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Today I'm with renowned polyglot, top professional wrestler and wrestling coach here in Germany, Mahmoud Karimi.
Mahmoud was born in Teheran
and moved to Germany when he was 14 years of age and then rose to prominence in the national wrestling team.
Now he trains top level German wrestling teams.
As well as having his own personal training philosophy for his personal clients. Mahmoud, welcome! Nice being here.
Can you tell us about your experiences when you arrived here first in Germany at the age of 14.
How easy or difficult was it to feel at home?
It wasn't that easy. I came from Teheran.
Teheran is a million population city.
Coming from a city like this to a small village outside of Munich, which is called Notzingermoos.
Only 5 small houses there.
And without speaking the language. Of course! And how did you learn your German?
I learnt much of it on my own.
On the first day at school, I didn't speak in German.
I couldn't speak any German at all. I figured out a lot of it on my own.
I wrote down the vocabulary in the evenings.
I learned the vocabulary and tried to learn on my own.
So you learnt it rather quickly? Rather quickly, yes. I had problems.
In a year and a half I could speak it pretty well. I had nearly only German friends.
I had German adoptive parents that had taken me in.
Clearly they helped me a lot.
But overall I managed it mainly on my own. And did you learn other languages later on?
Later I learnt English in the US. I was with my sport in Oklahoma State University with John Smith.
I was in Cuba with the Cuban national team. So that way I learnt English and Spanish.
Can you explain to us what it means
for a young athlete to wrestle
in the national team?
I believe that this is the key when a young athlete wants to be successful
that he always has his eyes open upwards. When I was young,
I always noticed that
the national team had the eagle on the chest with the tricolor.
One cannot buy the eagle as you have to be in the national team in order to get the eagle.
This was such a motivation. I always really wanted to wear the eagle on my chest and that was the top for me, almost like a dream.
So really like a dream for you? Absolutely. Super! Excellent!
And I know that you have your own very special training philosophy
that you use with the teams that you train and your own personal clients. I think we would call it 'holistic training' in English.
Can you explain exactly what this training method involves? I call it in German "Ganzheitliches Training".
It means that as a wrestler that you don't just come to the wrestling mat for the wrestling hour
and just go out when it's done.
Or as a person who goes to the gym, it is not like you come to the gym for an hour and then you leave
and that's it. Sport is a lot more than just workout out.
It is the way you think ... the way you eat. So it's a lifestyle. It's a 24-hour lifestyle.
Definitely! For example, when you take the stairs and right beside it is the escalator ... Which one do you choose, right?
That includes everything in life
and I think all that combined together is sport.
Brilliant! Thanks very much for the interview Mahmoud. You're welcome.