Video Transcription

Wrestling taught me to dance again | Aria’s story

Everybody deserves a space where there’s no judgment. Five-year-old Arya was a happy kid. She had a pure love for the stage, music, and fantasies. Really, it was something else to be on the stage performing. I first experienced bullying in year two, and I guess at that age, I didn’t really understand what it was. I went to high school. That’s when the physical bullying started, and that was how walking into the classroom I would feel this pit of nerves.

Anxiety didn’t seem like anything unusual; it just seemed like my normal life. The anxiety was there all the time. When the bullying got worse, I left school. I had no dance classes, no music classes. I didn’t have those small reasons to keep going anymore. Nothing, nothing felt good. Nothing felt worthy. The sun on my skin didn’t mean anything. I had honestly given up on the dream of performing art.

Ten, four, six, seven. Hello, and that’s it. My mum was the one that noticed. She said, “Let’s try something else. Listen, you know wrestling today? You lose to me in the dancing room, I’d be nervous. But when I step in the ring, I change. I’m really here. I’m really with the world.” The feeling of walking through the wings or the curtain erases the rest of your life. In that moment, it doesn’t matter.

Break, break. All right, now you’re going to pull my head up. We are in the ring. Take me to the ropes, hit me in the guts, heart, and throw me. I walk in, it’s like walking into my home. It’s another safe space for you to be yourself without judgment or fear. Being a wrestler is wearing spandex on a weekend, and that’s not a normal Saturday night. You don’t have to be what’s on Instagram. You don’t have to be what’s popular and cool.

I didn’t know where I’d find my people, but when you don’t have judgment, they find you. Wrestling is musical. There’s beats, there’s rhythm. Feel each other’s movements the same way you feel each other in a dance. Life has been a dance. It’s choreography that I haven’t learned yet, and each day I learn new steps and new moves. And even though I might stuff them up, I know that the next day I can try again.

My mental health will always be a part of my life. It’s not something that ever disappears. It might just sit in the background. When I seek help and I ask for support, it reminds me of the good things in my life, and that they’re worth fighting for. I am capable, I am powerful, and I’m resilient.

Video by beyondblue