WrestlingThese are the relevant reference from the Books where Wrestling is mentioned. I make no pronouncements on these matters, but report them as I find them. Arrive at your own conclusions. I wish you well, Fogaban The contests at the fairs, however, I am pleased to say, offer nothing more dangerous than wrestling, with no holds to the death permitted. Roped together by the wrist, on the turf of the thing-fair, we grappled. His body slipped in my hand. I felt my right wrist drawn back, at the side of my head, his two hands closed on it. He grunted. He was strong. He was Ketil, of Blue Tooth's high farm, champion of Torvaldsland. My back began to bend backward; I braced myself as I could, right leg back, bent, left leg forward, bent. The men about cried out. I heard bets taken, speculations exchanged. Then my right wrist, to cries of wonder, began to lift and straighten; my arm was then straight, before my body; I began, inch by inch, to lower it, toward the ground; if he did retain his grip; he would, at my feet, be forced to his knees. He released my wrist, with a cry of fury. The rope between us, a yard in length, pulled taut. He regarded me, astonished, wary, enraged. I heard hands striking the left shoulders; weapons struck on shields. Suddenly the champion's fist struck toward me, beneath the rope. I caught the blow, turning, on the side of my left thigh. There were cries of fury from the watchers. I took then the right arm of the champion, his wrist in my right hand, my left hand on his upper arm, and extended the arm and turned it, so that the palm of his hand was up. Then, at the elbow, I broke it across my right knee. I had had enough of him. I untied the rope from my waist and threw it down. He knelt on the turf, whimpering, tears streaming down his face. The hands of men pounded on my back. I heard their cries of pleasure. About my forehead were bound two talmits, one which I had won in wrestling, the other in archery. More than one fellow, and even a Ubar or two, as history has it, had been attacked in the bath. The baths here, of course, were very simple, and primitive. For example, they were heated in the same room, and not in virtue of subterranean furnaces, heat from which would normally be conveyed upward through vents and pipes. Here, too, there were no scented pools, no massaging rooms, no steaming rooms. Too, of course, here there were no exercising yards, where one might try a fall or two in wrestling or, say, have a game of catch, either with the large or the small ball. Similarly, there were no recreational gardens, no art galleries, no strolling lanes, no arcades of merchants, no physicians' courts, no reading rooms, no music rooms, or such. We turned to look at the street. Approaching, singing, was a group of youths, in rows, a sports team, marching together. Their colors were of both Ar and Cos. Such teams, drawn from various parts of the city, competed in various games, in hurling the stone, in hurling the thonged javelin, both for distance and accuracy, in races of various sorts, in jumping, in wrestling, and such. There were meets, and local championships, with awards, such as fillets of the wool of the bounding hurt, dyed different colors, and for champions, crowns woven of the leaves of the mighty Tur tree. Eventually various teams, in their respective age brackets, would become city champions. Such sports as these were familiar to Goreans, and had for years been privately practiced at numerous palestrae throughout the city. Indeed, such palestrae, upon occasion, would compete with one another. My thoughts then wandered to some of the men I had known on my world. I wondered, too, what they might look like, clad not in the enclosed, hampering, eccentric garments prescribed for them by their culture, but in freer, more natural garb, such as tunics, and, as I had sometimes seen in the house, robes, and cloaks, of various sorts, things which might, in a moment, be cast aside, beautifully and boldly freeing the body for activity, for the race, for wrestling, for bathing, for the use of weapons, for the command of such as I. On the steel world in question, as well as on Gor, most festivals included a large number of competitions, agons, of one sort or another, usually races, spear casting, wrestling, log hurling, and such. |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||