaking noise from the door opening and the wrestlers walked in. Eager to know what it was. What kind of woman I was, strange, in a cast, sitting in that room. They were four, not five and they were strong, very strong. No excess from side to side, the muscles seemed to be well-defined, symmetric. Eyes wide open, measuring me from my head down to my toes, scanning all details. Mr. Costa rose from the desk and came up to the kids to introduce them to me by the surname. Galhardo, 12 years old. Figueira, 13. Zangrandi, 12. Morales, 14. I was shaking their hands and collecting their fixed stare into me. They seemed to be the kind of kids who'd look you straight in the eye, a visual contact they seemed to be unwilling to lose track of. As though the stare was a part of the wrestle already.

"But it really is", said Galhardo when heard me talking about it, "to show your opponent you're not afraid is something valuable. It's a part of the fight, no?"
 
I told them there are fish which have techniques to inflate their small bodies to become bigger and therefore more threatening to their enemies and the four had a seizure of laughter. They found the image of the fish very funny. Two of them found there was a good relation between these things. Galhardo and Zangrandi didn't, they seemed, for a moment, ashamed to be compared to fish, though they had fun with the comparison. The mild and friendly atmosphere of the meeting reigned until Mr. Costa told them I was hired to work their psychological aspects as wrestlers. Morales was the first to react:

"Anybody nuts here?", he frowned.

"There's no need to be nuts to see a psychologist once in a while, Morales. There's more, much more to our minds than just madness. I'm sure you have no idea."
 
Morales stood looking at me, in disbelief. The other too. They had difficulty accepting the idea, both for the assumption you must be crazy to depend on a psychologist and for the change in their practice routine it would incur. No one told me it would be easy, apart from the fact of a possible extinction of their team, something they don't even suspect of yet.

"You told me they were five, Mr. Costa."
 
"Yes, the youngest, Panotti, hasn't been coming lately. He has had a health problem but will soon be back here for practice, this was what I got from his parents."

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