Grappling with perception:
On bent knees she says a prayer, then loops and synchs the last knot on her laces before walking toward the center.
Despite being told that
she is too pretty
she is too sweet
and she is too passive
She IS a wrestler, and when hands shake and the whistle blows, that world ends and hers begins.
One where
PRETTY describes her technique
Where FAKE is how well she hides pain
And where MEAN is passion.
Through fear and failure, this forbidden sport liberates her from what she is told she can’t do and reveals to her what she can.
SHE CAN CHOOSE.
Is she too short? too tall? too skinny? too thick? too slow? too fast? And if she is, is that her biggest weakness or her greatest strength?
Women's wrestling is a sport overlooked and unappreciated even within its own community. Second to the men’s teams and last to all other sports, it is complex and sometimes ugly. In this series, Jon Henry captures it all. Images of straight faced opponents locking eyes from diagonal corners of the mat, of the final swipe of a pointed finger shaping out a cross above her heart, of the secret tears under the unlit bleachers after a loss, of the celebratory leap into a coaches arms after a win; the beauty, the ugly, the pain, and the pride. But what he captures best is what every “female wrestler” fights for every time she steps on the mat, and that’s to be seen as simply a “wrestler”.
Jacque Davis
BTS Girls development director