BY K.L. DASH
HI My name is K.L. I’m a dancer. I'm a singer. I'm an actress. I'm a professional princess and I'm a former pageant girl. Oh yeah, and im a female pro-wrestler - well aspiring anyway. I'm probably nothing great but I dream to be someday. Read this blog, leave me questions. Get a view into "the biz", my mind, and all the places you never knew you wanted to go.
There is no place to go now, other than the obvious… I am the only girl at the gym – or was that not obvious? Being the only girl may seem like an advantage…
KNOWING how wrestling schools go, you’ll know that it is not.
Mix a pretty girl next door (that’s into wrestling) in with a handful of self-proclaimed “Scum ball wrestlers” and it’s not exactly the thing inspiration is made of.
As the weeks went on I began to learn the disadvantages of being a girl – strength, stiff-ness, not to mention dudes large fists speeding towards your face….
And I was never not reminded of it.
After the first week in the ring the guys said I did okay, but “we’ll see” if you come back next week. I came back. Then they threw an elbow and a clothesline. You did okay, but “we’ll see” if you come back next week. I showed up. Chops & punches. Okay, but “we’ll see” if you come back. Yet I persevered – I showed up – week after week. So they attacked me in a different way.
Mentally, emotionally.
Week after week – was there, slowly but surely improving.
But that wasn’t enough to “prove” myself.
There were nay-sayers. Not all, but some; One guy in particular. Telling me that “here, you’re not a girl, and you’ll be treated differently because of it” (which in its self is an idiom…) Saying that I’ll never be able to be as great as anyone there because training just isn’t like it used to be - And that I’m too nice and too weak to succeed. That I’m a girl and girls don’t really do this.
I was LIVID. And again I wanted to quit.
His words are all I thought about all week. Seriously, he went on for at least 20 minutes after the last practice just breaking me down – and it wasn’t constructive criticism. He did not want me there, and he was on a mission to make me quit.
And coming to that conclusion is what brought me back – He did not want me there, and he was on a mission to make me quit. No man – NO PERSON - has ever succeed when they have set their will against K.L Edwards – and I wasn’t going to let this napoleon syndrome douche bag be the first one.
Thank God he the almighty made me stubborn, because I went back – I talked to my trainer, I got back in the ring. And in my own gal way, I demanded respect. True, I may not have yet earned it, but returning week after week I was on my way to it.
I still struggle with ignoring that guy, and one or two of his followers. But I have a few great guys “in my corner” wanting nothing for me but success.
Being the only Girl – AHEM – Woman… in the school still holds its disadvantages (like not having another woman to wrestle… only big bulky men... making it quite interesting when I began to learn the body slam). But I have begun to look at it differently. As exactly that – differences. I am NOT lesser then them, I AM different then them. Air light. Agile. Flexible. Quick. And not to mention, in shape – not getting winded easy (cardio is WONDERFUL).
Often times, I’m finding, in wrestling – it’s about mindset. Sure, they are guys – but me, I am determined to stay a doll.
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