The San Diego Bulldogs Wrestling team is hitting the mats again after a hiatus lasting nearly a year and a half. The Bulldogs, which originally formed in 1998, had to take a break from their weekly practice when The Center began its renovations last year. During that time, the club was not able to find an affordable alternative for workout space, but with the renovations complete, the Bulldogs are back.

“The Center has bent over backwards to give us our space,” Bulldogs co-founder Russ Connelly told the Gay and Lesbian Times. “We are now located in the basement, and that’s a much bigger room — a much better room — and I think that has given us a lot of opportunity.

He added, “This is the first time we have been able to have all of our mats down at once. We’ve got a lot of mats, but because of our small rooms before we were not able to put them all down, but now we can have more wrestlers on the mat at the same time.”

This past weekend the coach of Los Angeles’ gay wrestling club was in town with some of his team members, and 14 members of the Bulldogs turned out to work out with them. The large turnout has organizers excited about the future of the team.

“It’s going great,” Connelly said. “We’ve got a core group of very enthusiastic guys. We’ve had practices that have been super. We’ve had guys with experience who have been there coaching.”

The visit from the Los Angeles wrestling club was just a warm up; the Bulldogs are planning to go up to LA this weekend.

“The coach from LA had just planned on coming down for himself and then he decided to bring some of his guys down with him and they cancelled their practice up there so it kind of evolved into something bigger than we had thought,” Connelly said. “It was a great way to get to know them and kind of have them get acquainted with our club, and it’s really sparked their enthusiasm for getting something bigger together this coming weekend.”

With the San Diego team recently reformed and Los Angeles’ team newly formed, the two clubs are working together to increase their skills for national wrestling tournaments.

“Our club matches up very well to their group, so right now this is a way to exchange information, learn moves, exchange ideas, get some new blood into each others practices,” Connelly said. “When we had the LA boys down this weekend they were able to teach us several moves, and we imparted some wisdom to them. It’s a good way to get some camaraderie together.”

The San Diego Bulldogs currently hold practices on Saturday mornings, starting at 11:00 a.m., and on Tuesday evenings at 7:00 p.m. Both practices are held in the basement at The Center and are open to everyone regardless of their experience.

“I think a lot of people have a lot of misimpressions about wrestling,” Connelly said. “A lot of them think this is a sport they can’t do or it’s something that perhaps they had done in high school but they’re not sure if they retain enough skills to participate, but we want to dispel that myth because this is a sport that anybody can involve themselves in at any level.”

For more information on practices or the San Diego Bulldogs Wrestling Club, call (619) 491-4747 or click on this story at www.gaylesbiantimes.com for an e-mail link. The Bulldogs will be in Los Angeles this Saturday so there will be no practice at The Center.