‘Muscles don’t matter:’ Florida high school wrestling is an art of discipline

CLEARWATER — Wrestling pits rivals in a war of wits and physical attrition. Winning relies on technical maneuvers, including takedowns, reversals, escapes and pins. A match can shift in seconds. Physical strength, wrestlers say, is not the only key to victory. Most of the struggle is in their mind.

High school weight classes are set by the Florida High School Athletic Association and include weigh-in requirements ranging from 106 pounds to the heavyweight division up to 285 pounds.

On Saturday (Feb. 11), 196 wrestlers from 15 Pinellas County high schools competed in the Pinellas County Athletic Conference wrestling tournament, with Palm Harbor University High School prevailing in both the varsity and junior varsity divisions at Countryside High School. Four of the wrestlers, Brian Burburija, Giulliano Ferro, Malachi Ortiz and Arthur Cloud, share their insights below:

Brian Burburija, 220 pounds

Age: 17

High school: Countryside High (varsity)

What makes you a successful wrestler? What holds you back?

It helps to have a supportive team and to have your friends and family cheering you on. You want to have goals, and you want to strive for big goals. If you underachieve those goals just keep working. Wrestling is all mental and there is a breaking point for everyone. It’s my brain that holds me back. Before a match I get nervous and I start slow, it’s all mental.

Maintaining weight and strength is key. What is your conditioning regimen? How do you manage the responsibility — and pain?

I’m a team captain at Countryside and they all look up to me. With conditioning, I have to keep my mental mindset. When it’s getting hard, and we are getting tired if we push ourselves in practice that’s exactly what’s going to happen in a match, the brain stops before the body does. If you have a hurt shoulder, a hurt knee, or any kind of pain you have to push through. If you want to win a state title you can’t take a break, you have to fight through the pain.

It would be easy to mistake wrestling as a competition of brute force. What’s going through your head on the mat? What’s the mental side?

This is not about strength at all. It’s more mental. I might be one of the weaker 195s-220s in the state, but it’s all technique, it’s all experience. We need to listen to our coaches, they know better, and they know a lot more than anyone thinks. A bigger opponent can be intimidating a little bit, but in the end, muscles don’t matter. It’s about your mental mindset and technique.

Giulliano Ferro, 152 pounds

Age: 16

School: Tarpon Springs High School (varsity)

What makes you a successful wrestler? What holds you back?

My teammates motivate me to go to practices and meets. I try not to miss any practices and I work hard at every single practice. There’s a lot of intimidation during wrestling. It can hold you back, but I fight through that.

Maintaining weight and strength is key. What is your conditioning regimen? How do you manage the responsibility — and pain?

I always run the track before practices. I get cramps but I ignore the pain, which makes it better for every practice and every meet.

It would be easy to mistake wrestling as a competition of brute force. What’s going through your head on the mat? What’s the mental side?

I try not to get tired. I try to pace myself. I’m thinking of how to set up certain moves. It isn’t all about strength. Anybody skilled can easily beat somebody stronger than them. I try to focus on what I have learned from practice. On the mat I am trying to get mad at them. If they do the smallest thing, like put their arm on me, I just think they are trying to insult me. It’s the simplest thing, I try to turn that into anger.

Arthur Cloud, 132 pounds

Age: 14

School: Boca Ciega High School (junior varsity)

What makes you a successful wrestler? What holds you back?

This is about hard work. I’ve had to practice, practice, practice, and I got better. That’s what drives me to come back. I like how it feels inside, all the movement, all the competition. That’s why I started wrestling in the first place, the competition. An absolute defeat can hold me back, but I have to get back up and do what I do.

Maintaining weight and strength is key. What is your conditioning regimen? How do you manage the responsibility — and pain?

I usually run after school for conditioning, I have power weightlifting and I do lacrosse to keep in shape. With pain, I usually brush it off and keep going. Pain becomes an everyday thing, you get used to it.

It would be easy to mistake wrestling as a competition of brute force. What’s going through your head on the mat? What’s the mental side?

I don’t think of wrestling as a competition. It’s more entertainment for me. It’s something I enjoy. That’s why I do the best I can, and it helps me win. I don’t think too high or too low, I don’t like to get caught up with thoughts distracting me. I just do what I do.

Malachi Ortiz, 106 pounds

Age: 16

School: Palm Harbor University High School (varsity)

What makes you a successful wrestler? What holds you back?

This is not an easy sport. If you don’t love it and you are not willing to put in the hard work, you are not going to get the result you want. Everybody has their down days, but it’s the people that go to practice when they don’t want to that makes a difference.

Maintaining weight and strength is key. What is your conditioning regimen? How do you manage the responsibility — and pain?

I use a scale at home where I can check my weight. I practice, check my weight, and start my cut the week before so it’s healthy. Wrestling has the hardest conditioning of any sport, it’s a mindset, and it’s all in your head. You don’t think you can do it until you push yourself to that next level and take yourself to places where you didn’t think you could go.

It would be easy to mistake wrestling as a competition of brute force. What’s going through your head on the mat? What’s the mental side?

You have to see your opponent. Some people may be stronger than you, and some people may be more technical, but you have to push to score the next point in every second of the match. Mentally, It’s best to set things up, to outsmart and outwrestle your opponent.