Back in the day when I was a freshman on the Iowa wrestling team, Coach Lanny told me to “bring two knives to the sauna” for our evening sweat.
“What?” I questioned. “Two knives?”
“Two BUTTER knives,” he explained. “Get two of them from the cafeteria and bring them with you.”
“Two stainless steel butter knives? What the fork for?”
“I’ll show you when we’re in the hot box,” Lanny said.
At 8 PM that night I met Lanny and gave him the two knives.
“Great,” he smiled. “Now let me show you what they are for.”
We stripped down and entered the wooden box. Once we began to break into a full body sweat, Lanny used the dull edge of the knife and began scraping the perspiration off his arms, then his legs, then his chest, back and neck.
“Why are you doing that?” I asked.
“Because, Fure-cat, sweat cools your body off. The sooner you remove it the quicker your body will produce more. This is one of the tricks to making weight faster. This is how you become king of the weight-cutters. “
Lanny handed me a butter knife. I followed his instructions and sweated harder than ever before.
A few years later, when the wrestling team was on the road and I had several pounds to drop before weighing in, I forgot to bring a knife to the sauna.
Oh no, what to do?
I had to come up with an alternative. I searched my travel bag over and over, thinking it was in there somewhere. I was out of luck. Or was I?
A brilliant idea came to mind as I stood up.
How about I use the student I.D. that was in my wallet? Would that work?
I brought my hard plastic I.D. into the sauna and gave it a whirl. And it worked. Yippee! Now I no longer needed to remember to pack a butter knife in my travel bag.
Today, although I still prefer the butter knife over the plastic I.D., I don’t bring either into a public sauna. In this day and age, someone might consider the knife a weapon and complain to management. As for the card, well, I don’t need to use one anymore, as I’m not in a rush to make a certain weight. Not only that, but I don’t want to be asked any questions about why I’m scraping off my sweat.
While at home though, if I’m using my far-infrared three-seater, I have plenty of knives to choose from.
The best news is that if I forget to bring one, I’m only a stone’s toss away from fetching it. And nobody will complain or ask questions.
Matt Furey
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