The new AAU Wrestling club entered the campus scene this Spring semester, with club President and AAU student Tony Jeřábek promising an opportunity for fellow students to build community and get a full-body workout.
Jeřábek is a former heavyweight champion in freestyle wrestling, and leads the club alongside coaches Jakub Krucký and Tomáš Tobola, who are former champions themselves. When it comes to introducing wrestling to AAU, Jeřábek said he had the idea for a long time partially because in the U.S., wrestling is popular as a university sport.
“So we just said okay, let’s gather some individuals who’d like to wrestle with us and let’s do it,” Jeřábek said.
While the club is new to the school this semester, Vice President and fellow student Connor Reid describes promising levels of participation for the budding team.
“It’s pretty good, especially since we’re having early morning training sessions and oftentimes that conflicts with people’s schedules or they just don’t want to get up that early,” Reid said. “But we’re seeing pretty consistent attendance from about six to seven guys.”
In addition to training, the club also hopes to eventually participate in competitions and tournaments, as well as involve the AAU community with hosting public events such as beach wrestling.
“We’re planning to compete, but right now we need more time,” Jeřábek said. “[M]aybe by the end of the semester, I’m hoping to take them to Poland so they can try some competition.”
While the idea of participating in wrestling may seem daunting for some, the club hopes to promote a welcoming environment where everybody feels comfortable to try out the sport.
“Everyone can join. It’s a good community and we’re really more like a family than just friends,” Jeřábek said.
Jeřábek also encourages interested participants to commit to the process and not give up if they don’t initially feel adequately skilled.
“We do it slowly, and nobody can rush it. Some people come and think they’re going to be champions in a week or two and then get disappointed and leave, it’s a shame,” Jeřábek said. “It’s going to take a while, and you cannot expect miracles in two weeks.”
Reid explains how the sport of wrestling itself offers so much to students looking to get a complete workout.
“It’s a full body workout. It’s not only just strength training and mobility, you’re doing your core, your chest, your arms, your legs, and on top of that, you’re doing cardio.” Reid said.
While the club is primarily focusing on the now, there are some long term goals that Jeřábek hopes they can aspire to.
“For the long term I would like to build up more of a community, and just have fun with people,” Jeřábek said. “We don’t expect them to all compete, we don’t expect them to all attend practices regularly, we just want them to have some healthy exercise to get rid of the stress of exams and studying.”
