The secret to the perfect swing base: “You gotta love the sawdust!”

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It is the curse and blessing of the wrestler. The sawdust. When the shepherds and gymnasts came up with the idea of ​​holding their wrestling matches on a bed of wood shavings, it is no longer comprehensible today. “You used to swing on the meadow. If one was stuck with its head in the ground, it certainly wasn’t very healthy. That’s why a base was needed. Sawdust was probably easy and cheap to get,” speculates Josef “Schösu” Erni (45), who is responsible for seven perfect battlefields at Sunday’s Central Swiss Wrestling Festival (ISAF) in Dagmersellen LU.

But sawdust is not just sawdust. You would never find beech or oak in a wrestling arena. “These types of wood are much too hard,” explains the sawdust manager from Central Switzerland. Softwoods are in great demand, spruce, for example, is ideal because its fibrous structure makes it easy to shape. At this year’s ISAF, the Christen sawmill in Luthern LU is sponsoring the approximately 220 cubic meters of sawdust. That equates to about five truckloads.

Lots to do before the festival

Before a bad guy sets foot on the sawdust ring, Erni and his team must work the sawdust properly. “Right now we’re watering the rings as much as possible,” he says. “Then the squares are really pressed flat with the machine.” This way the loose wood chips become a solid, stable base. According to ESV regulations, it must be at least 15 centimeters high.

The sawdust cushions the fall of the transducer and thus ensures safety. The right match pad is match or, in wrestling jargon, aisle-decisive. “If we just piled up the sawdust, the swingers would have no support and would slip all the time.”

A mouthful of sawdust

If the sawdust were not rolled down, the transducers would dig deeper into the sawdust. And inhale a lot more wood shavings. You don’t want to do that to the athletes, says Erni, who speaks from personal experience: “There really are better things than a mouth full of sawdust. If that ends up in your trachea, you feel like you’re going to choke for a moment. Every wrestler has experienced that before.”

It is also one of the reasons why one or the other young wrestler gives up on the sport after the first few trial sessions. “Either you like the sawdust, or you stop swinging.”

After the festival, the wood dust is collected again. Much of this is used to heat material, or chipboard in some cases, explains Josef Erni. And adds with a wink: “So someone might be going to build a house from the sawdust in which a struggling king swung!”

Source : Blick